Introduction

Take a moment to think about the ideas, information, actions, and practices that you use to provide a high-quality program for children. How do you foster positive relationships with children, youth, and their families? What strategies do you implement to ensure children’s social and emotional needs are being met? How do you proactively guide families in doing the same? As a child and youth professional, you have many strengths that you can draw on to enhance children’s developmental outcomes. These strengths are known as protective factors. The Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) has developed the Strengthening Families Protective Factors Framework that serves, in part, to prevent child abuse and neglect. Understanding this framework can help guide the high-quality, family-centered work that you do every day in your program. As a child and youth professional, you not only care for each child but also provide care and support to the whole family. The Strengthening Families Protective Factors Framework provides us with tools and ideas to support and guide families in areas that result in the optimal growth and development of children. By understanding and implementing the protective factors framework, you can help parents and caregivers find resources and supports that draw on their strengths while also identifying areas where they may need assistance. This reduces the chances of child abuse and neglect occurring.

Protective Factors Framework

Protective factors are conditions or attributes that, when present in families and communities, increase the well-being of children and families and reduce the likelihood of maltreatment (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2023). These are characteristics of individuals, families, and communities that promote positive well-being and healthy child development. While they are often seen as features that help mitigate difficult situations, when viewed as a strengths-based framework, protective factors can be used to guide programs in their responsibility to prevent child maltreatment and encourage healthy outcomes for all children and families.

Each protective factor is thoughtfully related to the others, and together they work to (1) mitigate the effects of stressful life events or exposure to risk factors, and (2) foster each family’s strengths to promote an environment that advances optimal developmental outcomes. You have been introduced to the protective factors in several VLS foundational courses including Child Abuse: Prevention, Child Abuse: Identification & Reporting, and Healthy Environments, as well as in the first training in this series of supplemental trainings, Appropriate Expectations & Responses to Behavior. In this training we will further unpack ways to enhance these characteristics in your program and with the children and families in your care.

As we begin to further unpack each of the five protective factors in the Strengthening Families framework, it’s imperative that we also highlight that there are a variety of approaches to the protective factors framework. In some cases, as such for the Children’s Bureau’s framework, there is a sixth protective factor, Nurturing and Attachment, that is included. In other cases, this factor is interwoven into other components of the framework. Nurturing and Attachment pertains to the early experiences that children have that support their bond with caring adults. This bond provides children with what they need to thrive, including love, acceptance, guidance, and protection. In this training, we will focus on the five protective factors within the Strengthening Families Framework, with the understanding that Nurturing and Attachment is an integral part of each component in this variation. The protective factors highlighted within this framework are (1) Parental Resilience, (2) Social Connections, (3) Knowledge of Parenting and Child Development, (4) Concrete Support in Times of Need, and (5) Social and Emotional Competence of Children. Below we will discuss each one of these and highlight some everyday actions you can take to help enhance these in the children and families you care for.

Parental Resilience

The ability to cope with the stresses of everyday life is a learned skill that everyone needs. Stress reduces your capacity to think creatively, be patient, problem solve, and try new skills—all strategies that are necessary when caring for children. We all have strengths we can draw on. These may include our faith, sense of humor, interpersonal skills, problem-solving skills, supportive relationships, or the ability to access outside resources. We should take the time to ensure we nurture and expand these strengths in ourselves and others.  Parental resilience is about managing stress and developing the capacity to function appropriately when faced with adversity and challenges. In order to enhance this protective factor in parents and caregivers, we must consider the everyday pressures that cause parental stress and how we can help lessen the burden of these stressors. Examples include:

• Typical life events, such as moving or welcoming a new baby
• Unexpected life events, such as losing a job or a new medical diagnosis
• Individual factors, such as traumatic experiences or alcohol abuse
• Social factors, such as divorce or feelings of isolation
• Community, societal, or environmental factors, such as poverty, racism, or natural disasters

(list adapted from CSSP, 2018)

In addition to the factors listed above, the children and families you work with may also experience unique stressors related to military life including deployment, relocation, and atypical working hours.

All parents and caregivers experience stress in varying levels at different times. In order to effectively manage stressful situations, developing parental resilience is key. In your interactions with families and caregivers, you can:

• Express positivity and empower all families in their decision-making abilities.
• Participate in conversations about decision making with families, and respect their thoughts, beliefs, and ideas about their child.
• Encourage self-care by getting to know families and their interests.
• Normalize that parenting is both difficult and stressful at times.
• Acknowledge and validate families’ good choices.

