BACKGROUND:The Keep Children and Families Safe Act amendment to the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) of 2003 mandated children under age three who are involved with Child Welfare (CW) to receive a referral to the system for early intervention (EI). While there is strong rationale for providing developmental services to young children and families impacted by maltreatment, the early implementation of this policy brought about many challenges related to interagency coordination and readiness of providers to provide cross-systems care. Currently, as the system and providers within the system recover from the effects of Covid-19, a predicted increase in need of services may exacerbate historical gaps in the provision of services to families involved with CW.PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING:This policy-focused paper explores issues impacting CW and EI providers who coordinate care between CW and EI services.METHODS:This paper provides a historical examination of these challenges and proposes an approach for improving developmental services for families referred from CW, specifically through the lens of addressing resources and supports available to providers.RESULTS:The proposed approach includes an increase and reprioritization of resources to support provider readiness and well-being.CONCLUSIONS:By focusing on support for providers, the authors propose a reduction of stress and improvement of services at each level of the "well-being" system.

This paper explores a feasibility trial examining the effects of the Make Parenting A Pleasure (MPAP), a 12-week parent training program designed to promote family resilience by strengthening the following factors: parental resilience, social connections, concrete support in times of need, knowledge of parenting and child development, and social and emotional competence in children. Fifty-nine (59) participants were assigned to either a treatment group (n = 32) or a waitlist control group (n = 27). Results showed that participants in the MPAP treatment group demonstrated an increase in parenting skills and child development knowledge as well as a decrease in parental depression when compared to waitlist control group participants. Results emphasize the importance of promoting resiliency by supporting parents through direct instruction and skill development.

Big data holds immense potential for innovation and new understanding in research, evaluation, practice, and policy related to young children and their families. Although big data is a relatively new concept, particularly in early intervention systems (EI), recent pushes for data systems alignment in EI and education have propelled the use of large-scale integrated data systems in recent years (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services & the U.S. Department of Education, 2016). This combined with a plethora of new and rapidly increasing data sources has created a new data world. In response, research methodology, ethics, and tools need to be examined to ensure developmentally appropriate and ethical practices in research. A mixed methods systematic scoping review was conducted to gain a foundational understanding of the literature on big data use in EI settings. Strengths, challenges, systems-level needs, and implications for researchers, administrators, and policy makers are included.