OPT-In for Families:
Being Responsive to Early Signals
of Need
OPT-IN FOR FAMILIES BY THE NUMBERS
4 demonstration sites: Kentucky, Oregon, South Carolina, Washington, D.C. 26 unique counties or wards across all sites where families are impacted by our work. ~$33M total initiative funding over three years (approx. $9M per site) Focus on families with early signals of need — before investigations and/or foster care OPT-In model: access, engagement, navigation, and support—grounded in community co-design
Across the country, many families come
when families are struggling. Instead of waiting until families face deeper challenges, the initiative focuses on families whose needs often fall outside traditional child welfare pathways—those referred for well-being concerns that do not meet the threshold for investigation and frequently result in no services at all. By connecting families to practical support, including addressing concrete economic needs, OPT- In aims to strengthen family stability, avoid involvement with the formal child welfare system, and keep children safely at home. With Foster America’s guidance, local teams are building community-rooted models shaped by family voice and lived experience. In Kentucky, partners are developing prevention pathways that identify families at risk of future system involvement and offer voluntary supports. In Oregon, efforts are aligning economic assistance, coaching, and navigation with broader anti-poverty and family preservation strategies. In South Carolina, families screened out of traditional child welfare responses are being connected to trusted peer navigators who help them access resources, such as housing assistance, child care, transportation, and employment support. Across all four sites, the work is organized around a shared framework, naming the practical functions needed for a meaningfully different system. “Access” focuses on reaching families at the earliest signal of need through trusted voluntary channels. “Engagement” prioritizes building genuine relationships and trust, so families are safe enough to ask for help and stay connected to it. “Navigation” assists and reduces the burden as families move
through a fragmented landscape of services with someone walking alongside them. And “Support” addresses the concrete material needs, as well as the service gaps that often sit at the root of family stress: housing, child care, health access, and more. While the specifics of implementation vary in response to the needs and nuances of each place, all also share a commitment to co-design as the foundation of their innovative choices. Advisory groups, anchored by members with lived experience, have shaped engagement models, authored outreach protocols, trained staff, and reviewed data. Foster America advances this work by coordinating partners, facilitating collaborative sessions, including statewide convenings and workshops, and supporting advisory members through compensation and professional development. OPT-In for Families represents an investment in what becomes possible when communities have the space and resources to lead. Backed by flexible funding, technical assistance, and shared learning across sites, the initiative is helping partners test new ways to connect families with support earlier while building evidence on what it takes to strengthen family stability and well-being. Families know what they need. OPT-In helps make that support easier to reach.
Too often, early signs of stress and initial requests for help go unanswered, leaving families without support that could make the greatest difference. “OPT-In for Families” was created to change that pattern. Through the Doris Duke Foundation’s OPT-In for Families
to the attention of child welfare
systems not because of abuse or neglect, but because they are navigating economic hardship, housing instability, or other unmet needs.
$
initiative, partners in Kentucky, Oregon, South Carolina, and Washington, D.C., are working to design new pathways for families to access help early, voluntarily, and with dignity, so that stressors and risks don’t compound and formal systems don’t intervene and cause harm. The effort brings together a national learning collaborative that includes Chapin Hall, the Harvard Government Performance Lab, and Think of Us, alongside state and community partners. OPT-In for Families is a multi-year effort designed to shift how communities respond
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16 | FOSTER AMERICA 2025 ANNUAL REPORT
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