Deadline: 31-Jul-23
The Administration on Children, Youth, and Families – Children’s Bureau is soliciting applications for the field-initiated approach to address racial bias and inequity in child welfare.
Project Goals
- The purpose of this NOFO is to fund eight projects for a 5-year period that bring forward innovative, community-supported approaches to addressing racial bias and inequity in child welfare systems. Projects will use supporting data to identify and define the problem that needs to be addressed in their community. Projects will work in sync with families with lived experience to co-design and develop solutions to racial bias, disproportionality, and disparities experienced by historically underserved families in their community at a selected point(s) on the child welfare continuum. Projects will focus efforts on historically underserved and overrepresented communities and actively work to reduce structural barriers to accessing services wherever possible.
- Field-Initiated Projects will focus on meeting the following project goals:
- Integrate the expertise of community members and establish meaningful roles for families and youth with lived expertise to develop or build upon innovative and effective strategies, activities, and solutions to address disproportionality, racial bias, and inequity in the child welfare system.
- Explore and confirm the root cause and local drivers of racial bias and inequity in child welfare and its impact on families in specific communities.
- Identify a point (or points) along the child welfare system continuum to focus innovative strategies or approaches to addressing disproportionality, racial bias, and inequity.
- Develop opportunities to build equity and enhance the capacity of the child welfare system to reduce rates of racial disparities, including in investigation and surveillance.
- Reduce racial disparities in family exposure to the existing child welfare system by identifying alternative resources, closing gaps in services and access, and developing community-based approaches to support safety and well-being.
- Evaluate strategies and activities implemented using relevant research approaches, including methods to ensure the people who are the focus of the research are engaged in the process.
- Enhance collaboration with those partners that are most appropriate for the project to address barriers for families most impacted by racial disparities in the child welfare system.
- Improve relationships between communities and the child welfare system by changing child welfare norms and values, building trust and confidence, addressing bias in decision making, and improving actual and perceptions of fairness across the system.
- Funded projects are encouraged to be innovative in their approaches and to think broadly about potential project-specific solutions. Projects may also seek to enhance existing child welfare program services and activities by placing an emphasis on addressing bias and inequity, developing a shared understanding of the root causes of inequalities in child welfare systems, restructuring policies and practices to incorporate equity and to address bias and systemic racism, or institutionalizing program strategies and evaluation activities that support systemic equity and approaches to address community-identified needs and solutions.
Funding Information
- Estimated Total Funding: $4,000,000
- Expected Number of Awards: 8
- Award Ceiling: $500,000
- Award Floor: $400,000
- Average Projected Award Amount: $500,000
- Anticipated Project Start Date: 09/29/2023
- Length of Project Periods: 60-month project period with five 12-month budget periods
Project Activities
Project activities completed during the planning period with the support of CB and CB’s TA provider(s) may include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Developing an equity impact statement that builds upon the preliminary data presented in the application.
- Finalizing the focus area(s), demographic communities, region, and system for project implementation.
- Continuing identification and collection of reliable primary or secondary data for baseline and follow-up comparison data.
- Reassessing the strengths, needs, barriers, and gaps specific to the focus area and population.
- Continuing to co-design solutions to identified strengths and needs with community members and youth and families with lived child welfare expertise.
- Engaging additional partners as needed and finalizing all partnership agreements (including data-sharing agreements) necessary to support successful implementation.
- Reassessing the planned strategies, practices, or activities, and proposed timeline to ensure the appropriateness and fit for the focus area and population.
- Conducting rapid cycle responses to identified challenges.
- Developing an appropriate plan for securing informed consent and implementing an Institutional Review Board review and tribal review, if applicable.
- Refining project-specific implementation and evaluation plans.
Eligibility Criteria
- City or township governments
- Special district governments
- Private institutions of higher education
- Nonprofits having a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education
- Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities
- Public and State controlled institutions of higher education
- For profit organizations other than small businesses
- Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized)
- State governments
- Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments)
- Independent school districts
- Small businesses
- Nonprofits that do not have a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education
- County governments
- Additional Information
- Collaborative efforts are encouraged, but applicants must identify a primary applicant responsible for administering the cooperative agreement.
- Applications from individuals (including sole proprietorships) and foreign entities are not eligible and will be disqualified from competitive review and funding under this funding opportunity.
- Faith-based and community organizations that meet the eligibility requirements are eligible to receive awards under this funding opportunity.
- Faith-based organizations may apply for this award on the same basis as any other organization, as set forth at and, subject to the protections and requirements.
For more information, visit Grants.gov.