Promoting resilience: Helping young children and parents affected by substance abuse, domestic violence, and depression in the context of welfare reform

This is Issue Brief #8 in a series based on a growing body of research that suggests that successful policies for families must take into account the needs of children when addressing the needs of parents and the needs of parents when addressing the needs of children. The Project recognizes that the primary focus of welfare reform is to ensure that adults achieve economic self-sufficiency. But welfare reform also has the potential to help or hurt children in three major ways: (1) by changing family income; (2) by changing the level of parental stress and/or parenting styles; and (3) by changing children’s access to or the quality of comprehensive family support and child-focused services. This issue brief addresses the needs of an especially vulnerable population of young children and families affected by welfare reform, those in which the adults, particularly mothers, either singly, or more often in combination, experience substance abuse, domestic violence, and serious mental health problems. These parental risk factors significantly increase the likelihood that their children will have developmental, behavioral, or school problems.