Safe Starts

Safe Starts, one of the Stuart Foundation’s newest initiatives, seeks to mitigate the negative impact of early childhood trauma and disruption that often occurs when an infant or toddler is removed from their home due to abuse or neglect. The initiative offers distinct approaches targeted at improving outcomes for these vulnerable infants and young children in California and Washington. Each project offers a groundbreaking approach that harnesses the strengths and resources of their respective communities.

The overarching goal of Safe Starts is to develop models for avoiding long-term harm as a result of trauma during infancy and early childhood that can be widely replicated.

Very young children in the child welfare system are at great risk for long-term harm because their brains are developing more rapidly than at any other time in their lives. By age three, a baby’s brain is 85 percent of its adult size. The brain is laying down the pathways that will ultimately govern the child’s reactions to events – long after he or she becomes an adult.

"Practice & Policy Brief" from the Zero to Three Policy Center, March 2007

Strategies

This initiative actively engages a broad range of community stakeholders and offers extensive training and technical assistance to help inform and enhance the overall work.

• California’s model is exploratory in nature and is focused on implementing practice change that will improve the way child welfare services are provided to infants, toddlers and young children.
• Washington has embedded their services within the Juvenile Court system and will be testing a more specific clinical approach that provides early intervention mental health services to infants, young children, their biological parents, and their caregivers.

Impact

The following mid-term results are anticipated for this nascent initiative:

• Improved outcomes for infants and children in foster care as measured by: improved placement stability rates; increased reunification rates; and a decline in the percentage of infants and toddlers who re-enter foster care.
• Staff at all levels of the child welfare organization will have the knowledge and skills needed to promote the healthy development and well being of young foster children ages birth to six.
• Improved system collaboration with increased learning opportunities for judicial officers, foster parents, and other caregivers resulting in: long-term placements for infants and small children with families willing to adopt and concurrent planning for re-unification and permanency without disrupting placements.