Building Partnerships
Partnering with community members is key to achieving the vision of a Texas where all children thrive in their families and communities. To ensure we are creating a supported network of safe, stable, and secure relationships for children, youth, and families in Texas communities it is important to partner with those with lived experience and leverage our community members that have developed relationships within their community. We will continue to build out this page with specialized resources to partner with persons with lived experience and specialized communities.
- Youth
- Parent
- Fatherhood
- Faith-Based
10 Ways to Help a Child
This brochure provides ideas and information on how to engage and advocate for youth in the community.
Barriers to Authentic Youth Engagement
The "Barriers to Authentic Youth Engagement" report identifies the biggest obstacles to progress, as well as solutions for both services offered and important culture shifts needed within the broader system. This publication combines real world examples with thoughtful discussion points.
Menu for Youth Engagement
This webpage provides a menu of resources to help identify practices and actions that can strengthen the role of youth voice in your agency.
Parent-Child Interaction and Home Visiting
This article highlights the importance of parent-child interaction (PCI), strategies home visitors can use to support parents in strengthening these interactions, and tips for using continuous quality improvement to improve PCI efforts.
PEI School Engagement Tip Sheet
This document provides tips for non-profits to effectively engage school communities. Feedback and advice from education professionals were used to create strategies to promote partnerships between non-profit organizations and schools or school districts.
Preparation Checklist for Engagement of Young People and Families in the CFSR
When young people and family members with lived experience in child welfare participate in the Child and Family Services Review (CFSR), state child welfare systems gain valuable insight into what’s working and what isn’t in current child welfare services and generate ideas for improvements. Use this checklist to identify and put in place needed infrastructure and supports that set the stage for meaningful and ongoing engagement practices.
Ring of Engagement
Ring of Engagement is a one-page research brief on a youth engagement framework from the University of Minnesota. The framework includes participation, passion, youth voice, and collective leadership, along with definitions and how to use these areas to boost youth engagement.
Social Connections Module
Created by Dr. Julie Radlauer-Doerfler, Social Connections Module is a three-hour training that takes a deeper dive into one of the five Youth Thrive Protective and Promotive Factors. This module explores how social connections—people and institutions—help youth increase their knowledge, develop their skills, have a sense of belonging, and find meaning in their lives.
The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Adolescent Mental Health and Substance Use
The aim of this study is to determine whether COVID-19-induced financial impact, stress, loneliness, and isolation were related to perceived changes in adolescent mental health and substance use.
Youth Engagement Ladder
The Ladder of Engagement, developed by Texas Network of Youth Services (TNOYS), depicts levels of youth engagement in social service program settings.
Youth-Adult Partnership Dictionary
The Texas Youth Action Network (TYAN) website has important terms and ideas to support the creation of successful youth-adult partnerships. TYAN Also has many resources related to engaging and supporting youth.
Youth Thrive Blueprint
The Center for the Study of Social Policy published the Youth Thrive Blueprint. This blueprint is used to support youth-serving agencies and organizations to advance the well-being of young people. While useful in many situations including community and school programs, this was designed with a focus on young people in foster care.
Early Childhood Texas
A resource hub created to support Texas parents and their children. Topics include:
- Health and Development
- Parenting
- Childcare and Education
Elevating Parent Voice in Home Visiting: Preparing for Authentic Parent Partnerships
This article presents strategies for establish strong and sustainable systems of shared leadership and partnership between home visitors and parents.
Experts by Experience: How Engaging People with Lived Experience Can Improve Social Services
This paper aims to help anyone looking to infuse the voice of affected communities in their work, and wouldn’t be possible without the many people and organizations who’ve long been doing just that. The paper includes many best practices, findings, and calls to action around engaging lived experience in an organization’s work.
Get Parenting Tips Facebook
Parenting doesn’t come with instructions. It’s how we handle it that matters. Parenting tips can help turn “I can’t handle this” into “I’ve got this”! Get parenting support at the Get Parenting Tips Facebook page.
Get Parenting Tips Website
GetParentingTips.com offers resources to support parents and caregivers on their parenting journey.
Military Final Report
This report serves as the final evaluation report by the Child and Family Research Partnership (CFRP) at the University of Texas at Austin’s LBJ School of Public Affairs on the Military Families and Veterans Prevention Program (MVP). Further, this report reviews the unique context of each military community participating in the program and outlines the structure each community created for their MVP program.
National Parent Leadership Month Resources
The Children's Trustfund Alliance has created a page with several resources to support partnering with parents in recognition of National Parent Leadership Month each February. These resources include tips, templates, and activities to help build relationships with parents.
Parent-Child Interaction and Home Visiting
This article highlights the importance of parent-child interaction (PCI), strategies home visitors can use to support parents in strengthening these interactions, and tips for using continuous quality improvement to improve PCI efforts.
