Welcome to the August issue of the Family First in New York State newsletter! In this issue, we share a new resource to help your county tell its Family First Readiness story to a broad array of stakeholders to build awareness and support for your system-reform efforts to increase certified kinship care and decrease congregate care. We also announce an upcoming learning session on managing with data, designed to help you manage toward your Family First Readiness targets!
Tell Your County’s Family First Story With This New Tool
Developing a narrative to share with others about your district’s Family First system change is an opportunity to communicate your mission, vision and values for children, youth and families both inside and outside the agency. Telling your Family First Story can demonstrate your successes to local leadership, partners and other stakeholders to build support for your continued system-change efforts to decrease congregate care and increase certified kinship care.
Click here to download the Family First Story template in Word: https://bit.ly/3kPYz5P
Register for Managing with Data An Upcoming Virtual Learning Session
Are you a child welfare professional who wants to strengthen your ability to access, interpret and use your district’s data to manage on a day-to-day basis?
Join ChildFocus’s Tiffany Allen and Barbara Mitchell with Monroe County on Thursday, September 24th from 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. EDT to explore methods for overcoming common barriers that local districts face in managing with data. Participants will learn specific tools and strategies to integrate data into their management to improve responsiveness, increase accountability and better drive toward improved outcomes.
Register for Managing with Data here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/managing-with-data-a-virtual-learning-session-tickets-116918669889?aff=affiliate1
In Case You Missed It: RHF Released RFP for Community-Driven Prevention Demonstration Project
The Redlich Horwitz Foundation released an RFP this month to select a regional community interested in using participatory methods that meaningfully involve community members in the co-design of prevention services. The demonstration project will result in a fully designed regional prevention services array that is grounded in community assets and needs, as well as a regional strategic plan and budget to guide the implementation effort.
You can read and respond to the RFP here: https://redlichhorwitz.egnyte.com/dl/cnoaeb8yNO.
Recordings and Resources from Our Budget Series and Peer Supports for Foster Parents
If you missed our recent virtual learning sessions on protecting your child welfare budget from cuts and on providing peer supports to foster parents, you can find recordings of the sessions, along with session materials, on our Family First Readiness website: https://www.familyfirstny.org/tools-resources.
The strategies shared in these sessions focus on strategies to continue achieving your Family First Readiness goals.
Thank you for reading! If you have any suggestions for how to make this newsletter more responsive to your needs, please email me, Jessie Rothkuo, directly at jrothkuo@rhfdn.org. And please visit www.FamilyFirstNY.org to learn more about our ongoing support of Family First implementation statewide, which includes our Tools & Resources page.