Community Collaborations to Strengthen and Preserve Families

The purpose of this funding opportunity (FOA) announcement is to fund five-year demonstration projects that support the development, implementation, and evaluation of strategies that embrace proactive efforts to build on the strengths of families, including those at high risk for child maltreatment. The projects will enhance the capacity of communities to address the well-being needs of families before more formal strategies, practices, or activities are warranted. The FOA will address site specific barriers in order to reduce the number of referrals to the public child welfare agency. The cooperative agreements will fund activities that include the planning necessary to implement a multi-system collaborative to support community-based and prevention-focused services; the coordination of a network of community-based services to foster the development of a continuum of preventative services; maximize availability and access to resources using innovative approaches to leverage and coordinate existing funding streams; innovative outreach to identify and link families to community-based resources, empower families to support their children's healthy social and emotional development; active participation with the designated evaluation Technical Assistance (TA) provider in a rigorous site-specific evaluation to improve processes and services, to demonstrate linkages between proposed strategies, practices, or activities, and improved outcomes; and conduct a local evaluation that analyzes the implementation and outcomes of the projects.