Honoring the Intersection of Mental Health Awareness and Foster Care Month

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you”

Rumi

 

In 2020, former United States Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared loneliness and isolation as an epidemic, on par with tobacco use^[1]. His documentation of increased social isolation during and after the height of the COVID pandemic helped to normalize the need for mental health support, explaining that social isolation undermines both physical and mental health, and can be associated with other social ills, such as violence, addiction, and extremism^[2].

These issues deeply resonate with the work that CFPIC does to enhance the capacity of human service agencies to pursue transformative change, particularly around child welfare and foster care. We honor the intersection of Mental Health Awareness and Foster Care Month, noting that families and children involved in, or at risk of entry in, the child welfare and/or foster care systems may benefit from family strengthening and supportive resources.

 

“[There’s room for my growth in] overcoming a lot of the pain and struggles

that myself and others face. Help people see the brighter side of things.

Knowing that there is a future for them…”

CFPIC Youth Ambassador

 

The Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) produced a report in February 2024 based upon the Strengthening Families Protective Factors Framework, which is designed to keep families strong and children safe from abuse and neglect through promotion of five protective factors. Protective factors include social connection—the antidote to social isolation and loneliness—among other factors. The report details the framework and provides everyday strategies that help families build protective factors, also encouraging helping professionals to work with families using a strengths-based approach. CFPIC encourages the ongoing work of the CSSP, along with their collaborative partners the California Department of Social Services, the Office of Child Abuse Prevention, Rady Children’s Hospital Chadwick Center for Children & Families, and the California Training Institute, to draft updates to the Protective Factors Framework to ensure it is accessible and culturally responsive to families and providers.

Additionally, California Health & Human Services Children Youth and Behavioral Health Initiative developed a comprehensive Mental Health Awareness Month toolkit which includes free resources like social posts, printable resources, free mental health support digital apps, and parenting support videos. Designed to provide supportive resources for children, youth, and families and their providers, sample posts are available in English and Spanish to help promote youth mental health resources, including accessible, evidence-based strategies for managing stress.

CFPIC’s programs directly promote family well-being to reduce the risk of entry into the Child Welfare or Foster Care system. CFPIC’s Linkages team provides implementation and guidance to Linkages 2.0, a collaboration between CalWORKs and Child Welfare to serve families who are involved with CalWORKs and concurrently involved with Child Welfare or at risk of future involvement with Child Welfare. The Linkages 2.0 approach spans the three tiers of primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention and promotes the use of concrete supports (e.g. CalWORKs, CalFresh, Medi-Cal) as child maltreatment prevention.

CFPIC’s Prevention team supports the California Family First Prevention Services (FFPS) Program, which provides federal and state funding to counties and Tribes with Title IV-E agreements to deliver evidence-based, promising, and culturally responsive programs to families and their children/youth with the goal of preventing foster care entry. Counties opt into this program through the development of state-approved Comprehensive Prevention Plans (CPPs) that bring together local system partners to reach families early and effectively through delivery of evidence-based prevention programs.

 

“I see myself using my story to inspire, educate, and give new foster parents

and CASA workers (and many other positions in the system) better perspectives”

CFPIC Youth Ambassador

 

CFPIC’s Youth Engagement Project (YEP) builds capacity at the state and local level to improve Child Welfare policies, programs, and practices by leveraging the voices of current and former foster youth to effect system change. CFPIC contracts with approximately 40 current and former foster youth who are matched with 20 YEP counties to help inform their child welfare policies and practice. Called Youth Ambassadors, these young adults also provide feedback and guidance to statewide work where lived experts are needed.

Addressing family and youth well-being are central to prevention and family stabilization efforts. As we learn more about the importance of the protective factors to prevention and mental health, we embrace opportunities to champion programs that celebrate resilience and hope. CFPIC is honored, inspired, and guided by the voices of those with lived experience. We are proud to feature the quotes from our Youth Ambassadors in this blog, as well as the trauma-responsive wisdom of an ancient poet^[3].  Their voices bring hope to all of us.

 

Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house,

so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart,

so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots,

so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart,

far better things will take their place.

Rumi

 

¹

1. [1] Rowland, K. “US surgeon general Vivel Murthy: ‘Loneliness is like hunger, a signal we’re lacking something for survival’” (Jan 29, 2024). The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/29/us-surgeon-general-vivek-murthy-loneliness-mental-health-epidemic-social-media.

   [2] See footnote 1.

   [3] N., Helena. “Rumi’s Quotes on Self-Healing to Help Remind Yourself on What’s Possible.” (2020-2025). 7SY and Seven Sundays Yoga. Retrieved from https://www.sevensundaysyoga.com/yoga-teacher-training/rumi-quotes#:~:text=You%20have%20chosen%20to%20trust,hurt%2C%20you%20are%20still%20alive.