CDC joins Thriving Families, Safer Children to promote family health and well-being
The National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has joined the Thriving Families, Safer Children effort.
The CDC joins Casey Family Programs, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the U.S. Children’s Bureau and Prevent Child Abuse America® in working with young people and families who have experienced the child welfare system to help create conditions for strong, thriving families where all children are free from harm.
The CDC’s involvement will provide Thriving Families, Safer Children with expertise and resources to further the work and promote family health and well-being.
“Transforming child welfare systems into more equitable child and family well-being systems is an investment in our future,” said Casey Family Programs’ Executive Vice President of Systems Improvement David Sanders. “The CDC’s expertise and partnership will enhance our work with communities and systems to make sure that all children can remain safely at home and thrive.”
Thriving Families, Safer Children is a first-of-its-kind, multiyear, national partnership working across public, private and philanthropic sectors to promote the health, well-being and economic stability of families to help strengthen communities and end the harmful practice of family separation in child welfare systems.
“We are excited about the partnership opportunity with Thriving Families, Safer Children that will allow us to intentionally connect our work in preventing adverse childhood experiences to the great work being done across the country,” said Christopher M. Jones, acting director of CDC’s Injury Center. “We look forward to leveraging our expertise and learning from the other national partners as well as the 22 Thriving Families, Safer Children sites, as we work together to strengthen our families and communities.”
For 30 years, the CDC’s Injury Center has worked to prevent injury and violence and their related effects on families and communities. To promote safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments where all families can thrive, the CDC’s Injury Center prioritizes using evidence-based strategies to prevent adverse childhood experiences — traumatic events affecting or witnessed by children from birth to age 17. It also prioritizes prevention of suicide and overdose.
The CDC’s Injury Center’s strategies, resources and tools will help the partnership’s sites across the country with work supporting healthy childhoods. The CDC’s Injury Center will connect Thriving Families, Safer Children sites to its own nearby partners and grantees who are doing prevention work.
Thriving Families, Safer Children work focuses on creating and enhancing networks of community-based services and programs and aligning government resources to provide a full prevention continuum that strengthens communities and parents. It provides resources and support from the national partners and other relevant child- and family-serving federal agencies, jurisdictions, diverse community organizations and the public, private, faith-based and philanthropic sectors to create more just, equitable and humane child and family well-being systems.