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Prevention Resources for the Professional

Want to make sure your staff and board have access to tools to support your prevention efforts and leverage existing resources? Below you will find a growing list of resources to support the development of your staff and board.


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A Social Worker’s Toolkit for Working With Immigrant Families

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This toolkit identifies trauma that immigrant families may experience from involvement with the Child Welfare System and the challenges professionals face in untangling the range of factors that contribute to an immigrant families’ capacity to protect and nurture their children.

Sections: Overview of Child Welfare Practice With Immigrant and Refugee Families, Guidelines for Integrating Child Welfare Practice With Trauma-Informed Care, Building Child Welfare Agency Capacity, and Case Examples.


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Blending Nonprofit Succession Planning and Executive Transition: A Successful Case

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While it is tempting to deny it, every leader will transition someday. The approaches listed below offer leaders expanded choices that do the following:

  • Transform the fear of executive transition into a proactive, empowering opportunity to increase focus on mission results and the leadership team needed to achieve the desired results.
  • Reduce the disruption and risks of executive transition.
  • Support organizations where needed in major repositioning or turnaround.
  • Make more coherent the emotionally charged transitions of founders and long-tenured executives.
  • Expand the culture and practices of leader development, inclusion, and diversity.
  • Open the possibility of new approaches to sharing power and leadership.
  • Consider more fully the possibility of a new partnership or merger before deciding to hire another executive.
  • Address shifts in funding and the political environment, and rethink the connection between mission, strategy, and how the work of the organization is supported.
  • Prepare for unplanned and planned transitions through a deeper approach to succession planning.

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Board Effectiveness Survey

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This survey can be used as a template to gauge engagement, satisfaction, and effectiveness of an organization's board.


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Budgeting for Nonprofits

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A key component of financial sustainability is the commitment of board and staff to financial management that includes timely review of financial reports and advance planning. One way that board and staff plan for income and expenses in the future is by creating a budget. Approval of the annual budget is one of the fundamental building blocks of sound financial management.


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California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse (CEBC) for Child Welfare

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The California Department of Social Services developed the CEBC to identify and disseminate information related to evidence-based practices relevant to child welfare. The clearinghouse ranks programs based upon their level of evidence around outcomes and implementation.


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Capacity Building for Innovation in Child Welfare

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This tool explores current research and the most effective ways to build organizational capacity for innovation in child welfare in five areas of capacity building: resources, infrastructure, knowledge and skills, culture and climate, and engagement and partnership. The brief also discusses possible challenges to innovation and potential solutions.


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Child Welfare Toolkit: System Change for Successful Children

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Includes: understanding the child welfare system, trauma-informed practices guidelines, resources to support children and families, accessing support, and handouts for parents.


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Collaborative Leadership Consulting

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80% of executives rate their organizations as challenged with internal collaboration. It starts with leadership grounded in the principles and practices of collaborative leadership. We apply them to the solution of real-time business challenges.


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Community Maltreatment Risk Maps

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These maps are intended to provide communities in Texas with information about their maltreatment risk and to provide insight as to which factors are associated with that risk. PEI webinars forthcoming.


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Compassion Fatigue

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Use this Life Stress Test to objectively evaluate the amount of pressure you are facing. As caregivers, we are often stressed and don’t know why. Without realizing the effects that life circumstances have on us, we tend to sweep our feelings of frustration, sadness, and turmoil under the rug.


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Determining Evidence-Base Levels

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This FederalRegistry.gov document details levels of evidence in section 471(e)(4)(C) of the Families First Act and proposed criteria for inclusion in the Families First Clearinghouse.


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Early Childhood System Performance Assessment Toolkit

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Created by the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) and updated in partnership with NICHQ and our Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems CoIIN, this set of tools measures various aspects of how well local early childhood systems are working to improve the reach of:

  • Child and family services
  • Commitment of the community to early childhood issues
  • Equity and parent leadership

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Fatherhood Resources for Dads and Organizations

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The National Fatherhood Initiative (NFI) equips programs with knowledge, skills and resources to effectively engage fathers in their children’s lives.

This website provides resources for fathers to access directly:

  • 24/7 Dad
  • InsideOut Dad
  • Understanding Dad
  • Program evaluations
  • Fatherhood research
  • Evaluation instruments
  • Ebooks
  • On-demand webinars

NFI also has a community mobilization approach to mobilizing around responsible fatherhood.


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FrameWorks Toolkits

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To make it easy for a field of advocates to get on frame, FrameWorks toolkits translate the findings of their research into formats that help guide advocacy communications. Contents include talking points, quick-start guides to the key shifts and core frame elements that are essential for reframing a particular issue, model responses to hot-topic questions, slides that can be added to advocates’ presentations, and “swiss cheese” editorials that organizations can customize for op/eds or blog posts.


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Messaging and Branding: Plain Language

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Messaging and branding checklists and handouts:

  • Checklist for plain language
  • Style guides
  • Books
  • Aritcles
  • Writing and reference tools
  • Content types

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Messaging and Branding: The Goodman Center

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Stories are your single most powerful communication tool. They help us remember, shape our identity, and influence how we see the world. Learn how to use stories in advocacy, development, recruiting and every aspect of your internal and external communications. Books and periodicals available through this site include:

  • Storytelling best practices
  • Why bad presentations happen to good causes
  • Why bad ads happen to good causes
  • Free-range thinking

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Mission Capital Research and Tools

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Mission Capital provides the tools and guidance needed to tackle these complex issues and create lasting social change. We combine human, financial, intellectual, social and political capital to fuel the work of mission-driven people and organizations.

Vision: Complex community problems get solved.
Mission: We multiply the impact of mission-driven people and organizations.

From in-depth research to how-to documents, get the information and tools you need to answer your nonprofit and philanthropy questions.


