Best Practices to Strengthen Family Support in Child Maltreatment Reporting and Prevention

Background
The Children's Bureau is committed to the development and national dissemination of best practices to strengthen the capacity of child abuse hotline staff. This includes distinguishing between poverty and willful neglect. The grant aims to address the disproportionate child abuse reporting and child welfare system involvement among families of color and marginalized communities due to poverty, bias, and systemic inequality.

Grant Details
The grant will support building a national messaging campaign on how individuals can become a source of support to families in their community. This involves acknowledging the impact of racial inequities and seeking solutions that can help mitigate child safety concerns before they rise to the level of crisis. It will focus on developing best practices for training and equipping child abuse hotline staff. This includes navigating complex needs such as understanding the distinction between poverty and willful neglect, implicit bias, addressing social and behavioral health needs, how and when to report child abuse, and providing warm hand offs to local resources whenever possible. Applicants must describe plans for continuous quality improvement, evaluating the effectiveness of proposed strategies in a hotline environment, and disseminating findings widely to relevant audiences. Coordination with the National Center for Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention (CBCAP), Child Welfare Information Gateway, and other hotlines administered by the Administration for Children and Families is required.

Eligibility Requirements
Eligible applicants include states, Indian tribes, tribal organizations, public agencies, private agencies or organizations (or combinations of such entities). Faith-based and community organizations are also eligible. Applications from individuals (including sole proprietorships) and foreign entities are not eligible. Applicants must submit one complete copy of the application package electronically via Grants.gov.

Period of Performance
The project period is 60 months with five 12-month budget periods. The anticipated project start date is 09/30/2023.

Grant Value
$2,000,000 is the estimated total funding with an expected number of awards being 1. The award ceiling is $2,000,000 per budget period with an award floor of $1,000,000 per budget period. The average projected award amount is $2,000,000 per budget period.

Place of Performance
No specific geographic location(s) for performance are mentioned in the provided document.