As a pediatrician, the disinformation is the most disheartening. But unfortunately, not surprising. Shortly before the pandemic started, I gave a talk at a large children’s hospital entitled “Protecting abused children in the age of alternative facts: lessons from the frontline”. I noted that when I started in medicine, physicians and scientists seemed to agree on facts, although had many disparate opinions based on those facts. But as in politics, there now seems to be a movement to develop separate sets of facts to help advance different agendas in medicine and science. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, science is defined as “knowledge about or study of the natural world based on facts learned through experiments and observation”. In medicine, good science doesn’t care about opinions, but advances knowledge and health through careful, methodologically sound research. In my field of child abuse pediatrics, we have been challenged by methodologically unsound research and publications that serve to obfuscate facts and build an alternative story- mostly for the courts. What is happening in my little corner of medicine is also happening with COVID – different facts for different audiences.

Cindy W. Christian, MD

Anthony A. Latini Chair in Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention

The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

Assistant Dean, Community Engagement, PDI

Professor of Pediatrics

The Perelman School of Medicine

The University of Pennsylvania

Around the world, communities are grappling with COVID-19’s harm. The pandemic continues to expose and increase inequities in health, economic welfare, and education. Sponsored by Fidelity Charitable, and informed by new research from the Field Center, the Center for High Impact Philanthropy’s 2022 High Impact Giving Guide gives guidance to fund a more equitable future in five key areas: early school success, youth & young adults, mental health & well-being, basic needs, and sustainable livelihoods. The guide discusses ways funders can work to address those inequities and ensure a more just recovery from COVID-19.

Principal Investigator and Managing Faculty Director Dr. Johanna Greeson presented preliminary results from the 2021 study “I Was Already Broke; Now I Feel Broken”: Amplifying the Voices of Youth Experiencing & Aged Out of Foster Care During COVID-19 & Its Impact on Mental Health” during CHIP’s Launch Webinar on January 20^th. Research participants offered valuable insights into the resources, supports, and resilience factors that helped them manage their mental health during the pandemic, informing the key strategies. Click here to view a recording of the webinar.

In the preview version of CHIP’s 2022 High Impact Giving Guide: How to Support a Just Recovery From COVID, you’ll also find:

Field Center Faculty Directors hold myriad roles at the University of Pennsylvania and in the community. The breadth and depth of their work drives our interdisciplinary collaboration. In this edition of News From the Field, we are thrilled to share some recent highlights from Faculty Director Dr. Sara Jaffee. Dr. Jaffee, a Professor in the Department of Psychology, joined the Field Center as a Faculty Director in 2017. She brings invaluable expertise in the study of at-risk families and children to the Field Center. This spring semester, in addition to teaching a graduate seminar in developmental psychopathology, Dr. Jaffee says she is excited about a new study to get a better understanding of the people, places, and situations that contribute to a sense of belonging at Penn for students who are first in their family to go to college. Her team will be tracking how day-to-day changes in experiences that affect one’s sense of belonging influence mood and long-term academic performance. She is also involved in collaborative studies ranging from assessing complex implications of Adverse Childhood Experiences to intervention-driven child maltreatment prevention.

Following a decade of contributions to the University, in May of 2021, Dr. Jaffee was named to the 13^th cohort of Penn Fellows. This prestigious one-year appointment is a fitting recognition of her leadership potential. The cohort meets throughout the year and allows faculty the opportunity to learn about larger leadership roles at Penn and interact with colleagues they wouldn’t otherwise meet from other Penn schools. “I’m struck by how some of the challenges we encounter are very similar despite significant differences in our scholarship and in the size and organization of our schools,” says Dr. Jaffee. Fellows gain a “big picture” perspective on the University and how it works, developing future leaders with administrative and financial understanding.

Applying her research to practice, just this month Dr. Jaffee was appointed to the Philadelphia Child Welfare Oversight Board (CWOB), created in 2018 by Mayor Jim Kenney to review and assess the City of Philadelphia Department of Human Services. The volunteer members of the CWOB reflect expertise in child welfare and related fields, including members with lived experience. Dr. Jaffee says “I’m extremely honored to be asked to serve on the CWOB. I appreciate the opportunity to learn about the many ways child welfare workers and administrators in Philadelphia are working to promote child and family well-being. I am inspired by the passion and commitment these individuals bring to their work. I look forward to contributing my expertise towards their efforts in whatever ways are helpful.”

With her ever-positive outlook, Dr. Jaffee hopes that 2022 will bring more collaborations – and fewer Zoom meetings! Her Field Center colleagues know that Dr. Sara Jaffee’s contributions in 2022 will continue to make an impact in the policy, practice, and research arenas in which she works.

here.

The Field Center is grateful for the support of a Trustees’ Council of Penn Women Grant for our “Foster Care to College” work. Learn more about this project here.

Stay up to date with the latest in child welfare by following the Field Center on social media. Click the buttons below to follow The Field Center:

The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) National Conference on Juvenile Justice

March 13-16, 2022

Pittsburgh, PA

National Indian Child Welfare Association 40^th Annual Protecting Our Children Conference

April 3-6, 2022

Orlando, FL & Virtual

April 13-14, 2022

Sarasota, FL

April 27-29, 2022

Washington, DC

May 17-19, 2022

Bowling Green, KY

June 6-10, 2022

New Orleans, LA

July 17-20, 2022

New Orleans, LA

Aug 22-24, 2022

Baltimore, MD

Sept 21-23, 2022

Virtual

Amidst widespread discussions in the field of child welfare on the merits of systemic reform or the value in the movement to abolish child protective services, Mical Raz’s 2020 book, Abusive Policies: How the American Child Welfare System Lost Its Way, looks at some of the decisions that brought the field to this point. Raz, a physician and historian, and a Professor in Public Policy and Health at the University of Rochester, uses a historical lens to explore the punishment of poor parents by the child welfare system instead of providing children and families with the resources they so desperately need.

Bringing readers on a journey through select programs and policies, “Abusive Policies” looks at key elements of our child welfare system that impact current functioning and shape perceptions of child abuse, including the proliferation of Mandated Reporting laws, the Indian Child Welfare Act, Parents Anonymous and the pathologization of mothers, adoption incentives, and the philosophy of child removal in general, disproportionately affecting poor children of color. Notably, none of these policies and perceptions address the weak social welfare infrastructure in the US that often contributes to child maltreatment.

Raz calls on readers to attune to the structural factors that impact child well-being, and questions the legacy of child welfare interventions over the past 50-plus years. Child maltreatment, she argues, has been viewed as an individual failing, and prevention strategies that address broader societal issues, such as mitigating conditions like poverty that make it difficult to manage a family have been widely ignored. This continues to ring true today, as even the prevention services authorized for federal reimbursement under the Family First Prevention Services Act target individual-level issues and not the systemic challenges faced by families. In a way, this is a demoralizing realization – that debates in the efforts to prevent child maltreatment have not changed much since the 1960s. Yet we hope that academic works like these can impact the practice of child welfare services. By continuing to collect, assess, and learn from available data to refine practice, and engage in broader strategies to target holistic family well-being, child welfare systems can leave the policies of the past behind and develop 21^st century approaches to maltreatment prevention.