Highlights from CSC’s two CPAR projects are below:
In 2018, CSC piloted CPAR with youth and system professionals in the Broward Juvenile Justice, Child Welfare and Behavioral Health Systems along with researchers from Nova Southeastern University. The Pilot resulted in a system improvement to give parents the Law Line Number for questions about court dates, an educational video and brochure for youth and caregivers (Second Chance Video and Brochure), a bookmark created by the youth for group home staff and a recommendation to include youth in interviewing and training staff.
In 2019 and building on the success of the 2018 pilot, CSC received a $50,000 research grant from the Florida Institute for Child Welfare to address racial disparities in the Broward Child Welfare System. Youth and System Professionals completed trainings on racial equity and CPAR workshops that generated two research projects: one with youth transitioning out of care to improve program quality and system accountability and one with parents to learn how to better connect parents to services before child welfare involvement. The CPAR process (1) generated a video to encourage parents to ask for assistance before involving child protection services; (2) built the capacity of youth and parents to serve on Advisory Boards and provide training to system partners, (3) co-design a Youth System Organizing equity structure, and (4) secured CSC funding for piloting youth/community organizing in the Broward child welfare system. Below is are links to the parent resource video, the experience of youth, parent and professional CPAR co-researchers video, and an abstract that will be an upcoming journal article:
In 2019 – 2020, CSC was funded by the Florida Institute for Child Welfare to conduct a community participatory action research (CPAR) project with youth transitioning out of foster care, parents who had been through the foster care system and child welfare system professionals. Below is a recording of the December 7th, 2020, CPAR co-researchers’ presentation to the Florida Institute for Child Welfare network and child welfare system leaders in the Florida Department of Children and Families about the completed project and transformational outcomes. The presentation included the racial equity lens used to develop the CPAR project, key learnings and a panel presentation with the co-researchers and our local DCF Community Liaison.