Families are diverse, and so are children's needs. For children in the child welfare system, there are many layers of regulations that serve to protect the family and child. These regulations can be challenging to navigate when a child is referred to early intervention services. The authors describe how their coordination team collaborated with…

Part C of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) mandates the provision of early intervention (El) services to qualifying children under 36 months old. Socia/­ emotional development is one area that programs are obligated to provide assessment and intervention for and yet, most El programs do not have licensed mental health…

Too many parents who find themselves involved with child welfare agencies have had lives threaded with deeply traumatic events. As adults, their childhood histories manifest themselves in substance abuse, domestic violence, relational problems, risk-taking behaviors, emotional lability, self-harming, anxiety, and depression. To successfully…

Project DULCE (Developmental understanding and legal Collaboration for everyone) integrated the Strengthening families approach to building family protective factors into routine health care visits for infants in a primary health care setting. The core collaborators--Boston medical Center pediatric primary care, the medical-legal partnership |…

Over the years, various federal and non-federal organizations have disseminated and promoted a number of protective factor frameworks to reduce risk and optimize family functioning and child development. There is a growing interest in and commitment to examining factors that transcend the traditional deficit-based approach to addressing social and…

Federal directives require that any child less than 3 years old with a substantiated case of abuse be referred to the early intervention (EI) system. This article details the need and presents a vision for a trauma-informed EI system. The authors describe two exemplary program models which implement this vision and recommend steps which the field…

The Strong Start Study tested an innovative, High-Fidelity Wraparound intervention with families in early recovery from substance use. The Strong Start Wraparound model addressed the complex needs of pregnant and parenting women who were in early recovery to increase the protective factors of parental resilience, social connections, concrete…

Child maltreatment affects millions of children each year. health care providers are increasingly called upon to address such psychosocial problems facing many families. In this article, the authors describe a practical approach to further enhance pediatric primary care and make it more responsive to the needs of children and families. The Safe…