Supporting Children and Families from Day One: A New Model for Child Well-being

JooYeun Chang

Doris Duke took a special interest in the well-being of children and families, and her vision, to prevent cruelty to children, still guides our work today. We believe that the time is now to capitalize on a once-in-a-generation opportunity to more fully realize our founder’s intent to not just intervene after abject abuse but rather to prevent child abuse and neglect in the first place. 

The Doris Duke Foundation’s goal is not to improve the existing child welfare system around the margins. We want to help communities imagine and build a new response system that keeps children safe from abuse and neglect in the first place by activating community partners who can respond to a family’s early signal of need in a timely and responsive manner. This program is based on family and community strengths and focused on child well-being. 

The current child welfare system uses surveillance, coercion and sometimes fear to focus on serious child safety issues. Sadly, this often causes more harm than good. Even though intervention is necessary in some cases, it does not serve the vast majority of children who come to its attention and can be terrifying and traumatic. 

This existing system also has a disproportionate impact on families of color; 50% of Black children will experience Child Protective Service (CPS) contact by age 18, compared to 28% of white children. Not only does the current system disproportionately impact Black and Indigenous children, it fails to address the needs of most children who come to its attention. Of the 7.5 million children who are called into child protection hotlines, more than 5.5 million won’t receive services at all. 

With Doris Duke’s vision as our north star, we launched Opportunities for Prevention & Transformation (OPT-In for Families), a three-year national research initiative that aims to transform our nation’s response to children at risk of abuse and neglect. OPT-In for Families empowers jurisdictions to test and study the development of a prevention-oriented child well-being system. With this information, children and their families can receive the needed support from organizations in their own community. 

OPT-In for Families demonstrates that actively connecting families early on to direct support for basic needs and coordinated support services with trusted community partners is a cost-effective, scalable way to prevent abuse and neglect and keep families together.

Pilot programs for OPT-In for Families have been launched in Washington, D.C., Kentucky, Oregon and South Carolina. These early states were selected for their commitment to and progress in developing new ways of supporting families. Each pilot location receives a combination of technical assistance and flexible funds from a coalition of funders including the the Duke Endowment and the Aviv Foundation.

The framework for Opt-In for Families was developed with policy makers, community-based organizations and families with real life experience with the child welfare system. As OPT-In for Families unfolds, families will serve on advisory boards in each jurisdiction to ensure their voices are incorporated into decisions about the program's direction, design and implementation.

At the March 11, 2024 launch of OPT-In for Families at Martha’s Table in Washington, D.C., our president and CEO, Sam Gill, said that, “The role of philanthropy ultimately is to invest in risks that government and the private sector can’t take. We believe this (the OPT-In for Families initiative) absolutely exemplifies that. We are going to need to do things differently. Ultimately, the best we can do in philanthropy is to make an investment. Ultimately, it’s these jurisdictions that need to dare to dream. It’s communities that need to dare to dream. And it’s the families and children who are already dreaming. And we need to dare to actually help them and meet them where they are.”

We know our goal is lofty. We want to change the system, not just make it just a little bit better, for so many families. There is great power working together with passionate and knowledgeable experts in this field. Together, we hope to make a real difference in the well-being of children and families. Join us. Sign up to receive updates about Opt-In for Families.

JooYeun Chang is the program director for child well-being at the Doris Duke Foundation. She oversees the program’s grantmaking to promote children’s healthy development and protect them from abuse and neglect.