American Humane Launches Center to Address Racial Disparities in Colorado's Child Welfare System.

Colorado Disparities Resource Center Will Help Balance Inequities for Families and Children of Color

DENVER -- American Humane, in conjunction with the Colorado Department of Human Services, was recently awarded approximately $250,000 in federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families funds to launch the Colorado Disparities Resource Center (CRDC).

This groundbreaking initiative will help the state address a pervasive problem in Colorado and the country as a whole: disproportional representation and differential treatment of children and families of color in the child welfare system. Research shows that parents of color are no more likely to abuse or neglect their children than other parents. However, they are overrepresented in the system, and do not always receive the same level of service administered to other families and children.

The CDRC will increase awareness of the actual levels of disparities in child protection services to county department managers. CDRC workers will achieve this by monitoring the development of state and county plans, and by obtaining and using data from Colorado Trails, an automated system that tracks all child protection cases in the state. The CDRC will then be able to provide an accurate account of the disproportion of families and children of color in Colorado's system, as well as disparities in the state's child welfare services over the funding period of May 2009 through June 2010.

In addition, the CDRC will assist needy families so that children can be cared for in their own homes. This will reduce the tragic outcomes that sometimes stem from placing children in foster care.

The CDRC's first steps will include integrating the recommendations currently being drafted from the Governor's Child Welfare Action Committee. Specifically, the CDRC will recruit a CDRC Advisory Committee, hire a CDRC coordinator to be housed at the Colorado Department of Human Services, and develop and implement strategies to achieve systemic change at both local and state levels. These steps will pave the way for an effective response to the issue of inequitable outcomes for families and children.

Collaborative activities will include convening regional roundtables across the state to create broad-based ownership of and accountability for consistency and excellence in the provision of child protection services.

American Humane is also partnering with members of the University of California, Berkeley's Child Welfare Research Center team and the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. The project will be overseen by Donna Parrish, M.A., LPC, project director for the Colorado Disparities Resource Center, and Dr. John Fluke, director of American Humane's Child Protection Research Center.