Using a Change Framework to Design Systems that Effectively Engage Fathers and Paternal Relatives and Promote Racial Justice

This brief describes how participants in a Breakthrough Series Collaborative (BSC) used a guiding framework called a Collaborative Change Framework to build practices and structures to improve engagement of fathers and paternal relatives in the child welfare system. It provides the context for using a Collaborative Change Framework and shares how the framework informed a multifaceted approach to engaging fathers and paternal relatives. The brief details how the BSC improvement team members drew a connection between efforts to promote racial justice and work to engage fathers and paternal relatives. It also features video examples of strategies improvement teams tested within the domains of the Collaborative Change Framework to improve programming and practice and thereby promote racial justice for men of color in the child welfare system.

The purposes of this brief are to (1) share a framework for engaging fathers and paternal relatives in child welfare and (2) highlight strategies the teams tested within the five domains of the Collaborative Change Framework. The framework helped create a shared language and motivated teams to challenge existing structures to engage fathers and paternal relatives more effectively and promote racial justice. Other child welfare agencies can use this Collaborative Change Framework to consider how to improve their engagement of fathers and paternal relatives and promote racial justice.