The Future of Child Welfare Is Prevention

For a child, a home removal can bring trauma and separation. Often, the heartbreak of that experience is compounded by the possibility that with earlier support, the family may have been able to stay safely together.

"Every family struggles, but if you have support you can make it through."

Karen Phillips, Chief Operations Officer of Restore Hope, opened a community meeting in Sebastian County focused on child welfare and crisis prevention. While the conversation centered on the local collective impact of the community, leaders from across the country were also in attendance to observe and consider how the prevention models pioneered by the 100 Families Initiative in Sebastian County might be replicated in their own communities.

The 100 Families Initiative is a community-led initiative to help families move from crisis to stability and onto career using existing community resources.

The gathering examined the challenges families face and asked a deeper question: how can the community move further upstream to support parents before a crisis leads to a child’s removal from their home?

Before the 100 Families Initiative was formed, Sebastian County had 28 children per 1,000 in foster care. Today, that number is down to 11 per 1,000. While that progress is significant, Phillips emphasized the work is not finished. The state average is 5 per 1,000, and the goal is to continue building a system that helps families stabilize before removal ever becomes necessary.

In the seven years since its formation, the 100 Families Initiative has shown that families involved in the child welfare system have better outcomes when they are surrounded by consistent support. In Sebastian County, 34% of parents with open foster care cases who are working to reunify with their children also have a 100 Families support team. Among families with a support team, 65% reunified with their children in the last 12 months, compared to the Arkansas state average of 43%.

“You go from not being likely to reunite with your children without the added supports to being likely to reunite with your children with the added supports. That’s why the support systems are so important.”

Following Phillips' report, Heather Edwards, Director of Community Success at Restore Hope, facilitated a panel discussion featuring professionals working on the front lines of prevention and family stability.

Across sectors—from nonprofit partners to the court system and child welfare professionals—the message was clear: helping children often begins with supporting parents.

Heather Sanders of Arkansas Family Alliance pointed to the importance of relational support, not just emergency assistance. Through CarePortal and community partnerships, families can receive practical help in moments of crisis, but the deeper impact often comes through relationships that help parents feel supported rather than isolated.

"When we silo ourselves, we're also kind of teaching people that they can kind of skirt around and do the very bare minimum. And we're not getting to the real root that makes that ultimate change."

Marie Robinson of the Safe Babies Court Team spoke about the critical and often overwhelming season when individuals first become parents. During this time, families may be navigating hormonal changes, new responsibilities, childcare shortages, isolation, and sometimes the lingering effects of their own childhood trauma.

Robinson’s role is to walk alongside parents during this vulnerable stage, helping them build the tools and support systems they need to succeed. Through individualized assessments and coordinated services, she works to equip parents with coping strategies and practical safety plans so they can manage stress and avoid the patterns that may have led to crisis in the past.

Robinson pointed to addiction as one of the challenges many parents are working to overcome and emphasized how intentional planning and strong support systems can help prevent relapse.

“When you can create your safety plan, say, I had an addiction problem. This is how I coped and my child ended up being maltreated because of it. Well, now I have my church family. I have this community resource and I've created my sense of self-worth to where I know that I can be the good mom or the good dad that I need to be, and my child is worth it.”

"We want to be compassionate," Sanders added, "but we also have to empower the people that we're working with. We want to give them self-worth. We want to uplift them. I always say we want them to work as hard as we are, and we have to encourage them because they are worthy and they do, and they want to. They just don't know how."

Robinson emphasized that while many families rely on extended relatives and close friends for support, others experience deep isolation and must intentionally build new support systems within their community.

“Whenever you make your community your family, that's how you can really benefit your children, because it could be Uncle John at ABC Preschool and Aunt Martha at the Guidance Center… it is who your child sees as their supports who you should collaborate with to better strengthen your family.”

Mindy Tuck-Duty of the Arkansas Department of Children and Family Services emphasized that prevention depends on building trust between families and the broader community. When parents feel supported rather than judged, they are more likely to receive help before a situation escalates to crisis.

Robinson similarly acknowledged that shame is a significant barrier for families.

"The lack of transparency for people not wanting to have the hard conversations is where I feel the biggest barrier is to preventing future child abuse and preventing just future incidences within their own family."

Tuck-Duty explained that while DCFS is associated with responding after abuse or neglect has occurred, the real goal is for families to receive help long before child welfare intervention becomes necessary. As partnerships across the community continue to grow, more organizations are stepping in to support families facing hardship, creating a network of resources that can stabilize a situation early and build the trust needed for parents to seek support.

“The more impact we have and the more resources that we have out there and we are growing, then DCFS is the last call and it should always be. [The families] should be able to have all of these people in this room reaching out.”

That may be one of the clearest pictures of prevention: a community strong enough, connected enough, and compassionate enough to meet needs before child welfare intervention becomes necessary.

For Fort Smith City Prosecutor Colton Pace, prevention often means breaking cycles that lead to repeated involvement in the justice system. Through collaboration with community partners and the wider 100 Families network, individuals facing legal consequences can be connected with services that address the underlying issues contributing to the offense.

"A lot of the resources y'all help provide hopefully stop re-offenses."

The meeting made clear that prevention is not passive. It requires data, coordination, trust, and a willingness to walk with families through hardship. It means recognizing that poverty, addiction, isolation, and generational trauma do not just affect parents. They shape what children experience too. When families have support, children have a better chance to remain safe, connected, and whole.

As Phillips said, “If kids aren’t having to be removed, it means families are doing better.”

In Sebastian County, that vision continues to guide the work forward: helping parents build stability, surrounding families with support, and keeping children safe whenever possible without adding the trauma of removal.