Quality Improvement Center on Helplines and Hotlines

This Notice of Funding Opportunity will establish, by cooperative agreement, a Quality Improvement Center on Helplines and Hotlines (QIC-H2). The goal of the QIC-H2 is to build national capacity for community-based helplines to serve as an alternative to child welfare intervention and develop clear, evidence-based understanding of the distinction between poverty and willful parental neglect in child maltreatment assessment. To achieve these goals, the QIC-H2 has the following primary objectives: (A) Build a repository of national models and best practices for the operation of community-based helplines that can link families with needed concrete supports as a primary prevention strategy and an alternative to child protective services (CPS) hotlines. (B) Develop an evidenced-informed curriculum or supplemental training materials for mandated reporters and hotline staff to overcome bias in decision making and clearly distinguish between poverty and willful parental neglect in child abuse reporting. (C) Identify and support a limited number of diverse pilot sites with a demonstrated capacity to test selected strategies in their community. (D) Evaluate funded efforts to measure the QIC-H2’s effectiveness in meeting the goals and objectives of this funding and widely disseminate findings, recommendations, and best practices.