The Child and Family Wellbeing Fund is one of Schuyler Center’s top priorities because it would make state resources available to trusted local organizations, run by community members in the neighborhoods all over New York State experiencing the most Child Protective Services (CPS) involvement. This Fund would prioritize family and community leadership in disbursing state funds.
Across New York State, parents and young people impacted by the child welfare system and other activists have increasingly called for dedicated state funding for community-driven resources to:
- Invest in family wellbeing
- Improve neighborhood conditions
- Increase economic opportunity
- Eliminate poverty
- Ensure that families can get support without the threat of unnecessary family separation through the child welfare system.
This Fund is the vision of the Child and Family Wellbeing Fund Working Group, a group of statewide advocates with lived expertise in the child welfare system and expertise in research, policy, and advocacy. The group came together three years ago to develop a framework and proposal for community investment of state dollars to address conditions that lead to high rates of CPS involvement, which especially affects Black and Latino children, youth, and families in New York.
Schuyler Center, as part of the Child & Family Wellbeing Working Group, has just released our paper on the Child and Family Wellbeing Fund. This paper explains more about the structure of the Fund and why this innovation is needed in New York now. Read the full paper here.
Click here to read our one-pager.
Want to know more about the state of New York’s child welfare system? Read our data-focused one-pager, A Family-First Approach to Child Welfare in New York State – Transparency and accountability are needed in New York’s child welfare system. Over 76% of reports to Child Protective Services are unfounded, a determination made only after the family has undergone an invasive, stressful, often traumatic investigation. When families have easy access to economic supports and trusted resources in their community, children thrive – even when their parents earn low incomes.
Our partner Fostering Youth Success Alliance recently wrote an op-ed on the fund. Read it here.
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