Preparation Checklist for Engagement of Young People and Families in the CFSR
When young people and family members with lived experience in child welfare participate in the Child and Family Services Review (CFSR), state child welfare systems gain valuable insight into what’s working and what isn’t in current child welfare services and generate ideas for improvements. Use this checklist to identify and put in place needed infrastructure and supports that set the stage for meaningful and ongoing engagement practices.
Promoting Child & Family Well-Being
Child Welfare Information Gateway presents information on protective factors and child, youth, parent, and caregiver well-being. It also offers resources about marriage, fatherhood, and parenting, as well as building the capacity of programs and systems to promote well-being.
Reach Out and Read Resources for Families
Reach Out and Read is a national nonprofit that champions the positive effects of reading daily and engaging in other language-rich activities with young children. This page offers resources and activities for parents, children, and healthcare providers to engage young children in reading and language development.
Safe Kids Worldwide
Safe Kids Worldwide is a nonprofit organization working to help families and communities keep kids safe from injuries. Most people are surprised to learn preventable injuries are the #1 killer of kids in the United States. Throughout the world, almost one million children die of an injury each year, and almost every one of these tragedies is preventable.
This website includes:
- Fact sheets
- Infographics
- Newsletters
- Research reports
- Safety tip sheet
- Educational videos
Safe Sleep Final Report
SUMA Social Marketing, Inc. (SUMA) conducted qualitative research on behalf of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) to determine sleep safety and sleep-related infant death risk-reduction practices, perceptions, beliefs, and barriers among priority audiences in Texas, with the goal of informing current programming and a future communications campaign to reduce infant mortality as it relates to unsafe sleep and sleep-related infant deaths.
Working for Kids
A community-based educational program that takes an intergenerational approach to putting children on a positive trajectory for success in school and in life.
This program has two components:
- A community training program that teaches how children develop strong brain pathways to support skill development
- Aa skills and health evaluation program that works with community partners to evaluate the positive benefits of the training program
ZERO to THREE
ZERO TO THREE works to ensure that babies and toddlers benefit from the early connections that are critical to their well-being and development. ZERO TO THREE has advanced the proven power of nurturing relationships by transforming the science of early childhood into helpful resources, practical tools and responsive policies for millions of parents, professionals and policymakers. They focus on the following topics:
- Early development and well-being
- Early learning
- Parenting
- Policy and advocacy
Fatherhood Final Report
In fiscal year 2018, the Child and Family Research Partnership (CFRP) supported the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, Prevention and Early Intervention Division (PEI) in two fatherhood initiatives:
- Coordinating and convening interagency and cross-sector fatherhood councils at both the statewide and local levels
- Planning and hosting a third annual Fatherhood Summit.
This report summarizes progress made over the last fiscal year convening the Texas Fatherhood Interagency Council and the Central Texas Fatherhood Group, and provides an overview of the third annual Fatherhood Summit held in June 2018.
Fatherhood Resource Hub
Texas recognizes the important role that fathers play in the lives of their children and families. The resources on this website will help support any organization invested in the well-being of families, including organizations that provide services solely to fathers, parenting-focused organizations, and organizations that provide services to the whole family.
Fatherhood Resources for Dads and Organizations
The National Fatherhood Initiative (NFI) equips programs with knowledge, skills and resources to effectively engage fathers in their children’s lives.
This website provides resources for fathers to access directly:
- 24/7 Dad
- InsideOut Dad
- Understanding Dad
- Program evaluations
- Fatherhood research
- Evaluation instruments
- Ebooks
- On-demand webinars
NFI also has a community mobilization approach to mobilizing around responsible fatherhood.
10 Ways to Help a Child
This brochure provides ideas and information on how to engage and advocate for youth in the community.
Creating Safe Faith Communities
This webpage provides domestic violence resources for faith leaders. It includes information on how community and faith-based organizations best respond and provide support to youth and families exposed to domestic violence.
DFPS Faith-Based Program
The faith community has a long history of helping those in need. DFPS wants to partner with all faith communities in Texas to help vulnerable children, adults, and families.
Domestic Violence, Child Welfare, and Community and Faith-Based Organizations
This toolkit provides information on how community and faith-based organizations respond and provide support to children, youth, and families who are exposed to domestic violence.
Faith-Based Organization’s Role in Prevention
This page provides information and resources on how faith-based organizations can play a key role in community prevention efforts, support reunification, provide support, and act as a bridge to the broader community.
FaithTrust Institute
FaithTrust Institute is a national, multifatith, multicultural training and education organization with global reach. They offer resources and training classes.
Finding Common Ground: A Guide for Child Welfare Agencies Working with Communities of Faith
This guide was developed for public and private child welfare agencies and all of their staff who play a role in finding and sustaining foster and adoptive families for waiting children.
Working with Faith-Based Communities
The Child Welfare Information Gateway offers resources for working with families from different religious backgrounds, engaging families, making case decisions based on best practices, and serving the best interests of children, youth, and families. Resources include state and local examples.