Child & Family Well-Being
Access to childcare is a top barrier to safety. In different studies, 83-percent of survivors say they cannot support themselves and their children on their income, and 38% say childcare sabotage impacts their ability to work (Futures Without Violence, 2022). Having children should not be a predictor of violence or poverty, allow poor treatment from service systems, nor disqualify people from support. And children deserve opportunity, nurturing, safety, and well-being.
Given this, research shows children can be a risk factor to IPV, and child poverty and youth disconnection are potential predictors and outcomes of abuse that must be addressed to create equity across the generations.
The purpose of this Child & Family Well-Being Safety Landscape is to share data that helps tell the story of:
- Whether survivors have access to the resources and protections to keep their children and families safe from abuse and poverty
- Which populations have more or less options for child & family well-being and safety
- What child & family well-being for survivors looks like, and what is required to create it in our states
“What I see is that there is less of a safety net for children and teens. Therefore, more minors are experiencing abuse, neglect, and exploitation due to lack of in-person and ongoing relationships with school and other services, for example…The pandemic has isolated children with no real safety net to fall back on.”
– advocate-respondent from CSAJ’s Economic Impact of COVID-19 Survey
Child & Family Well-Being Dashboard
Note: Dashboards are best viewed on a desktop or laptop computer in full screen mode. The layout and functionality may distort to fit smart-phone screens.
View Methodology & Documentation Doc for a list of all terms, data, and data sources for each Safety Landscape.
- Full-screen mode: If the embedded dashboard below is hard to view, click the “expand” icon in the lower right corner of the window to view in full screen mode.
- Filters (dropdown menus): In the dashboard below, there are five filters (dropdown menus) that allow you to change and refine data in the chart (from left to right): Indicator Type, Child & Family Indicator, Demographic Factor, Race/Ethnicity, and Year
- Using the filters to select/refine data in the view: From the “Indicator Type” dropdown (far left) select the category of data you want to view: Access or Outcome. Then select a specific data point from the “Child & Family Indicator” dropdown to view in the map and related charts. Some indicators can be further refined by using the “Demographic Factor” and “Race/Ethnicity” dropdowns. (If there is no data available in thes dropdowns, “no sub-category data” and “no race/ethnicity data” will appear in the dropdown window)
- A note on the “Year” dropdown menu: Some indicators come from datasets from different years. If map or other chart detail disappears in the dashboard, try selecting a different year.
- In the map view: Hover over states for pop-ups with additional state-specific data.
- In the State to State Comparison chart (below map): View how states are distributed on the data point you selected via all five dropdowns. Assess whether your state ranks higher or lower on the selected indicator, is clustered with other states, and/or is above or below the national average (the vertical red line).
- In the All States/Territories chart (right of map): View specific statistics for states, sorted by top and bottom. Use the slider and dropdown to display more states or change how it is sorted.
- Click on your state in the map view: Toggle to a state drill-down with the details on the selected indicator for your state, including general population and rates of violence data.
- Click the download icon (bottom-right): To download a PDF, image, or PowerPoint slide of the dashboard. Ensure you’ve selected the data point via all five dropdowns and the view you want. Bring this to meetings, share with partners, add your own data to supplement, and use it in your advocacy!
- What are the costs of childcare and access to legal custody or other family matters in your state? What else do you know about survivors’ lived realities to add to this picture?
- Do children have access to food and basic resources in your state?
- What other data would help paint the picture of survivors’ child and family-related inequities?
- What’s upstream from the picture painted here? What policies, funding, or other forces play a role in?
SEED-ing Advocacy
Click the links below to craft stories to fuel your advocacy & share your work, data, and recommendations with others. First, consider:
- What data stands out to you?
- How can this data be useful?
- What other data do you have to supplement what you see here? What else do you need?
- How can this data support your advocacy? Or how can your past advocacy efforts, insights, and lessons learned help others and improve the dashboard?
Use the prompts below to practice using dashboard data to craft and submit stories and ideas for systems change. You can also request assistance from CSAJ.
Use the prompts below to share your advocacy stories and best-practices with us. We’ll anonymize and add these as “map layers” in the dashboards in the future so the entire field can benefit. You can also request assistance from CSAJ.
Supplemental Resources
These additional resources are not meant to be exhaustive, but to fill some data gaps, and serve examples of data you may have (or could collect), including how it can be compiled and used in advocacy efforts. And they are meant to spur your curiosity to explore further.
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State-level Data for Understanding Child Welfare (2023) State and national data on child maltreatment, foster care, kinship caregiving, permanency, and older youth in care
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Childcare Costs in the United States National and state data from the Economic Policy Institute
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Domestic Relations Caseload Data State-level data from the Court Statistics Project on court caseloads including civil protection orders, custody, and divorce
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Justice Index A snapshot of the degree to which each US state has adopted best policies for ensuring access to justice justice for all people
Looking Upstream: Policy & Systems Change
Check back soon!
We are currently developing a National Survivor Economic Equity Policy Platform and will be adding more specific policy analysis to the dashboards and website.
