Last month, Benchmarks’ Partnering for Excellence (PFE) Chief Research and Development Officer, Jenny Cooper, and Project Coordinator, Julia Holcomb, co-presented at the Prevent Child Abuse North Carolina (PCANC) 2019 Learning and Leadership Summit in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Benchmarks’ Partnering for Excellence (PFE) is an initiative intended to improve the behavioral health and well-being outcomes for children involved in the child welfare system. It creates a partnership between the local county Department of Social Services (DSS) and the local Managed Care Organization (MCO), two systems that previously operated in siloes. PFE aims to assess for, and appropriately treat, trauma early on at lower levels of care to reduce later escalation to high-end services. This fits in nicely with the theme of this year’s PCANC conference—Connections Matter for Prevention—as prevention is central to the goal of PFE.
The presentation entitled “PFE is Prevention: A Multi-Tiered Approach to Prevention Among Child Welfare Involved Youth” focused on how PFE is shifting the paradigm from crisis to prevention. It discussed child abuse prevention through the Socio-Ecological Model, providing structure to what we can do as individuals, communities, and a society to prevent child abuse. It also discussed how PFE includes primary, secondary, and tertiary trauma prevention through a public health framework in order to stop the intergenerational transmission of child maltreatment.
PFE’s multi-level public health approach is important because we know that trauma doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and that children and families don’t operate in the silos our systems often create. This approach to prevention therefore not only helps to impact children and families already affected by trauma and the systems which aim to assist them, but it also helps to establish a foundational understanding of trauma and trauma-informed practice. Creating a lens that workers in these systems can use as they aim to disrupt the cycle of trauma that families can experience.
This approach was well-received by those in attendance during the presentation. One audience member even noting, “…that [PFE] taught about a new way of approaching care that is working for the community that started it.” PFE staff are excited to continue discussing the work they’re doing and inspiring similar initiatives in other communities.
Written by Julia Holcomb | PFE Project Coordinator
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