Social Connections

Research suggests that strong social connections promote health, wellness, and longevity (CSSP, 2018). It should be evident to the parents and caregivers of the children in your care that you not only care for their children, but that you also care about them. Demonstrate that you are a person they can trust, and also someone who will listen without judgement and can offer support and recommended resources tailored to their specific child and family. Your role in enhancing this protective factor in parents and caregivers is to promote a sense of connectedness, and to help foster positive relationships with you, other staff members, and other families in your program. The following strategies may assist you in engaging families in developing positive social connections:

• Model positive and appropriate relationship skills in your interactions with families.
• Engage in conversations with parents and caregivers about the positive people in their lives.
• Host events where parents and caregivers can interact with each other and program staff, both with and without their children present. These events can also be a great place to foster connections between new and existing families in your program.
• Demonstrate awareness and sensitivity regarding a family’s PCS, deployment, and training schedules.
• Be aware of the possible presence of issues, such as anxiety or depression, that may inhibit a parent or caregiver’s willingness or ability to develop healthy social connections.

Supportive social connections help mitigate stressors for parents and caregivers, and support nurturing caregiving behaviors. As such, parents’ and caregivers’ high-quality social connections are beneficial to both adults and children.

Knowledge of Child Development and Parenting

Just as knowledge of child development and appropriate expectations for children’s behavior at every age helps you in your role as a child and youth professional, this information also helps parents and caregivers to see their children in a positive way and support healthy development. As you learned in the first supplemental training, upholding unrealistic expectations for children’s behavior is a major risk factor for child abuse and neglect. In a stressful situation, knowledge of appropriate expectations helps caregivers remain calm, recognize child development in action, and understand what skills will guide or enhance the child’s development. Information about child development is likely to be most effective when it comes at the precise time that a caregiver needs it to understand their child. For example, offering information about toilet training is more beneficial to families of toddlers, rather than those with young infants. Therefore, your role in fostering this protective factor relies heavily on understanding what support a family may need, when they will need it, and individualizing the support that you offer. You can enhance this protective factor among families by:

• Engaging families often in conversations about their expectations for their child’s development and provide appropriate feedback or guidance based on developmentally appropriate expectations.
• Modeling appropriate responses and reactions to the child’s behavior. For example, rather than generalizing about a school-age child’s motivation by saying, “Do you love fighting with me about wearing your coat,” help the parent or caregiver figure out what’s going on by stating their observation and asking a question: “It looks like you’re unwilling to wear your coat to school even though it’s cold outside. Why don’t you want to wear it?” This demonstrates positive guidance in an age-appropriate way.
• Providing opportunities for parents and caregivers to engage in parenting education classes or connecting them with similar resources in the community. Resources such as Thrive, which is a new series of developmentally comprehensive, evidence-informed, universal and targeted parenting programs for military and civilian families, is a great place to start. (For more information on the Thrive initiative, see the References & Resources section.)
• Offering parenting education that is appropriate to the specific needs of each child and family. For example, if a parent expresses frustration with facilitating certain routines with their preschooler, a caregiver may share the steps they take, language they use, or tips they implement with the child in the classroom. For example, the caregiver might share how they use a first-then technique with the child (e.g., “First we wash our hands, and then we get to eat lunch”) or share the lyrics to the songs they use (e.g., “Wash, wash, wash your hands, get them nice and clean, scrub the fronts and the backs and fingers in between”).

Enhancing families’ knowledge of child development also includes supporting parents and caregivers with recognizing and understanding developmental delays, positive guidance and discipline techniques, and understanding the influence of culture on parenting practices, which we will discuss later in this training.

Concrete Support in Times of Needs

It’s human nature to need help sometimes. Parents and caregivers in your program should feel comfortable seeking help as needed. As a child and youth professional, you can work to assist parents and caregivers in a way that is respectful, caring, and strengths based. This includes having an awareness of the resources available to military families and connecting parents and caregivers with these resources as appropriate. A strengths-based approach may look and feel like:

• Having a trusting provider-parent relationship,
• Focusing on a families’ assets rather than their adversities,
• Encouraging parents to be active participants in the change process (What can they contribute or control?),
• Scaffolding parents’ learning and understanding of support systems such as social services, or
• Working to change structural inequities instead of just dealing with them.

Remember though, your role is not just to provide resources, but also to build relationships with individuals in order to help understand, identify, and guide families in overcoming barriers or hesitations to using those services. Manageable ways to achieve this are to encourage families to seek help as needed and to provide opportunities for these discussions to occur safely in your program space. Consider ways to make resources available to families at their leisure, such as a resource board, rather than requiring them to ask for support when it’s needed. The References & Resources section includes tools from Military OneSource and OneOp that can aid you in supporting the military families you serve in strengthening this protective factor.

