This Learning Forum will shift the conversation from the vision of Family First Prevention Services (FFPS) articulated in your county’s Comprehensive Prevention Plan (CPP) to making the ideas in the plan a reality in local communities. In this first session of the series, we will introduce how and why we will anchor conversations in racial equity and primary and secondary prevention throughout 2023. We will raise important questions for prevention team members to resolve together at the County level, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with community, parent, and youth leaders most impacted by the bias endemic to the child welfare system. In addition, this Forum will describe the criticality of integrating considerations of Racial Equity and Inclusion into all your prevention program designs and provide specific ways in which to do that.

Learners will:

• Understand the spirit, scope, and sequence of the Learning Series
• Begin the philosophical shift from planning to implementation
• Discover how unhealthy communities result in child maltreatment
• Develop a working understanding of how to include Racial Equity and Inclusion into all prevention programming conversations
• Understand how to begin local conversations about measurement and targeted reduction of disproportional entry of certain families into the child welfare system

The purpose of this session is to bring to life bold and effective community engagement initiatives and the frameworks which undergird them. What does true Primary Prevention look like and how are people going about it? How do communities who have been traditionally underestimated, marginalized, and isolated come to support and elevate themselves and their members without relying on systems? How can systems promote communities and tribes that are self-defined, well, and thriving without the system having to intervene? The session will provide examples of community engagement frameworks that are currently in practice and are showing great results, as defined by the community.

Learners will:

• Explore Community Engagement frameworks, including universal components such as mutual aid and community healing
• Understand the principles of co-design with communities, which integrate Tribal Sovereignty and Racial Equity & Inclusion (REI)
• Be able to begin identifying local community leaders and natural supports
• See the difference between creating partnerships versus “providing grants”
• Explore funding strategies for primary prevention, including braiding/blending the State Block Grant with other prevention funding

The purpose of this session is to operationalize the target community’s Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) by developing the tactical implementation activities that support the broader goals of primary prevention. After the community has told you what it needs and how it wishes to be treated, how can programming be effectively realized and outcomes be measured to address the SDOH? Join us as we hold an open conversation with representatives from the Magnolia Community Initiative to learn more about their experience with primary prevention implementation at the community level.

Topics include:

• Mapping assets across the SDOH with target communities (asset-based community development)
• Engaging Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) in target communities impacted by disproportionality
• Integrating Racial Equity & Inclusion (REI) into:
  • Services and Contracts
  • Policy
  • Workforce Development
  • Quality, Fidelity, and Outcome Metrics
• Putting the money where our mouth is: Developing a fiscal plan for primary prevention

A community pathway provides children, families, and their communities with access to advocacy and services from trusted community-level supports and organizations. The purpose of this session is to ground the audience in the role of a community pathway and how it can help children and families stay safe and well with as little formal systems involvement as possible. To achieve race equity and inclusion, critically important is the development of a robust community pathway in neighborhoods and communities that are under resourced and underestimated.

Learners will:

• Understand the community pathway requirements in the Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA) and the California State Prevention Plan
• Build on the community engagement strategies learned from previous Learning Forums in this series to conceptualize innovative pathways to prevention services through a variety of new public and private partnerships
• Understand how a community pathway can allow for a transformational shift toward equitable decision-making and power-sharing between systems, communities, and families

The purpose of this session is for participants to gain insights about how community pathways are being conceptualized, planned and/or implemented across the country. Panelists will share examples of their jurisdictions, and speakers will point to the use of asset-based community development approaches which reflect both race equity and tribal sovereignty. Speakers will also cover how an integrated practice model can support systems of care to develop and resource local community pathways as well as which funding strategies can be used to realize the goal of a connecting families to services through trusted community-based supports/organizations, rather than though formal engagement with Title IV-E agencies.

Learners will:

• Engage in peer-exchange to learn how counties across the state are conceptualizing their community pathway
• See examples of effective community pathways and their potential impact on disproportionality
• Understand how the components of a practice model – assessment, case planning, risk and safety monitoring as well as shared liability – play out in a community pathway
• Identify what services currently exist in a System of Care to support a community pathway and what funding strategies are available

The purpose of this session is to identify funding and programmatic strategies to continue building your comprehensive prevention system by leveraging your System of Care partnerships and infrastructure. The session will cover how to marry existing fiscal and programmatic initiatives with the current opportunity provided by Family First Prevention Services (FFPS) and the Comprehensive Prevention Plan (CPP). How do we plan for and take advantage of current initiatives to promote protective factors using culturally-relevant and community-specific services for those populations identified in county CPPs? How can we invest in the inter-agency relationships and structure of the System of Care in ways that support the development of adaptive financing models?

Learners will:

• Identify and understand existing Medi-Cal funded opportunities through CalAIM
• Understand how to leverage System of Care partnerships for strategic planning and for funding program development
• Describe how to develop a program plan for secondary prevention that results in the development of adaptive and sustainable financing models

Part 1 established the System of Care and its associated governance structure (an Interagency Leadership Team) as the table where funding for primary and secondary prevention is best discussed. Part 1 also provided MediCal reform and CalAIM innovations as central examples of funding strategies to be considered by Child Welfare and Probation as the county build its prevention continuum. Part 2 will convene a panel of leaders involved in implementing such cross-agency initiatives. The conversation will focus on the import of those strategies on a prevention system and the adaptive challenges counties and tribes face when working to develop jointly agreed-upon outcomes for the children and families they share and serve, and to whom they are jointly responsible.

Learners will:

• Understand the lessons learned from planning and implementing jointly funded initiatives at a System of Care level
• Identify best practices for setting and monitoring cross-agency outcomes
• Understand some of the nuances associated with cross-agency funding that are applicable to shared target populations and the community-based providers who serve them

This Learning Forum concludes the second of a two year-long Learning Series intended to support California’s counties and tribes as they develop local comprehensive prevention strategies targeting the communities of families disproportionately represented in child welfare and probation systems, within an overarching context of race equity and inclusion. In 2022, the series was designed to support jurisdictions to develop and submit Comprehensive Prevention Plans (CPP), covering topics such as funding, governance structures, service array development including Evidence-Based Programs (EBP) and continuous quality improvement. In 2023, the Learning Series pivoted to providing education and peer exchange to illustrate what “comprehensive” prevention systems and strategies could look like. We began with community engagement with equity as the context, moved to primary prevention and then worked our way “downstream” to secondary prevention, visiting the topics of Community Pathways and cross-agency funding strategies on the way. This final session will provide a retrospective look of our collective prevention planning in California, as well as an overview of the county and tribal CPPs approved to date. CDSS will share themes emerging from the approved CPPs as well as updates in key areas such as workforce development, CQI, and collaboration with the Department of Health Care Service (DHCS). The session will also serve to identify future planning and implementation steps and topics such as Tertiary Prevention planning in a Family First context, EBP and service array maintenance, and the redesign of the “front-end” of child welfare and probation systems to support prevention strategies outlined in CPPs. Lastly, the session will provide a brief tour of CalPrevents, California’s new virtual community of practice devoted to the prevention of child maltreatment and foster care. 

Learners will:

• List the key milestones and accomplishments in California’s prevention planning journey since the passage of the federal Family First Prevention Services Act in 2018 
• Understand the themes present in approved CPPs, including EBPs selected, community pathways elected, and target communities chosen 
• Receive updates on state-wide advisory bodies, workforce development, EBP model fidelity 
• Identify next steps and topics for planning and implementation of local prevention systems 
• Be introduced to CalPrevents