Return on Investment of a Family Resource Center to the Child Welfare System

Background

Involvement in the child welfare system can be disruptive and even traumatizing for children and families, resulting in significant costs to public systems. Services that focus on building the strength, stability, and long-term success of families are critical to reducing parental stress and isolation. Mitigating parental stress reduces incidences of child abuse and neglect and FRCs assist in this mitigation as welcoming hubs of support, services, social connection, and by providing opportunities for families that work with them utilizing a strengths-based, family-centered, multi-generational approach. Despite no dedicated federal funding, there are more than 3,000 community- and school-based FRCs in 33 states and in Washington, D.C. that work with more than two million people each year. FRCs provide programs designed to strengthen parent-child relationships, help families access programs and services through resource and referral, develop community leadership, peer support, and more. There is evidence that by serving families holistically in communities, FRCs can help prevent involvement in child welfare systems, which generates substantial economic savings.Omni used a social return on investment (SROI) approach to measure the impact of the FRCs in relation to savings within child welfare. SROI describes the impact of a program or organization in dollar terms relative to the investment required to create that impact. These case studies examined the cost savings, and subsequent return on investment, to the child welfare system.The key findings:In 2017, reductions in child maltreatment cases in Westminster FRC's Orange County community saved the child welfare system an estimated 1.82MM; in 2016 this savings was estimated at 1.1MM. For every $1 invested in Westminster FRC in 2016 and 2017, the Orange County child welfare system saved an estimated $3.65.After a formal partnership between Community Partnership FRC and Teller County child welfare was established, the county saved an estimated $2.5MM associated with reductions in child welfare cases. For every $1 invested in Community Partnership FRC, the Teller County child welfare system saved an estimated $2.92