Connected Communities-Thriving Families, Child Welfare Transformation Initiative

Families Belong Together

Missouri Coalition for Children is excited to announce the launch of Connected Communities-Thriving Families, the Coalition’s initiative to help more children stay safely with their families and in their communities. Missouri has 13,689 children in foster care, twice the per capita national average, and too many for reasons unrelated to harm or neglect.

“Child welfare is too often the default system for families struggling with poverty or behavioral health issues. We can do better by Missouri families, but we have to partner with communities and families; they have the expertise,” Mary Chant, Missouri Coalition for Children CEO.

Connected Communities-Thriving Families will engage with communities to co-design solutions that support families staying safely together and thriving. Communities understand what is working and what is not and how best to support families struggling with poverty or behavioral health issues than the child welfare system. They can also identify those barriers that separate families and disrupt communities, leading to policy and resource changes that support meaningful and sustainable change.

Rebalancing Missouri’s child welfare system to a child and family well-being system requires that we tackle longstanding, entrenched systemic issues, including those unfairly impacting people of color and those living in poverty. But our communities and families are ready to lead, and the Coalition is excited to join with them as we move Missouri forward.

Missouri Coalition for Children is proud to partner with Missouri Foundation for Health (MFH) in this initiative. MFH’s support allows us to develop and expand our reach in a way that creates real system change for greater impact.

ABOUT MISSOURI COALITION FOR CHILDREN

Missouri Coalition for Children advocates for Missouri’s children, families and communities and is committed to advancing child and family well-being, child abuse prevention, effective intervention, and high impact education, treatment and care.