Family Voice Curious
What is Family Voice Curious?
Family Voice Curious organizations act with intention, engaging the families they serve in all aspects of work, from day-to-day activities to the big-picture vision. Trauma-informed services and strengths-based approaches are part of the way Family Voice Curious organizations do their work, but it’s deeper than that. Family Voice Curious means that families’ knowledge, skills, needs, and decisions are woven throughout every aspect of operations. We believe that the most creative and effective services only happen when we work with people who know the issue from the inside out: the families, children, and individuals we serve.
Family Voice Curious Toolkit
Why become Family Voice Curious? Well, it’s best practice, it’s required, and it’s transformative.
We can improve the way we talk to families. Examples of how to turn deficit-based language into strengths-based language.
Maintaining family connections improves outcomes for kids and families.
There are many different ways to be Family Voice Curious. Organizations need to grow their own methods to be Family Voice Curious based on the unique cultures of their own families, staff, history, and place. But there are common themes, and we can learn a lot from groups that are already working as Family Voice Curious organizations. Below you can learn more about two great Montana examples.
A working group of the Zero to Five Butte-Silver Bow Collaborative outlines how it engages parents and families.
Organizational commitment puts people with lived experience in leadership positions and opens the community to their facility.
Family Voice Curious in Schools
Literature review on multiple ways to engage families as partners in schools.
Family Voice Curious in the Courts
National Child Traumatic Stress Network document about the necessity of family engagement in becoming a trauma-informed system.
Report on essential supports for and engagement with youth in kinship care and older youth in the adoption process, from the Youth Engagement Team of the Administration for Children and Families.
The case for family and youth engagement in juvenile justice and child welfare, and strategies to include families.
A child protection best practices bulletin from the New Mexico courts that outlines a family-centered structure and roles for developing parent-child visitation.
Family Voice Curious in the Child Welfare System
Partners for Our Children summary on the importance of maintaining family connections for children in out-of-home care.
If leaders commit, any organization can become Family Voice Curious. But it isn’t always easy to see where and how to begin. Every organization is different, so there is no exact recipe or method. These organizational self-assessments can help you understand your own agency and decide where to start.
Created by the Building Bridges Initiative, which works to improve systems and create positive outcomes for children and families who experience a residential intervention.
Created by the Center for the Study of Social Policy. There are self-assessments for early care and education, child care providers, home visiting programs, and community-based programs, as well as an outline of an action plan for program improvement.
Also created by the Center for the Study of Social Policy. This in-depth resource provides comprehensive and abridged versions of a leadership assessment, along with guides for next steps.
Lived Experience
Organization of current and former foster youth that provides federal stakeholders with information about policies that affect families.
National network for youth in foster care.
A Building Bridges Initiative guide on family-driven practice.
Becoming Family Voice Curious
Four-part video series outlining the concept of cultural humility and why we need it.
Assessments, handbooks, guides, and other tools to build partnerships with youth and families.
Resources for building relationships with youth and families, including assessments, videos, and strategies, from the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health.
The Montana Family to Family Health Information Center, at the UM Rural Institute for Inclusive Communities, is part of Family Voices. Family Voices promotes partnerships between families and children with special health needs and the professionals who work with them. Family Voices maintains a community of practice that offers resources and free technical assistance for organizations to promote strong family engagement. A request is necessary to access the free tools.