An important element to consider when discussing how to support families, is the time and place at which conversations occur. If you are a direct care staff member or family child care provider, your priority is to maintain oversight of the children in your care during drop-off and pick-up times. If a parent or caregiver expresses a need or requests to engage in a conversation that will likely require more attention than you can provide at that moment, you should offer to schedule a time to talk in person or over the phone. If the conversation requires a more immediate response, engage your Training & Curriculum specialist or Program Manager for support. Supporting the needs of every family should be a program-wide objective.

Social and Emotional Competence of Children

Social and emotional competence is the foundation of the work we do every day in child and youth programs. In the past, a primary focus of early childhood education was on academic skills. More recently, however, studies have shown a significant link between a child’s social-emotional competence and their cognitive development, language development, and future school success. For many families though, much like with their overall knowledge of child development, understanding appropriate expectations for their child’s social and emotional skills, such as self-regulation, executive functioning, and conflict resolution may need additional support and practice. You can guide parents and caregivers in nurturing their child’s social and emotional development by:

• Offering tangible guidance tips and resources to parents (such as those offered in VLS Social & Emotional Development course, the Early Learning Matters curriculum, the Teaching Strategies Gold curriculum, or the Pyramid Model Consortium).
• Utilizing resources such as a center-wide newsletter to highlight social-emotional learning and ways parents can support social and emotional skills at home.
• Modeling responsive interactions with children and developmentally appropriate responses to behaviors.
• Taking time to discuss children’s behavior with their parents or caregivers, focusing on both positive and negative behaviors so families understand what is acceptable or appropriate for the child’s age.
• Using conferences for more in-depth conversations about what developmentally appropriate behaviors and actions look like.

This protective factor focuses on the interactions between the child and family members that support the child in developing strong communication skills, recognizing and regulating their emotions, and establishing and maintaining relationships. Consider the ways you model positive interactions with children for parents and caregivers every day in your program.

Program Practices that Promote Protective Factors in Children and Families

Research has shown that when the five protective factors are well-established in a family or program setting, the risk of child maltreatment decreases substantially (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2023). As a child and youth professional, you should consider the ways that your program can enhance each of the protective factors in the children and families you serve to prevent child abuse and neglect. The following practices have been adapted from the Strengthening Families Approach from the Center for the Study of Social Policy. Programs that promote protective factors in children and families:

• Facilitate friendships and mutual support for families. Your program should provide opportunities for families to interact with one another and build relationships with one another. Examples of this might include a designated time and space for parents to come together and talk each week or taking the time to introduce families to one another during drop-off and pick-up times. Additionally, you could invite families and caregivers to share special talents or aspects of their culture or identity with others in their child’s classroom or program community.
• Strengthen parenting skills. Everyone needs tips sometimes. Your program can offer families learning experiences right when they need them most. For example, your program could offer families of infants and toddlers information on toilet training, biting, guiding behavior, etc. Practicing, modeling, and discussing safe sleep practices is also important for parents of infants. For parents of older children, guidance on technology and media use, promoting a positive body image, or bullying may be helpful.
• Respond to family crises. When crises happen, families need to know there is somewhere they can go for support. Your program might not have all the answers, but it should be a place where families can connect with resources. These might include food, housing, employment, or medical services. Creating a designated space or person that families can go to when they need additional support will help mitigate the concern or confusion that comes with stressful times. Beyond providing tangible resources or connections to resources, simply offering a judgement-free, safe space for parents to express their concerns is another important element of support.
• Connect families to services and opportunities. Your program can connect families with parent support programs, mental health services, employment opportunities, and many other resources in your community. Communicating regularly with parents in your program can help determine if there are specific needs that aren’t being met and assist in linking families with community resources. Asking parents what support they need in a monthly or bi-annual survey, instead of assuming what they need, can build trust and strengthen the relationship between families and caregivers. By sharing useful services and opportunities, you can oftentimes make families aware of something they may have otherwise not known about.
• Observe and respond to early warning signs of abuse and neglect. If concerns are recognized early, your program can help families build their own protective factors and get the help they need to prevent negative outcomes. Plan to check in with staff members, coaches, and program managers frequently to foster a safe and supportive program culture. It may be helpful to include planned check-ins (monthly, quarterly, biannually, or annually) in your program’s policies and practices with the entire program staff.
• Value and support parents. Your program should offer families leadership opportunities in the programs, such as participating on the Family Advisory Board. Be sure you talk to families every day and let them know that you recognize the trust they have placed in you. Demonstrate this trust by incorporating family ideas and contributions in your learning environment or throughout the program space.

Talk to your program leadership about the supports your program currently offers or if you have any concerns about a family. Watch this video to learn more about the Protective Factors framework.

