Thanks to the generous support of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, we will be continuing the fellowship beyond our initial two cohorts. This extension will increase our total pool of participants to 60 young scholars over the next two years, expanding opportunities to generate meaningful collaborations among the fellows and their mentors for the purpose of building new knowledge in the area of child abuse prevention policy and practice. This expansion also furthers our goal of creating a robust and viable network of new leaders that embrace the broadest possible spectrum of disciplines, cultures, and research traditions.

After careful reflection, Chapin Hall and the Foundation leadership have determined that these goals will be best served by changing the name of the fellowship to reflect the ultimate objective of any child abuse prevention strategy, namely the promotion of child well-being. Most parents want their children not only to be safe but also to thrive. They want their communities, social networks, and the institutions that care for their children not only to protect them, but to nurture them. And parents want to know not only how to avoid abusive and neglectful behaviors but how to maximize their child's development.

To insure that we attract doctoral students who embrace this broad range of interests, the fellowship will now be titled the Doris Duke Fellowships for the Promotion of Child Well-Being -- Seeking innovations to prevent child abuse and neglect. This change does not diminish our commitment to supporting doctoral research that examines the pathways that result in children entering the child welfare system or experiencing a broad range of adverse events. Our review process will continue to place high value on dissertation topics and research plans that directly contribute to identifying promising innovations to reduce a child's risk for all forms of abuse and neglect. What the name change does signal, however, is our interest in engaging students and mentors from a diverse range of disciplines that are studying individual and systemic pathways that support positive child development and health promotion. By enrolling such individuals in the fellowship and engaging them in our peer learning network, we hope to develop an even richer level of discourse among our fellows and strengthen our contribution to the field. Identifying effective child abuse prevention strategies has always been well served when the planning process embraces diverse perspectives. The fellowship's new identity now reflects this tradition.

Tamara spent part of her career in the business world working with law firms and corporations as a legal recruiter. After 15 years of recruiting, she returned to school to study social work. Upon completing her masters in social work, Tamara worked as a mitigation specialist, advocating for persons with mental illness in the criminal justice system. As in legal recruiting, she observed a variety of systems with varying degrees of harm or helpfulness for perpetrators and victims.  

Tamara later took a position as a forensic interviewer with Children's Healthcare of Atlanta and over time became interested in the causes and outcomes of the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC). Building on her several experiences with systems, she began to investigate what would have the most impact with the CSEC population. There are large gaps in knowledge and awareness in the child welfare system regarding CSEC, and there are no child welfare protocols in place for interventions or for provision of resources. Additionally, agencies with prevention programs in place provide mostly secondary or tertiary prevention, aiding children once they have already been sexually exploited. For these reasons, Tamara decided to pursue a Ph.D. and is focusing on prevention of vulnerability to victimization of CSEC at the University Of Georgia School Of Social Work. Additionally, Tamara teaches masters and undergraduate students at Kennesaw State University in their Child Advocacy Studies Training (CAST) certificate program. The CAST certificate is part of Kennesaw's Department of Social Work and Human Services. The program focuses on systems and responses to child maltreatment.

Differential response -- also called "dual track," "multiple response system," "alternative response," or "family assessment response" in various jurisdictions -- refers to an approach that allows Child Protective Services (CPS) to respond in more than one way to screened-in reports of child maltreatment. Response is based on such factors as the type and severity of the alleged maltreatment, number and sources of previous reports, and willingness of the family to participate in services. The number of response options or pathways and criteria for the different pathways in a differential response (DR)-organized CPS system differs based on state policies or protocols.

