Building the Evidence Base for Innovative and Contextually Sensitive Programs to Prevent and Treat Child Abuse and Neglect and Reduce Child Welfare Involvement

Dear Colleagues,

There is a paucity of evidence-based programs that have been designed and/or evaluated with children and families who are involved with the child welfare system or are at risk of such involvement. This Special Issue seeks to showcase innovative and contextually sensitive prevention and intervention efforts for this population that include, but are not limited to, the domains prioritized by the Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA): (1) mental health and substance abuse prevention and treatment services; (2) in-home parent skills-based programs; and (3) kinship navigator services.

We welcome qualitative and quantitative studies at all stages of development, including the following:

• Theory and logic model development.
• Models for co-designing programs in partnership with those who have lived experience, community-based participatory research, and/or youth participatory action research.
• Pre-intervention research (e.g., identification of key risk and protective factors, measurement development, and conducting focus groups).
• Feasibility and pilot studies (especially those that measure engagement).
• Efficacy or effectiveness studies.
• Studies of mediation or moderation.
• Adaptation of existing programs to serve families involved in the child welfare system, especially those that target marginalized youth and families who are diverse in race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality.
• Implementation science studies.

Guidelines and Instructions

Interested authors should submit an abstract no longer than 750 words by March 10, 2024, to Angelique Day at [email protected]. Invitations for full manuscripts will be sent by March 30, 2024, and completed manuscripts will be due by June 30, 2024. Manuscripts must be prepared according to the journal’s submission guidelines (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/societies/instructions).

Contributions have to follow one of the three categories of papers (article, conceptual paper or review) of the journal and address the topic of the Special Issue.

Dr. Angelique Day
Dr. Heather N. Taussig
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as conceptual papers are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Societies is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• child abuse and neglect
• child welfare
• out-of-home care
• foster care
• prevention program
• intervention
• evidence-based practice