Preventing Child Welfare Contact

Transforming the Child Welfare Service Array in New Hampshire

A mom and dad hug their daughter outside in a park.

Impact Highlight: Following GPL support, New Hampshire invested in evidence-based services expected to serve 12,200 families over four years. The programs focused on keeping children at home with their families and sustaining families who have reunified after foster care.

Project Context: 

  • The number of children with child protection cases who entered out-of-home care in New Hampshire increased by more than 75% between 2014 and 2018, one of the largest increases in the country over this time period. 
  • Leaders in New Hampshire’s Division for Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) wanted to safely reduce entries into care and increase and enhance services that could support families to stay together. The New Hampshire legislature allocated $53 million in new funding to do so. 

 How the GPL Supported: 

  • Helped New Hampshire create a request for information (RFI) that sought to better understand how to adjust the service array so that children and families could receive the “right services at the right time, and in the right place to increase protective factors and mitigate the risks associated with abuse or neglect.”  
  • The RFI sought comments on how to improve two specific components of the service array: community-based voluntary services and home-based mental health, substance use, and parenting skill services. 
  • DCYF received responses from 50 organizations and individuals, including local service providers, youth, parents, foster parents, advocacy organizations, and academic institutions. 
  • Supported DCYF as they set up various opportunities, like focus groups, to hear from people with lived experience in the child welfare system who may not have been ready to offer input through an RFI process. 
  • Helped DCYF craft and release their first-ever “procurement forecast,” which previewed their plans for upcoming procurements. 
  • Prepared DCYF to release a subsequent request for proposals (RFP) specifically focused on procuring for community-based voluntary services.

 Results: 

  • New Hampshire procured for more than $48 million over four years in new evidence-based services that were recognized as demonstrating promise at keeping children at home with their families and sustaining families who have reunified after foster care.
  • These services were expected to serve 12,200 families over the four years.
  • Reduced the number of children and families in out-of-home care, both in child protection and juvenile justice services, in favor of keeping more kids and youth safe at home.
  • Total entries into DCYF care were 37% lower in 2021 than in 2017.
We don’t want technical assistance except of the kind we get with GPL. We need their hands-on coaching, side-by-side building of our thought capacity, as well as giving us in-the-weeds extra implementation help. That’s how we’re learning. Senior NHDHHS executive

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