Our Executive Director Desiree Doherty is traveling this week to Anaheim, California for the 5th annual Conference on Differential Response. Here’s a note from Desiree:
Differential response is an approach that allows child protective services to respond differently to accepted reports of child abuse and neglect and to engage organizations like The Parent Child Center of Tulsa for family assessment and timely, strengths-based services that build protective factors in those families. This year’s conference highlights successful ways in which states and local communities are responding differently to the needs of families involved in, or at risk of being involved in, the formal child protection system. I will meet people from across the country who are leading evidence based programs to increase the safety, stability and well-being of children and their families.
The four “tracks” of the conference are:
1. Prevention and early intervention
2. Options for alternative response, family assessment or differential response
3. Traditional response/investigation
4. Chronic neglect
Because Oklahoma reflects what is happening nationally – physical abuse has trended down slightly, chronic neglect has trended up significantly – I am especially interested in #4.
P.S. The Front Porch Project© of Tulsa, launched in 2009 by The Parent Child Center of Tulsa with support from the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, uses American Humane’s national model of grassroots neighborhood education to engage concerned adults in promoting safety for our community’s children.
