Children's Trust of South Carolina

Program funding: Children's Trust financially supports community-based organizations to deliver proven prevention programs. These programs are evidence-based, employ two-generation strategies serving parents and their children, and are rooted in the protective factors framework. Children's Trust funds the strengthening families program, positive parenting program (triple p), parents as teachers, healthy families america, and nurse-family partnership. Children's Trust also funds child abuse prevention month activities and concrete resources and service provision to family resource centers. Through its federal maternal, infant and early childhood home visiting and american rescue plan act grants, Children's Trust awarded more than $7.3 million to 15 local implementing agencies to provide home visiting services with the healthy families america, parent as teachers, and/or nurse-family partnership models. These agencies served 1,420 households, including 1,256 index children, and administered 17,814 home visits.the strengthening families program (sfp) served 1,109 families and 1,918 children ages 6-11 with an additional 454 children impacted outside the target age range. We funded 23 organizations in 33 counties in a combination of rural, urban, and suburban areas. A partnership with the s.c. department of social services and the duke endowment funds a significant portion of sfp programming. Children's Trust received a department of justice second chance grant totaling $742,000 to launch the strengthening families program for incarcerated fathers and their children in the manning reentry/work release center. Additional funding comes from an allocation through the state of South Carolina general fund and grants and contracts with s.c. department of health and environmental control and s.c. department of alcohol and other drug abuse services.triple p served 930 caregivers impacting 1,617 children. Children's Trust continued to focus on building a network of triple p practitioners across South Carolina and hosted four networking opportunities with 60 practitioners attending. The first triple p South Carolina practitioner summit was hosted in september 2023 with 47 practitioners representing 18 South Carolina counties. Bluecross blueshield foundation awarded a $1.4 million grant to Children's Trust to expand adolescent mental and physical health services by delivering teen triple p. Children's Trust awarded almost $300,000 to four family resource centers to expand services using the following models: healthy families america, triple p, and strengthening families program. The family support network grew to 16 organizations, including family resource centers and supporting organizations.

Advocacy and messaging: Children's Trust uses various strategies and communication channels to grow support and awareness for the work of preventing child abuse and neglect and building family well-being. Messaging educates families and child-serving professionals on prevention strategies, and advocates with thought-leaders and policy makers for greater prevention investments. Children's Trust leads the concerted effort for child abuse prevention (cap) month in South Carolina. 140 partners received messaging materials and participated in child abuse prevention month awareness activities. Children's Trust provided direct financial support to 25 organizations for their events and activities, reaching an estimated 3,400 parents and children. The campaign tools webpage had 1,643 pageviews with 459 downloads of materials with the toolkit being the most popular with 303 downloads. Gov. Henry mcmaster held a press conference in his chambers at the statehouse reading the proclamation that declared "april as child abuse prevention month" in South Carolina. Multiple jurisdictions also issued proclamations including greenville county, city of greenville, lexington county, richland county, columbia, mt. Pleasant, charleston, clemson, clinton, aiken and georgetown. South Carolina was ranked no. 41 nationally in child and family well-being, according to the 2023 kids count data book, a 50-state report of recent household data developed by the annie e. casey foundation analyzing the well-being of children and their families. Public relations efforts gained interviews and news stories that reached a statewide audience. Children's Trust staff presented kids count data to several entities, including the self family foundation, leadership South Carolina, and the bunnell foundation. Triple p launched its first practitioners summit engaging triple p professionals from across the state in networking and learning.dr. Ramkumar jayagopalan, beverly hamilton and christopher hanson, Children's Trust board members testified before the s.c. joint citizens and legislative committee on children to advance and expand home visitation across South Carolina.

Strategy and accountability: Children's Trust provides financial management and oversight and programmatic technical assistance to its funded partners, working closely with them to guarantee that program models are implemented with fidelity, measured for effectiveness, and delivered with intended results. To maximize and ensure its prevention investments, the organization also conducts research, studies and shares best practices from around the country, and provides data and insights for child maltreatment and well-being in South carolina.children's Trust completed a partnership assessment with its funded program partners. A significant majority (92 percent) of respondents reported that the benefits of the partnership exceed the drawbacks and that Children's Trust meets or exceeds their support needs 98 percent of the time. Specific benefits of participation included an enhanced ability to have a greater impact than the organization could have on its own (100 percent), an enhanced ability to contribute to the community (100 percent), and an enhanced ability to prevent child abuse and neglect (98 percent).

Training and partner capacity building: Children's Trust empowers local partners and stakeholders to build change, promote prevention practices, and grow family well-being in their communities. To accomplish this, the organization trains child-serving professionals, convenes coalitions and networks and promotes best practices and standards of quality. Adverse-childhood experiences trainings-of-trainers to staff in the education field, adding more than 150 master trainers to a list of over 300 across the state. During the year, these trainers facilitated in-person and virtual training sessions for more than 400 individuals in the field of education. These trainers join others from a variety of backgrounds, including social workers, health educators, and community members who strive to raise awareness and educate South carolinians on how adversity early in life can affect the developing brain, how to build resilience and how to help children and families overcome adversity and thrive. South Carolina parent leader shelina flarisee was selected to serve on the alliance national parent partnership council (anppc). The anppc is a group of parent leaders from across the nation who work to support and align the work of the Children's Trust fund alliance by sharing parent perspectives and experiences. During national parent leadership month, Children's Trust spotlighted parents, including tamia anthony, krystal edwards and amanda ingle who shared their stories of resilience and success.in response to the national initiative thriving families, safer children: a commitment to family well-being, Children's Trust, in partnership with sc department of social services, launched thriving families in orangeburg and newberry counties. Both counties galvanized community input and voice to address needs in their local areas. Key issues of focus will be food insecurity, public safety, safe and stable housing, mental health services and adolescent youth.