Community leadership in system transformation: A realist review of strategies for effective partnership between communities of color and public systems impacting children and families

Abstract

The child welfare system in the U.S. is long overdue for a reimagination. To bridge the gap between what families say they need to thrive and what child welfare provides, the system must build a new relationship with community—one where residents are valued as collaborators and are supported in taking the lead. A team from Chapin Hall conducted a realist evidence review (Paré et al., 2015) to inform this shift toward community leadership. We focused on public system partnerships with Black and non-Black communities of color to shape policies, programs, and practices impacting children and families. Using a modified grounded theory approach, we analyzed 35 empirical publications on 32 unique projects. We supplemented that evidence with six longitudinal case studies (Bowen, 2009; Morgan & Nica, 2020) and conversations with 10 key informants.

From these sources, we distilled four sets of strategies for forming and sustaining equitable system change partnerships with Black and non-Black communities of color: 1) adopting anti-racist and strengths-based approaches to working with community, while continuously confronting power and positionality; 2) creating inclusive and flexible opportunities for community leadership; 3) investing in community partners’ personal agency, skills, and capacity for collective action; 4) and embedding community leadership in system decision making through partnership infrastructure and long-term funding.