Tackling child welfare by bringing lived experts to the funding table

Youth and Families Forward, a collaborative grantmaking fund aimed at supporting underserved families, has launched the first participatory grantmaking program for child welfare providers in New York City. Since 2018, Youth and Family Forward has collaborated with seven foundations to commit $6 million towards public-private partnerships, participatory grantmaking, and advocacy efforts.

As the only New York City-based grantmaking’ committee to include direct input from advocates and community leaders with personal experience in the family regulation system, Youth and Family Forward’s model aims to minimize system involvement and shed light on harmful racial biases. 

“Youth and Families Forward is shaking up old notions of child welfare by championing the rights of families to stay together and avoid unnecessary (and often traumatic) government investigations,” said Eve Stotland, Youth & Families Forward co-chair and a senior program officer at The New York Community Trust, a funder of the YFF collaborative fund. 

By democratizing part of the decision-making process, participatory grantmaking intends to restore agency to affected communities by honoring lived insight to inform solutions. Youth and Families Forward’s grantmaking program will direct $50,000 to $100,000 in annual funding to community-based, grassroots nonprofits making tangible impacts within the city’s family regulation system. 

Latroya Lovell, a member of the participatory grantmaking committee, is one among the committee’s five women with diverse experience in the child welfare system. A researcher in participatory policy work with personal experience with Child Protective Services, her insight helps bring attention to key oversights where funders have opportunities to step in. 

“It’s really like a symbiotic thing. We are learning about the philanthropy world, of knowledge that we were removed from within our activist work. From us, they are learning about the true needs of these communities from firsthand, experienced adults who have been impacted by these systems,” said Lovell. 

With child welfare intervention often seen by providers as the “last resort”— Youth and Families Forward’s participatory committee aims to allocate more resources towards prevention efforts. From alleviating basic needs like food insecurity, access to diapers and parental mental health support, addressing early signs may prevent traumatizing child welfare investigations.

“When you look at statistics for who's impacted by the child welfare system, a majority of the cases or call-ins for neglect are people who are unable to meet the basic needs of their families. Through poverty, that inadvertently affects racial groups within the child welfare system more systemically over the course of time,” said Lovell. 

With a majority of families hailing from underserved communities of color, racial bias and childhood welfare records can play a significant role in investigation patterns. 

“From my own experience, as a youth who grew up within the system, but also as a parent who then was impacted by the system, it becomes this generational thing. Because I had a case as a child, it puts a lens on me as a parent, automatically, without hearing my side of the story. And then it may set you back,” said Lovell. 

As a single mom, Lovell’s case led her to miss both school and work to attend mandated appointments, hindering her from taking care of her child. 

According to a report by the NYC Family Policy Project, 1 in 15 Black children in New York City were subjects of welfare investigations in 2019, compared 10 1 in 86 white children. Black children were also 10 times more likely to enter foster care compared with their white counterparts. 

Lovell also stressed that families of color within the child welfare system often struggle to bounce back, making CPS interactions especially traumatic and punitive on BIPOC families. This can lead to families losing trust in publicly funded services—trust, which advocates believe remain in localized community-driven organizations. 

“The best way to help people, to support people, is not to wait until they're floundering. It's not to wait until they're in crisis and then offer assistance,” stressed Stotland. “What our grant making committee is going to do is think about the various ways nonprofits could get involved in advance. Part of this means that they have to be trusted nonprofits— parents and caregivers have to trust a nonprofit enough that they will come forward and share without fear of retribution.” 

Organizations serving the five boroughs through policy and advocacy work, early childhood support, culturally relevant mental health services are eligible for funding. Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis and will close automatically when 50 submissions are collected by September 16. 

“Nearly all the time, decisions are made on behalf of marginalized communities without including their very valuable perspectives. This ends up reinforcing the same systems that hold these communities back. The people who have experienced these systems are well-positioned to provide real-time solutions for what is most needed,” said Lovell.