Visions developed by Rise, YouthNPower, Black Families Love and Unite and the Narrowing the Front Door Work Group emphasize the need for a limited child welfare agency and expansive and reparative investment in families and communities.
At a macro level, FPP’s focus is on restructuring city and state policy and spending to address two key drivers of child welfare involvement: family economic precarity and inequitable neighborhood conditions that exacerbate families’ everyday hardship. A growing body of research documents that economic policies that buffer against family hardship and setbacks can reduce maltreatment, investigations and family separation. Neighborhood conditions can also protect against or contribute to family stress and precarity that affect exposure to child welfare. Research documents that investments in the built environment––vacant lots turned into community gardens, access to nearby supermarkets, a shady canopy of trees––can reduce stress, promote safety and foster a greater sense of community.
Economic Policy
Research
- Family Economic Data Analysis (with CIDI): This study of the economic status and public benefits use of families involved with ACS will examine economic shocks and setbacks as predictors of ACS involvement and model economic policy approaches that could be protective against ACS involvement. This study is overseen by an advisory board that includes researchers from Columbia University, the Center for Guaranteed Income Research and the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities; representatives of the Administration for Children’s Services, Department of Social Services and Mayor’s Office of Economic Opportunity; and parents and young people impacted by the system.
- Child Welfare as a Gateway and Gatekeeper to Material Support (with Dr. Kelley Fong): This co-authored study finds that routing material support through child welfare systems can deter uptake, expose families to heightened oversight and encourage over-reporting, undermining well-being goals. It will be published by the Russell Sage Foundation in 2026.
Policy
- Family-Supportive Cash Policy: FPP explores the policy mechanisms that shift cash policy in New York toward greater support and unconditionality, as outlined in our December 2024 report, The Protective Power of Cash. Impacted parents and youth interested in joining FPP’s Cash Policy Council can contact Mahima Golani: mahima@familypolicynyc.org
Collaboration
- Cash Advocacy Coalitions: FPP supports cash policy and advocacy by contributing to the NY State Cash Alliance, End Poverty Now! and New York Can End Child Poverty workgroups.
Neighborhood Conditions
Research
- Neighborhood Conditions Research Study: FPP is developing a research team and proposal for a mixed-methods quantitative and Participatory Action Research study to deepen understanding of structural drivers at the neighborhood level that contribute to child welfare involvement.
Policy
- Neighborhood Conditions Informational Series: FPP is launching a new policy focus on neighborhood conditions, which will include an explainer; an interview series with leading experts and groups; and a project led by parent Policy Fellows affiliated with United for Brownsville.
Collaboration
- Child and Family Well-Being Fund Workgroup: This proposed state Fund would drive $30 million in investment to grassroots group in the neighborhoods most impacted by child welfare involvement. The Well-Being Fund was included in the Assembly One-House in 2025 and will be reintroduced in 2026. FPP contribute data, policy and budget analysis to this workgroup.
Limited System and New Structures for Holistic Family Support
Too often, the child welfare system is relied on to respond to basic resource and service needs, even when children are not in danger. Investigations are designed to interrogate families when children are at risk; they are serious, intrusive and frightening. Yet many hotline calls stem from children’s behavioral health needs or families’ lack of access to basic supports—needs that could and should be met through other public systems. Research shows that over-reliance on child welfare to fill systemic gaps stresses families, increasing parents’ isolation and making them less likely to seek help. Reducing investigations in New York City requires reforming the State Central Register, which screens out far fewer calls that other states; limiting the pressure and opportunities for mandated reporters to make unwarranted reports; and building new pathways and structures for holistic family support.
Research
- Participatory Action Research Project on Deterring Low-Risk Hotline Calls (with CUNY Public Science Project): It’s not well understood why family-serving institutions, such as schools, shelters and hospitals, don’t directly “support, not report” families more often and what would help them do that. This 2-year study launched in May 2025 and co-led by parent researchers will examine low-risk cases that ACS resolves simply by connecting families to voluntary supports. The research team will interview 25 parents and 25 mandated reporters in low-risk calls to illuminate potential policy and practice solutions and advocate for corrective shifts.
- Study on “Primary Support” by Mandated Reporters (with Dr. Tricia Stephens): This study examines organizations that rarely make calls and have affirmative methods (such as training, culture, attitudes, practices, resources) to “support, not report” families in crisis. The study seeks to understand transferrable organizational factors that lend support to proactive family support instead of reactive mandated reporting.
Policy
- SCR Reform: FPP’s March 2024 report, No Filter, used data obtained through a Freedom of Information (FOIL) request to document that New York State’s Central Register screens out far fewer calls than most states. While 50% of hotline calls are screened-out without investigation nationally, New York screens out only 25% of calls, resulting in the state’s high investigation rate. The state uses no standardized screening tool and provides no public data on screened-out calls. In October 2024, the New York State Assembly’s Children and Families Committee held a hearing on FPP’s report. FPP will release a follow-up report using addition FOIL data in 2026.
Collaboration
- New City Office of Family Well-Being: The Narrowing the Front Door Workgroup is leading a planning process with the Mayor’s Office of Policy and Planning to create a new city office for family support. FPP supports this planning process to centralize and enhance family-supportive programs and planning, particularly in neighborhoods most impacted by child welfare involvement.
Public Information
Through a data-sharing agreement with ACS, FPP makes significant new NYC child welfare data publicly available. FPP’s analyses of ACS data have been relied on extensively in advocacy. FPP produces:
- Data Briefs on Key Issues: FPP data briefs include insights on hotline calls, racial disparities, newborns and infants, and the heaviest burdens of the system, as well as analyses of anonymous reports and education reports to support active legislation.
- Child Welfare Impacts by Zip Code: FPP provides detailed data on every NYC zip code to inform legislators about their communities and to make it easier for community leaders to vision, plan and advocate for their own solutions.
- Informational Explainers: FPP publishes “explainers” that make complex policy topics, research and child welfare data and budget information more accessible.
Note: In the “Upstream City” column in The Imprint that ran from June 2022-Sept 2023, NYC Family Policy Project Founder Nora McCarthy outlined her vision how NYC can shift away from reactive intrusion in stressed families and toward direct investment in family health and community care.
Feel free to contact info@familypolicynyc.org with any questions.