Solving the Child Welfare Crisis: Jared Brown of For Others

“What if we could stop accepting this crisis as normal?”

Jared Brown of For Others addressed Restore Hope providers and partners at the Restore Hope Training Academy. Child welfare, he says, is not an immovable reality, but a solvable problem.

Restore Hope is a software and services organization dedicated to helping communities create transformational change through collaborative solutions like the 100 Families Initiative.

Brown underscored that while federal and state policy matters, “There is nothing the federal government or even the states can do to completely solve this problem. It takes local communities.” He pointed to the Restore Hope Model as proof that community-led, data-driven collaboration is changing outcomes. Through For Others’ partnership with Restore Hope, he has been studying how the model can be replicated beyond Arkansas.

“There is not another model other than 100 Families out there that I have seen in 21 states getting the results with families as this... There is not one out there.”

In Brown’s view, healthy systems reliably provide four types of services—cultural, provision, regulation, and support—and from those capacities flow clear priorities: prevention, preservation, and reunification of the family. He described a practical pathway that includes recruiting and retaining the right family supports (kinship, reunification, or adoption when needed) and empowering the broader community so “everyone has a path to do something in this space.” The aim is disciplined implementation that keeps families together whenever safely possible and surrounds them with timely, local help.

He did not minimize the complexity. The child welfare system is hard. To make sense of it, Brown shared a flow chart mapping the interdependencies across the child welfare ecosystem and urged leaders to diagnose dysfunction the way one would in any living system and figure out where the system is unhealthy based on the natural things an ecosystem needs.

The number of children in foster care, he stressed, should be treated as an indicator of the crisis, not the crisis itself. When communities see the whole picture together, they can align the collection of actions and interventions that produce the best outcomes for children and families.

Brown warned that, based on current trends, entries into care are likely to rise unless proven interventions scale. If communities replicate the Restore Hope approach with fidelity, he argued, results will follow: better outcomes and fewer children entering care.

“This crisis is solvable. Without 100 Families, it is not solvable.”

The task, he said, is to surround families earlier and more consistently: “We need families who have their kids to have people come around them to create healthier families and healthier communities that will create a new generation that doesn’t know what happened in the past.” The goal is nothing less than breaking generational cycles—one family at a time—compounding into a brighter future.

Brown’s respect for the people on the front lines was evident throughout. He acknowledged the discouragement that can come with trying to build buy-in, while affirming the daily courage it takes to keep showing up.

“We’re looking at Arkansas. We’re looking at what’s happening here, and the grit that you have, and the resolve that you have, and how you’re running hard after this, how you— you might disagree. Some of you in here, you might have different political beliefs, you might have different faith belief where you said, ‘For the sake of the health of families and communities, we’re gonna work together.’ That has to happen in our society today.”

“What I love about this group of people here is that you step into chaos daily.”

He reminded them what that presence means for families: “You are literally hand-in-hand, face-to-face, arms linked with families in crisis.”

His gratitude was matched by a call to widen the circle—share the model, invite the hesitant, and keep pulling partners alongside. “But the only way it gets solved is by everybody being willing to work together. And those that don’t want to, they can go sit on the bench until they realize they want to be a part, ’cause they’re gonna see the movement and they’re gonna get left behind.”

Addressing providers directly, Brown emphasized their influence: “You represent 75% of the ecosystem. And what you can do can bend the will and shape others in the regulatory side to actually make a difference and make the right decisions.” With that kind of leverage, practitioners can shift mindsets, spark collaboration, and normalize practical problem-solving that keeps children safe and families intact. He noted that the ripple effects from Arkansas are already spreading; leaders in 21 other states are studying the results and considering broader application.

For Brown, the takeaway is as simple as it is demanding: local communities, aligned around a shared model and disciplined execution, can end the child welfare crisis. There may be no grand policy fix, but there is a workable path in front of us—one family at a time, one community at a time. As he reminded the room, the people doing this work are not alone. They are part of a growing movement with the grit to persevere across differences “for the sake of the community,” until fewer children need care and more families thrive together.

For Others raises awareness and empowers best-in-class organizations to end the child welfare crisis in America.