Bridges to Better
What is Bridges to Better:
Bridges to Better is a new way of thinking about how to improve the lives of children and families who have been impacted by domestic violence who are in the child welfare system or are seeking help in their communities. For service providers, policy makers and researchers, this approach rethinks and re-imagines what it means to protect survivors of domestic violence.
Background:
In 2016 the Children’s Bureau funded the 5-year Quality Improvement Center on Domestic Violence in Child Welfare (QIC-DVCW) to create a collaborative approach to helping children and families impacted by domestic violence.
Based on what we learned from survivors and their abusive partners, we designed a flexible, values-based approach to protection. We recognize that race and gender biases as well as a focus on parental deficiencies have prevailed throughout the system. Our aim is to address the harm caused by child welfare, particularly to Black and Indigenous families. Put simply, as one survivor told us, “Stop trying to fix me, and fix yourselves.”
Website:
The new Bridges to Better website features strategies for co-designing new approaches WITH survivors through curated audience journeys for communities & systems, policy makers, and researchers & evaluators. A robust resource library gathers tools and resources from organizations and initiatives around the country to support transformational and accountable system change, and to expand and strengthen community-led efforts to create conditions and experiences that represent real help for survivors and families.
Bridges to Better is supported by the Promising Futures National Capacity Building Center.