Program Practices that Promote Protective Factors in Staff Members

The same protective factors that help families cope with challenges apply to all adults and each of the protective factors applies to your work with children and youth. The material below has been adapted from the Preventing Child Maltreatment and Promoting Well-Being: A Network for Action 2013 Resource Guide by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

• Adult Resilience: Everyone needs the ability to cope with the stresses of everyday life. The difficult emotions you experience may make you feel less capable of doing your job. Stress reduces your capacity to think creatively, be patient, problem solve, and try new skills—all strategies that are necessary in early childhood care. It is important to take the time to make sure you nurture and expand these strengths in yourselves and others. No one can function at 100% all of the time, so having policies and practices in place can prevent stress and exhaustion from compromising the care that children receive. Some examples include:

  • Providing consistent coverage for breaks
  • Creating an awareness of how to get help in the classroom when needed (such as who to call, or a code word for when you need to tag-out of a stressful situation with a child such as an escalating behavior)
  • Ensuring adequate time-off policies are in place and staff feel encouraged to use PTO as needed
  • Revisiting these plans and procedures often to ensure everyone feels supported

  
  For more information on stress-reducing strategies, you can review the Trauma-Informed Care in Child Care Settings and Social Emotional Learning for Teachers Focused Topics Courses in the VLS.

• Knowledge of Child Development: It seems obvious, but understanding typical child development will help you do your job. Unrealistic expectations for children’s behavior are major risk factors for child abuse and neglect. Make sure you know what to expect from the children in your care. In a stressful situation, this knowledge helps you remain calm, recognize child development in action, and understand what skills you can help the child develop next. It’s also important that you continue to build your professional skills across your career. Seek out professional development and try new ideas that will keep your work fresh, exciting, and rewarding. For additional support in this area, you can revisit the first training in this Supplemental Child Abuse Training Series, Appropriate Expectations & Resources to Behavior, and the Child Abuse: Prevention course. Additionally, many of the foundational courses within the VLS include information on developmental milestones and expectations.
• Social Connections: Strong social connections can help promote health, wellness, and longevity. By creating or strengthening social relationships in your own life, you will be better able to do your job well. This includes relationships both inside and outside of work.
• Concrete Supports: Everyone needs tools to help them do their jobs. It is okay—and important—to ask for help when it is needed. Talk to your trainer about ways you can get new ideas for your classroom, individual children, or families. Also remember that you are not immune to stress outside of work, too. You might be experiencing any number of stressors at home. Seek out and use community resources, whether it’s assistance with filing taxes, finding quality health care, or job assistance for a spouse or partner. Resources available to you that can offer guidance in this area include the VLS, ELM, Military OneSource, and OneOp.
• Social and Emotional Competence of Children: This is the foundation of the work you do every day in child development programs. You can learn much more about this topic in the Social & Emotional Development and Positive Guidance courses. For now, understand your role as one of promoting healthy relationships, communication skills, and self-expression.

Social and Emotional Benefits of Strengthening Protective Factors

Each of the five protective factors is linked to healthy development and well-being for both parents and their children. Caregivers can minimize the risk of child abuse and neglect by naturally enhancing these protective factors through everyday conversations and relationship building strategies with families.

• When parents have the skills and support to manage stress, they feel better and can provide more nurturing attention to their child, which enables their young child to form a secure emotional attachment. Receiving nurturing attention and developing a secure emotional attachment with parents, in turn, fosters the development of resilience in children when they experience stress.
• Knowledge of parenting and child development helps families feel competent in providing what young children need most in order to thrive. These include:
  • nurturing, responsive, and trusting relationships,
  • consistent routines,
  • interactive and reciprocal experiences, and
  • opportunities to learn through doing.
• When parents identify, seek, and receive respectful and timely concrete support in times of need, this helps to ensure they receive the necessities everyone deserves to grow (e.g., healthy food, a safe environment), as well as medical, mental health, social, educational, and legal services.

Because children’s social and emotional competence does not develop innately, they are similarly impacted by the quality of support they receive from trusted adults. A relationship with consistent, caring, and present adults who actively promote the development of social and emotional competencies is essential. These adults create environments where children feel safe to express their emotions because the adults are emotionally responsive to them and strive to model empathy for others.

Cultural Considerations

Culture has a major influence on parenting styles, beliefs, values, and expectations. While the five protective factors are written to be universal and applicable to all family types and structures, it’s likely that they will be expressed and understood in culturally specific ways. For example, a family’s cultural values shape the development of a child’s self-concept, therefore culture shapes how we each see ourselves and others. This may be apparent in the way a caregiver manages stress, connects with others, or forms emotional intelligence. As you build a positive relationship with individual families, work to strengthen their protective factors in ways that are respectful to their culture and family perspective by observing their interactions, listening to their ideas, and asking clarifying questions. In doing so, you will likely see that parents and caregivers are, in turn, more receptive of having difficult or uncomfortable conversations with you about their child’s growth, development, and behavior.