Designed to help stakeholders beyond the early care and education sector identify existing and potential strategies to integrate the Protective Factors into their work.  It is meant for states who are interested in applying the Strengthening Families Framework as a cross-sector prevention approach.  The toolkit was developed for Strengthening Families states to use with leadership teams, other stakeholder groups, communities, and individual agencies.   The Toolkit assumes basic familiarity with the Protective Factors, so it is important for all partners at the table to have a general overview of the Protective Factors.  The Toolkit provides a framework for facilitated discussion to:

1)      identify services that support and strengthen families;

2)      identify current and potential partnerships to support the work;

3)      identify strategies to integrate Strengthening Families and Protective Factors into systems work;

4)      identify and planning specific strategies to integrate the  Protective Factors into programs and services;

5)      identify related outcomes and measures to document changes as a result of Strengthening Families and Protective Factors

6)      shift thinking about prevention from a risk model to a strengths model.

The Framework (flower) provides a visual example of what a system that has integrated the Protective Factors might include, but is certainly not exhaustive.

The toolkit has a number of components which can be accessed by clicking here.   Depending on how you are structuring your dialogue with stakeholders, how much time you have, and your end goals you may use all or only some of these:

• A power point slide show that is intended to:
• Refresh and ground participants in the protective factors and what they’re based on
• Provide an illustration of how the protective factors can serve as a common framework across child and family serving sectors
• Engage the group in a discussion of how the protective factors framework can be integrated into their own work
• A matrix worksheet that is intended to help individual participants think through and capture:
• What type of changes they might make in their organizations work if they were adopting a protective factors framework
• What the expected outcomes of these changes would be and how they would measure these outcomes
• A reflective exercise tool that can be used with dyads to:
• Engage in the conversation about what applying a protective factors approach might mean in a more personal and interactive way
• Open the door to the larger group conversation by increasing personal engagement on the issue
• Examples of how the toolkit impacted thinking in an individual child and family serving agency and the Attorney General’s Office in Kansas.