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Nonprofit Fundraising Strategic Plan Guide

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The Nonprofit Fundraising Strategic Plan Guide explores the fundraising planning process and breaks down each of the necessary elements that will allow you and your team to elevate your next campaign. The elements of this strategic plan are:

  • Making your case
  • Choosing your team
  • Sizing up your assets
  • Exploring funding source prospects
  • Understanding your supporter base
  • Ready, set, goals!

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Nonprofit Human Resources Retention Solutions

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Nonprofit HR was founded with one goal in mind: to strengthen the nonprofit sector by strengthening its people. This article focuses on four crucial retention challenges and solutions for nonprofits.


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PEI School Engagement Tip Sheet

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This document provides tips for non-profits to effectively engage school communities. Feedback and advice from education professionals were used to create strategies to promote partnerships between non-profit organizations and schools or school districts.


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Prevention-Focused System

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Shifting toward a prevention-oriented child welfare system is a bold venture. It requires a reimagined mindset of keeping children safe within their families and communities. Child welfare agencies must actively collaborate with other agencies, community partners, service providers, families, and youth to co-create their shared vision and develop strategies for building protective factors, supporting families, and preventing child abuse and neglect.

Visioning for Prevention: Protecting Children Through Strengthening Families

  • A Guide to Five Dimensions of Organizational Capacity
    Describes a framework for and key concepts of building organizational capacity as part of planning for agency and program improvement initiatives. This guide also provides resources on different aspects of organizational capacity.
  • Dimension: Organizational Culture and Climate
    Presents foundational information, definitions, and resource links for understanding organizational culture and climate.
  • Change and Implementation in Practice Series
    Includes research-informed and user-friendly resources with step-by-step guidance that can help agencies successfully implement strategies for system-level changes in culture and climate.
  • Becoming a Family-Focused System
    Presents a collection of user-friendly resources designed to help teams assess and amplify positive agency culture and climate, identify areas that need attention, and implement strategies to bring about meaningful and sustainable improvements.

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Professional Development in Home Visiting: What to Do Before, During, and After the Training

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This article presents a range of strategies awardees and local implementing agencies can use before, during, and after the training to facilitate the training transfer process.


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Program Implementation

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The mission of the National Implementation Research Network (NIRN) is to contribute to the best practices and science of implementation, organization change, and system reinvention to improve outcomes across the spectrum of human services. NIRN provides tools and best practices to help communities improve program implementation.


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Programmatic & Leadership Succession Planning

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This article on the Bridgespan Group website discusses proactively identifying and developing new leaders to succeed current ones and meet the nonprofit's future leadership needs.


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Results First Clearing House Database

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The Results First Clearinghouse Database is an online resource that brings together information on the effectiveness of social policy programs from nine national clearinghouses. It applies color-coding to the clearinghouses’ distinct rating systems, creating a common language that enables users to quickly see where each program falls on a spectrum from negative impact to positive impact.


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Secondary Trauma Stress (STS)

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The National Child Traumatic Stess Network website offers child-serving professionals information about secondary traumatic stress (STS). The fact sheet in this link describes how individuals experience STS and offers an understanding of who is at risk, how to identify STS, strategies for prevention and intervention, and essential elements to address STS.


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Seeking Equity Calls Us to Cultural Humility

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The movement toward prevention and racial equity requires a deep examination of the harm that children—particularly Black and Native American/Alaska Native children—have experienced in the child welfare system and an intentional adoption of culturally responsive services driven by the needs and expertise of children, youth, and families.


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The Online Writing Lab (OWL)

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The Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue University houses writing resources and instructional material, and provides these as a free service of the Writing Lab at Purdue. Students, members of the community, and users worldwide will find information to assist with many writing projects. Teachers and trainers may use this material for in-class and out-of-class instruction.


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Tips to Combat Nonprofit Burnout

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This article highlights many tips for combatting burnout and compassion fatigue in the post-COVID nonprofit sector.


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Tools for Championing Community Leadership in System Transformation

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This toolkit highlights a number of broad strategies for community leadership, promoting equity, and establishing partnerships.


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Understanding the Value of Backbone Organizations in Collective Impact: Part 1-4

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The Greater Cincinnati Foundation (GCF) and the nonprofit consulting firm FSG partnered to understand and evaluate the role of backbone organizations in collective impact efforts. This four-part blog post provides an in-depth review of what it takes to be a backbone organization, and how to evaluate and support its work.


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Using Qualitative Data in Program Evaluation: Telling the Story of a Prevention Program

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This resource is a guide that was developed as a resource for program administrators, managers, direct service practitioners, and others as they expand and enhance current and future evaluation efforts by understanding and using qualitative methods.


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Violence Prevention Technical Packages

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Use evidence-based strategies in your violence prevention efforts.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has developed technical packages to help states and communities take advantage of the best available evidence to prevent violence.

Each package includes:

  • Strategy: Lays out the direction or actions to achieve the goal of preventing violence.
  • Approach: Includes the specific ways to advance the strategy. This can be accomplished through programs, policies, and practices.
  • Evidence: The evidence for each of the approaches in preventing violence or its associated risk factors is included as the third component.

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Working for Kids

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A community-based educational program that takes an intergenerational approach to putting children on a positive trajectory for success in school and in life.

This program has two components:

  • A community training program that teaches how children develop strong brain pathways to support skill development
  • Aa skills and health evaluation program that works with community partners to evaluate the positive benefits of the training program

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Youth Thrive Blueprint

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The Center for the Study of Social Policy published the Youth Thrive Blueprint. This blueprint is used to support youth-serving agencies and organizations to advance the well-being of young people. While useful in many situations including community and school programs, this was designed with a focus on young people in foster care.

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