Family Voice Grants

The Division of Child Welfare (DCW) has released a grant opportunity to support Balance of State (BOS) counties in identifying and addressing disproportionality, equity, diversity, and inclusion in child welfare through the development of family voice projects. The grants are for development of family voice feedback and capacity building projects for underserved and overrepresented populations. 

DCW received supplemental funding for its Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) program through the Federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and currently has funding to award each BOS county $9,400 to be used through September 2025. 

Parents’ and caregivers’ insights, strengths, and lived experiences are the greatest tools to advancing equity and strengthening family well-being. Parents are most intimately affected by long-standing policies and practices that are in place, and therefore offer invaluable leadership to meaningfully pursue ideas and innovations to improve upon them. DCW has compiled this list of ideas for counties to consider when submitting proposals for the Family Voice Mini-Grants.

So far, the following counties have received funding for the Family Voice Grant project: Broomfield, Eagle, La Plata, Kiowa, Prowers, Cheyenne, Routt, Delta & Montrose (partnering), Baca, Morgan, and Montezuma. 

Routt County applied for the Family Voice Grant Project because they saw an area for growth, both in how they work with families and how they work with other organizations. 

“We have a very unique makeup in our rural county of four distinct communities that have different needs,” said Liz Kuker, the CMP Coordinator at Routt County DHS. “We’re using the Family Voice Grant to understand the needs of our respective communities better, so we can shift to best tailor our response to those needs in each community, and address any county-wide needs that are identified.”

DCW will offer grants to counties, and this work will be overseen by a DCW staff who will coordinate with counties to create processes and plans to incorporate family voice into local processes. The grants will provide funds to implement a continuous quality improvement (CQI) process to gather constituents’ feedback, analyze feedback and identify areas needing process, program or policy improvement. Counties will share lessons learned with DCW and other county partners to lead to local and statewide considerations for systemic changes.

Balance of State Family Voice Grant Application.