Infrastructure is essential for selecting members, supporting their professional development, and compensating members for their time and expertise. Finally, we recommend the prevention advisory council be an integrated part of a larger governance structure, informing the work of a prevention steering committee at DCYF (see Recommendations 4 and 5 for more on governance structures and the development of a prevention framework) . RECOMMENDATION 2: Enhance infrastructure to better support existing lived-expert groups. In developing a prevention advisory structure, it is critical to observe and/or further evaluate other current advisory bodies to understand how a prevention-focused group can align efforts and reduce redundancies. Coordination among these groups increases their ability to inform policy and practice changes as well as innovate across public health, education, human services, courts, and other public systems that influence prevention (see Recommendation 12) . Further, learning from the well-established community engagement efforts already in place can harness existing strengths. Also notable, the groups referenced above are largely DCYF- or provider-oriented. Their focus areas and agendas are predominantly set by administrative entities. Any future prevention-centered council has the opportunity to share leadership between community and governmental members — or shift power even more fully and embrace a community-driven agenda. This work should utilize and build upon the Washington State Office of Equity compensation guidelines as well as the draft of the engagement standards. RECOMMENDATION 3: Gather direct feedback from families to pinpoint barriers to accessing services and prioritize solutions that address those challenges. Our systems map offers a starting point for understanding what exists in the DCYF prevention continuum and the most substantive access gaps. Created primarily from facilitated sessions with DCYF staff, supplemented by literature reviews and interviews, it captures the needs and conditions that families face and is sorted into three major categories: concrete supports and services, education, and health. Much of the written content reviewed by Foster America revealed that there is a great deal of information and qualitative data gathered from outreach to engage lived experts. From there, DCYF prevention offerings are matched to the needs or conditions to which they correspond. A fourth section of the map sets DCYF in the context of partnership and advocacy groups, denoting where prevention supports may be commonly provided by inter-governmental and community partners.
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