Building Community Partnerships 

Developing working partnerships with the community enables child welfare programs to helpbuild capacity to keep children safe within their own neighborhoods. Instead of having resources flow out of the neighborhood, the community benefits by sharing the responsibility and resources for its own children and families. By involving the community in decision-making, child welfare agencies can make more informed decisions in individual cases and at the same time build community consensus (and political support) for the agency's role and mission. The development of partnerships with neighborhood and community organizations has several benefits..

• It enhances the child welfare system's ability to recruit, train, and support neighborhood-based foster care, thus improving outcomes for children who enter the foster care system.

• It helps assure that interventions respect the cultural and racial backgrounds of the children and families and are readily accessible to them.

• It increases the types and numbers of available formal and informal services

• It helps build a network of enduring supports for families within their neighborhoods.

• It re-invests dollars within neighborhoods, creating jobs and promoting economic development in poorer communities

• It helps the community see the complexity of a child welfare agency's role, thereby improving the service's local image.

Adapted from Annie E. Casey Foundation's Tools for Rebuilding Foster Care.