Chapin Hall

Lutheran Services of America (LSA) aims to reduce the disproportionate number of children of color who are separated from their families due to child welfare system involvement. To help reach that goal, they launched the Family Stabilization Initiative in 2021. Working with four organizations in Alaska, Montana, South Dakota and Washington, they developed and implemented an approach with high-fidelity wraparound services to promote child abuse prevention and family preservation.

In 2023, LSA contacted Chapin Hall to help synthesize the lessons learned from this approach. Chapin Hall reviewed documentation of the program and evaluation reports, and we facilitated a series of discussions with LSA leadership, Family Stabilization Initiative staff and participants about what contributed to sustainability. From that grounding, Chapin Hall, in partnership with LSA, developed the Family Stabilization Initiative Sustainability Toolkit.

The toolkit is for any organization interested in applying race equity and sustainability best practices in their implementation of evidence-based or evidence-informed programming. The toolkit includes:

• Guidelines for creating a learning collaborative
• Wraparound service delivery model options
• Clear guiding principles for advancing race equity
• Key components for equity-centered sustainability
• List of barriers to addressing race equity
• Examples of diversity in partnership and asset mobilization
• Steps and messaging for effective change management

The toolkit demonstrates how issues of race can be centered in program implementation and sustainability efforts. Ultimately, the goal of this work is to not only dismantle racial disparities in child welfare, but also to accelerate the shift in child welfare from intervention to prevention.

Work on this toolkit was led by Dr. Julie McCrae, a Senior Researcher at Chapin Hall and former Policy Analyst Alyssa Broxton. Policy Analyst Samantha Steinmetz and Dr. Katherine L. Casillas also worked on developing and refining this toolkit.

For more information about this work or general questions, please contact Julie McCrae.

Download the Sustainability Toolkit