Safety and Risk Assessment 201: How Issues of Race, Equity, and Diversity Impact Risk and Safety Assessment

Assessment is defined as the collection of information to inform decision-making about a child, youth or family. In child welfare, risk and safety assessments are separate but related processes that are foundational to identifying the issues facing a family, designing a plan, and providing services to support the family in addressing the issues.

This is the third webinar in our series on risk and safety assessment and focuses on when poverty is assessed as “risk.” How individual and structural racism impact risk and safety assessment and how workers, supervisors and agencies can identify and overcome these biases.

Presenters for this session include:

• Dr. Darcey Merritt, Research Affiliate with the Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP), University of Wisconsin, Madison.
• Dr. Allison Thompson, Senior Research Officer, City of Philadelphia, Office of Children and Families.

They will speak about the Philadelphia Families CAN program, which provides support to families from pregnancy through early childhood. The webinar will focus on the ways in which the city of Philadelphia has addressed the impact of poverty on risk and safety assessments.