This funding will support building a national messaging campaign on how individuals can become a source of support to families in their community by acknowledging the impact of racial inequities and seeking solutions that can help mitigate child safety concerns before they rise to the level of crisis. Funding will also focus on the development of best practices for training and equipping child abuse hotline staff to navigate complex and wide-reaching 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. Recipients must have plans for continuous quality improvement, evaluation of the effectiveness of proposed strategies in a hotline environment, and dissemination of findings widely to relevant audiences.
Recipients must have the capacity to coordinate with other Administration for Children and Families (ACF)-funded entities including the National Center for Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention (CBCAP), Child Welfare Information Gateway, and other hotlines administered by ACF.
The goal of this NOFO is to support the development and national dissemination of best practices to strengthen the capacity of child abuse hotline staff to distinguish between poverty and willful neglect. To achieve this goal, the project funded under this opportunity will focus on achieving the following project objectives:
Estimated Total Program Funding:
