Host: Luke Waldo

Experts:

• Josh Mersky – Co-Director of the Institute for Child and Family Well-being, Professor at UW-Milwaukee’s Helen Bader School of Social Welfare

:00-:36 – Josh Mersky - If we only focus on poor families, we’re going to miss opportunities to prevent a lot of maltreatment cases. So I think the FRCs have a lot of prevention capacity because they reach a lot of people from all walks of life and because they offer an array of services that can be tailored to match the amount of support that each family needs.”

:37-4:15 – Luke Waldo – Opening and Welcome

4:16-4:18 – Josh Mersky – Hello

4:18-4:29 – Luke – Where did your journey studying resilience and family protective factors begin, and where has it led?

4:30-:10:47 Josh – In the early stages of his professional career before going back to school. Worked in human service capacities with youth who had adverse experiences. This experience led to relationships with children and families that he served and his colleagues. At UW-Madison, he worked on the Chicago Longitudinal Study that studied the Child-Parent Centers. He learned that these programs had a positive impact on short-term and long-term educational, social-emotional, and child maltreatment outcomes. Why? They invest in enriched supports for families like home economics for parents, community outreach. This is a two-generation approach in which they work with both parents and children. They found that parents were more involved in the child’s school and education, and there was less stress in the home. Over the last two decades, he has focused on the causes of child adversity and maltreatment and the programs that can support families and build resilience.

• Chicago Longitudinal Study
• Dr. Arthur Reynolds
• Chicago Child-Parent Centers

10:48-12:05 - Luke – What have you learned about the impact of child neglect and, conversely, how does social connectedness help to reduce the risk of neglect or mitigate its effects?

12:06-17:34 - Josh – We have known now for a long time that neglect can have adverse impacts on child development. There is good research that neglect can lead to later-life violence at similar rates as abuse. Neglect does not get the same attention as child abuse. Neglect is strongly correlated with poverty, which makes it difficult to separate the two. We need to design effective programs to address neglect as neglect is often neglected by policymakers and funders. Neglect is most likely to occur where there is an absence of strong social connectedness, therefore, investing in and strengthening social connectedness in the home, school, and community is an effective preventative approach to neglect.

• Harry Harlow – Experiments on attachment and neglect

17:35-17:51 – Luke - What does social connectedness look like and how does it impact the individual and family?

17:52-24:07 - Josh – Social connectedness as an ecology shows that our closest environments are the most important – family, friends, and peers. We can expand beyond those closest relationships – neighborhood, faith communities – to explain how we function. How our environments are structured has a significant impact on our well-being. Social determinants of health are influential. Promotive factors versus protective factors. For children who have experienced adversity, protective factors are particularly important. Story about his grandmother and their close relationship. A grandparent can be a buffer for children who have experienced homelessness, the loss of a parent, or neglect, which can promote resilience in that child.

• Social Ecological Model - Unicef
• Social Determinants of Health
• Promotive and Protective Factors – Center for the Study of Social Policy

24:08-26:14 - Luke - What do FRCs promote or strengthen that has or may have the greatest impact on reductions in child maltreatment and in keeping families together?

26:15-32:33 - Josh – Family Resource Centers have some common elements. They are universal, so all families can benefit from FRCs. FRCs are designed to be comprehensive, so they provide many different services like parenting groups, home visiting, or development assessments. FRCs operate at a community level where they engage and connect community members and resources. At the Parenting Place in LaCrosse, they host a Children’s Festival that brings out many people from the community. Why do FRCs reduce the risk of neglect? Progressive universalism or targeted universalism is when you balance equality of access with equity of resource distribution. The Prevention Paradox illustrates this idea that the majority of incidents of maltreatment occur in families of moderate risk, so we need to be cautious about solely focusing on those living in poverty or considered to be “at-risk”.

• Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Board (CANPB)
• Parenting Place

32:34-33:01 – Luke - What have you learned from your research on Family Resource Centers?

33:02-39:03 - Josh – The Strong and Stable Families project is funded by the CANPB and works with 18 FRCs across the state. The project gathers data from families that receive services from FRCs and families that do not. What have they learned? FRC participants are mostly above the poverty line, however, most are lower-SES. They tend to have more challenges than the general population. They are more likely to have employment, housing, and healthcare challenges. They also reported many positive Adult Experiences, which include protective factors such as social connectedness. They use the Protective Factors Survey to measure those protective factors. FRC participants have been shown to have similar levels of protective factors such as social connectedness, however, they appear to have less concrete supports such as stable income, housing, etc. compared to the general population.

• The Strong and Stable Families project
• Protective Factors Survey – FRIENDS National Center for Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention

39:04-39:32 - Luke - What have you seen as barriers to applying this evidence/research in systems? And how might we more effectively translate research and evidence into policies and practices?

39:33-43:37 - Josh – Inertia is a barrier as systems change moves slowly or the status quo reigns. Prevention is difficult to demonstrate the outcomes or ROI to policymakers compared to intervention. If we can show that FRCs serve as a hub that connects to other services and supports, we might see greater investment and buy-in. Hello, Baby is a universal program delivered to all families with a newborn.

• Hello Baby

43:38-44:08 - Luke – What makes you optimistic about the future of this work?

44:09-47:18 - Josh – There is growing recognition that child welfare systems were not designed to provide services to families, and therefore there is a need to invest more in prevention services to get further upstream. This has led to Family First Prevention Services Act, which has already begun investing more in mental health, home visiting, and prevention programs to families that may be at risk of child maltreatment. Family Resource Centers  across the state are critical to their communities.

• Eau Claire FRC
• St. Croix Valley FRC
• Marathon County FRC
• Family and Childcare Resources of Northeastern Wisconsin - Brown County FRC
• Parenting Place – Lacrosse FRC
• Indian Community School

47:19-48:10 – Luke - Before we let you go, can you share a book or author that shaped or represents your thinking around your work?

48:11-49:59 - Josh – Promoting early literacy is so important as it improves attachment between children and their caregivers. Invest in your local libraries and early literacy programs.

50:00-50:24 - Luke – Dea Wright and the Office for Early Childhood Initiatives is going to be a big fan, Josh.

• Office of Early Childhood Initiatives – City of Milwaukee

50:25-50:45 - Josh – Josh will be meeting with Dea to discuss some of their initiatives promoting reading to children in non-professional spaces such as barber shops.

50:46-51:19 – Luke - Thank you, Josh!

51:20-51:34 – Josh – Thank you, Luke!

51:35-56:00 - Luke – 3 Key Takeaways

56:01-57:05 – Luke – Closing Credits

Join the conversation and connect with us!

• Visit our podcast page on our ICFW website to learn more about the experts you hear in this series.
• Subscribe, rate our show and leave feedback in the comments section.
• Sign up for our Strong Families, Thriving Children, Connected Communities initiative and our quarterly newsletter.
• Follow the Institute for Child and Family Well-being on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.