FUTURE STATE OF A SYSTEM FOCUSED ON CHILD AND FAMILY WELL-BEING

A new system centering well-being and focusing on supporting families, including kinship networks and chosen family, in safely staying together, or providing safe alternatives of a youth’s choice by:

• giving families access to economic resources such as universal basic income, universal health care, and affordable housing, paired with the supportive services needed to stay together and thrive;

• eliminating the need for foster care, by ensuring child removals are solely based on safety, are temporary, and youth are placed with safe family members, kinship networks, and/or chosen family;

• empowering youth to live independently, if they choose, with the supports and resources needed; and

• fully supporting youth that are transitioning out of the current child welfare system with housing, economic, and social supports to thrive throughout adulthood.

Click on on of the sections below to learn more or scroll below to read through the actions.

Throughout this document, we will refer to a new concept of a child and family well-being system that:

• Centers children, youth, and family well-being; 

• Is community-driven with a newly shaped and defined role for government; 

• Is rooted in keeping families together and fully support kinship placements when a family cannot stay together; and

• Empowers youth to live independently with support when they choose. 

We do not use the terminology of the child welfare system when talking about the future state and what we are driving toward because we hold the belief that the current system should no longer exist in its current form and should be re-imagined and re-centered around well-being for children and families. We also believe that the system should be co-led by community and government, with the role of government focused on child safety and empowering community-based organizations to support the well-being of community members. It is critical to restructure and limit the role of the government in a transformed system due to the historical trauma it has inflicted on families through the child welfare system, particularly harming Black, Indigenous, Brown, and Queer communities.

A Way Home America’s New Deal to End Youth Homelessness focuses on the intersection between housing and the child welfare system as it directly impacts youth and young adults. We recognize that the transformation of the child welfare system towards a system rooted in justice and centered on child and family well-being will take more than the youth actions in this pillar. AWHA is committed to partnering and supporting other national advocates and organizations working to more broadly transform the system for all ages of children, youth, and families. We also recognize the many child welfare advocates fighting for a better system for youth and leading the way on some of the reform and transformation efforts discussed throughout the pillar. AWHA is committed to partnering and helping to build the coalition necessary to reach a future state rooted in justice.