2023 Annual Impact Report FINAL - Flipbook - Page 30
The scientific community, advocates, and framing experts have also
been working together to expand understanding of what adversity looks
like. Now, another frame change is in progress—one that is expanding
the way people think about what “counts” as adversity.
For example, while families and communities play a massive role in
children’s development, an outsized focus or even a placing of blame on
parents has dominated the discourse for decades. Framing helps us
understand what happens when we zoom out from the “family bubble”
to consider how structural adversity like systemic racism affects
children’s wellbeing. In the child welfare space, we’ve worked with
advocates and experts to move efforts away from over-investigating
and policing families of color, instead focusing attention on upstream
approaches to address the sources of social, cultural, systemic, and
interpersonal racism.
As the field expands understanding of adverse environments, it’s vital to
ensure that we’re collectively equipped to talk about the distinct role
that racism plays in children’s development. In partnership with Prevent
Child Abuse America, we recently released framing guidance for
communicating about racism in child and family advocacy, which
includes recommendations such as adopting more expansive
understandings of racism and explaining how it shapes childrens’
environments. Moving forward, as manufactured controversies about
“critical race theory” and parents’ rights have moved issues of race and
children even more into the spotlight, it will be important to learn from
progress made in the realms of early childhood development and child
welfare to ensure that young people have the support they need.
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