Through an approach to child welfare that is proactive, preventive, and community-based, the Bridge Builders collaboration, supported by the Fund for Social Change as well as others, works to prevent foster care placements, reduce child abuse and neglect, and decrease domestic violence in the Highbridge section of the South Bronx.
By employing a collaborative model of intervention that involves neighborhood residents, community-based organizations, and the New York City Administration for Children's Services (ACS), Bridge Builders is able to provide social and legal assistance to at-risk families across a wide spectrum of needs.
A key component of the project is the empowerment of parents and neighborhood residents who have had contact with the child welfare system. They are trained to work with families on a case-by-case basis to provide appropriate services.
Since starting work in Highbridge, a community with high rates of poverty, unemployment, substance abuse, and foster care placement, Bridge Builders has achieved impressive results. According to ACS statistics, the number of children taken from their parents in the three Highbridge census tracts targeted by the project has declined four out of five years since the project's inception, compared with the larger community district.
In addition, ACS has selected Highbridge as one of three neighborhoods for its Community Partnership Initiative, which seeks to fundamentally transform the child welfare system through integrated, family-focused, and community-based services.
Bridge Builders provides families and individuals with a wide range of social and legal services targeted to specific needs:
- family support and advocacy from trained parents and neighborhood residents;
- a community-based network of support, including parenting classes, supervised family visits, employment and housing assistance, and GED and ESL classe;
- legal representation before or after children are placed in foster care, as well as legal help with immigration issues, housing problems, and criminal defense;
- community outreach to prevent child welfare investigations and domestic violence;
- after-school programs for neighborhood children; and
- mini-grants to support community projects and flex funds to help families with financial emergencies.
Other members of the collaborative are: Child Welfare Fund, Open Society Institute, New York Community Trust, Ira W. DeCamp/ JPMorgan, FAR Fund, Hedge Funds Care, Sills Family Foundation, Oak Foundation, Annie E. Casey Foundation, Clark Foundation, Heckscher Foundation, United Way of New York City, Hagedorn Fund/JPMorgan, Viola W. Bernard Foundation, Starr Foundation, Marguerite Casey Foundation, and the Administration for Children's Services.