Grand and Jackson Counties Child Maltreatment Prevention Framework

Facing a growing need for family support services in Grand and Jackson counties, Mountain Family Center and Grand Beginnings jointly applied for and received a Child Maltreatment Prevention Framework for Action (Framework) Community Planning Grant in October 2017. The grant award included funds from the Office of Early Childhood to develop a community-wide plan for strengthening family support services in the two counties, plus extensive support from Early Milestones Colorado, a nonprofit intermediary that serves as a conduit for best practices and high-impact ideas that promote success for young children and families across the state.

To give families in Adams County the additional support they need, ECPAC applied for and received a Child Maltreatment Prevention Framework for Action (Framework) Community Planning Grant in October 2017, putting the county on the front lines of planning efforts aimed at preventing child abuse and neglect, and strengthening families. In addition to financial assistance from the Colorado Office of Early Childhood, the grant included extensive support from Early Milestones Colorado, a nonprofit intermediary that serves as a statewide conduit for best practices and high-impact ideas that promote success for young children and families in Colorado.

Coalition Partners

Child Maltreatment Prevention
Framework for Action

This framework is designed as a tool to guide strategic thinking at the state and local level, about resource investments to prevent child maltreatment and promote child well-being. As this tool is used collectively across the state, the resulting alignment of strategies will maximize the impact on shared outcomes.

Grand and Jackson Counties plan to prevent child maltreatment

Grand and Jackson Counties Child Maltreatment Prevention Framework for Action planning resulted in five primary goals and corresponding objectives:

Ensure Jackson and Grand Counties have coordinated, multi-agency, family education opportunities that supports a spectrum of ages and needs.

  • Annually, evidence-based, family education opportunities will be provided to a minimum of 70 families in the region in a collaborative, multi-agency system that meets community need.

Promoting coordinated maternal mental health screenings, referrals, and follow-ups.

  • Maternal mental health needs are addressed through a rapid, compassionate, and coordinated system by delivering training and outreach that increases community and clinical awareness and supports service delivery

Community-wide adoption of evidence-based practices that support cross-sector family engagement through a strength-based, two-generation lens with strong fidelity to implementation.

  • Within 18 months, agencies and organizations serving children and families implement evidence-based practices to fidelity for family engagement that promote strength-based, two-generation approaches with at least 80 percent of practices being evidence-based.

Cross-training among community agencies to support cross-sector and multi-agency navigation that promotes a strength-based, two-generation approach to family success.

  • Within 12 months 70 percent of organizations serving children and families have individual staff equipped with community knowledge to ensure families can find and access resources as measured by an increase in referrals and family perceptions.

Develop and communicate a shared community policy agenda that promotes subsidized early care and education and maternal mental health screening and supports.

  • Annually, empower the wider community to speak with one voice to advocate for policy that supports children and families through developing and educating the community on policy issues that address subsidy and maternal mental health through one annual training and shared message bank tools.