Summary and Vision for the Future

Abstract

This chapter creates a vision for future child welfare practice by summarizing the innovations and trauma-informed strategies that child welfare agencies can enact to create a trauma-responsive culture and better meet their goals in the areas of safety, permanency, and well-being. A synthesis of recommendations, challenges and successes achieved by innovators in the field are offered as a means of stimulating application, field trials, and local adaptations. Key strategies in the areas of cross-system collaboration, attendance to new legislative mandates, and a willingness to attend to the parallel process of workforce development and child protection so that trauma exposed workers can effectively manage their work are presented. Additionally, this chapter identifies a number of current or emerging issues that still need to be addressed in a meaningful way – how to establish physical and psychological safety in the child welfare workforce, preventing, and responding to secondary traumatic stress, ways to sustain trauma responsive programming and innovations, incorporating cultural and linguistic competencies into child welfare practice, and meeting the urgent need of trafficking victims.