Rock Families First
The goals of Rock Families First are to:
- Eliminate racial disparity in child protective services
- Reduce the number of children placed out of home
- Engage with families with increased satisfaction
After two years of system readiness and community mobilizing, a design sprint in October 2022 resulted in the IDEA BOOK: A New Future for Families – created in partnership with Black parents in Beloit.
Internal capacity building and community co-design work in Rock County since 2018 has lead to an overall decrease in the number of youth in care by 73% and the use of residential care by 34%.
Alia advances Rock Families First by convening and supporting project stakeholders: system leaders, design facilitator, community members, and project funders.
To address project goals, the Rock Families First focuses on community response in Beloit, where Black families are overrepresented in the system.
A Community Cultivator hired by Alia leads the effort of engage impacted parents in Beloit (a group now self-described as the “BeeHive”) to co-create ways of addressing the three project goals. The ultimate vision is to promote family stability and wellbeing.