While most DR-organized CPS systems delineate service pathways for screened-in reports of child maltreatment, it appears as if reform of this system has resulted in more states creating a pathway to respond to screened-out reports of child maltreatment. This pathway recognizes that a family reported to CPS after a particular incident may not meet the screened-in criteria for abuse, neglect, or dependency, but may nevertheless be in need of services or supports. According to a QIC-DR survey, Formal Public Child Welfare Responses to Screened-Out Reports of Alleged Maltreatment (2011):

Of the 38 states that participated in this study and allowed disclosure of their responses, 14 states (9 with statewide responses and 5 with responses in selected jurisdictions within the state) indicated the use of a formal, established pathway in their child welfare system that is dedicated to families whose reports did not meet the statutory threshold for a screened-in report of alleged maltreatment. Much like in the first two national studies of "Differential Response in Child Welfare" (2006 and 2009), this finding is not trivial. Instead, it is readily apparent that providing referrals, services, and/or interventions as soon as a family's needs are identifiable has notable benefits. Of the 26 states that participated in the survey that do not have a formal response to screened out reports, 20 states indicated an interest in building preventive or early intervention capacity in their child welfare systems by considering the establishment of a formal preventive/early intervention response pathway.

Minnesota's differential response system for screened-out cases, called the Parent Support Outreach Program, is likely the most established and evaluated. This program varies by county, with some counties using private contract workers to aid families and some using public child welfare workers (Loman, Shannon, Sapokaite, & Siegel, 2009). It serves as one example of how to systematically serve families with likely vulnerabilities to prevent further involvement with child welfare, and potentially prevent maltreatment.

For more information about differential response-organized CPS systems, and the connection to child abuse and neglect prevention efforts, please visit www.differentialresponseqic.org.

by CHRISTINA DANKO 

Christina interviewed her academic mentor about current work and reflections on emerging trends and innovations in early intervention as a tool for child maltreatment prevention.

Karen S. Budd (M.A., Ph.D. University of Kansas) is a Professor of Clinical Psychology and Director of Clinical Training in the Department of Psychology at DePaul University. Dr. Budd's work currently has several different emphases, but parenting has remained a constant focus.

Reflecting back on her career, Dr. Budd stated that "most of my career has been in parenting interventions and how parenting can impact child development." She noted that "exposure to working around issues of parenting capacity with children in the child welfare system fueled my passion to look at how parenting issues are relevant to that population."

In the early to mid- '90s, Dr. Budd conducted research on psychosocial assessments of young parents who were wards of the state. She stated that at the time, "DCFS was a system that needed assessment methods that were more need based and more strength based, and I had the opportunity to help address that need." That research led Dr. Budd to work in the Cook County Juvenile Court, where she was "able to apply parenting knowledge to [the] larger child welfare system and inform judicial decision making."

Dr. Budd stated that this, "motivated me to go into more intervention and prevention work." Since 2005, Dr. Budd has been examining the implementation of Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), an evidence-based therapy for parents and their young children, in a community mental health setting that serves lower-income families and wards of the state. Dr. Budd also has been working on Teacher-Child Interaction Training (TCIT), a preventive application of the PCIT skills and principles in early childhood settings to impact a larger population of children.

At the same time that Dr. Budd shifted her focus to working with interventions and prevention, her interest in international and cultural issues led her to develop the Parenting Questionnaire(PQ), a measure of the acceptability of different parenting attitudes across cultural groups. She stated that the PQ could help with "how we might screen for views/attitudes that could be important to families in the child welfare system."

Although the emphasis of Dr. Budd's work has shifted throughout the years, the focus on parents and children has remained constant. Dr. Budd aims to help parents and children by learning more about parenting attitudes and implementing effective intervention and prevention efforts.

• August 15: Application period opens for next cohort; check website for application materials 
• September 19 - 21, 2012: Annual Meeting, Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, Chicago, IL  

• August 2-5, 2012
• Orange County Convention Center, Orlando, FL
• Register and learn more here 

Prevent Child Abuse America 2012 National Conference

• October 12-15, 2012
• Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront, Jacksonville, FL
• Register and learn more here 

American Public Health Association (APHA), 140th Annual Meeting and Exposition

• October 27-31, 2012
• Moscone Convention Center West, San Francisco, CA
• Register and learn more here 

Abstracts

Society for Research in Child Development, Call for Submissions 

• Due Thursday, September 20, 2012, 8:00 PM EDT
• Submission website opens in late July; check the website here