Children's Trust, Inc.

The Children’s Trust is on a mission to stop child abuse in Massachusetts. Our programs partner with parents to help them build the lifelong skills and self-confidence they need to ensure children grow up safe and healthy.

Driven by an evidence-based approach, the Children’s Trust develops and supports programs that help parents build and sustain healthy families in Massachusetts.

We are the only statewide child abuse prevention organization with a network of over one hundred of the most innovative local community organizations. We invest in high-quality programs informed by rigorous research in order to improve outcomes for children and families.

The Children’s Trust develops, evaluates, and promotes parenting education and coaching programs to improve the lives of children. We also create and influence public policies, improve family service systems, and strengthen communities. We are a private-public organization. This means that additional funds raised by the Friends of the Children's Trust have a greater impact on accomplishing our mission. Much of our administrative costs are paid for with funding from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. We leverage that money with federal funding and private donations.

In the 2014 fiscal year, this resulted in 88.5 percent of our total budget going directly into services that benefit families and children. Our work focuses on building Protective Factors that support the overall well-being of children and their families. Developed by the Center for the Study of Social Policy, the Protective Factors framework is a research-driven approach that identifies key conditions that must be in place to support the optimal well-being of children and families.

All of our programs work to help parents build and strengthen these factors. Protective Factors serve as buffers that help families cope, achieve, and thrive, even during times of stress. They are the cornerstones upon which to build healthy environments for children and families. The Protective Factors are: Parental resilience - developing the ability to cope and bounce back from life’s challenges; knowledge of parenting and child development - receiving accurate information about raising young children, and learning appropriate and effective strategies to gauge expectations and set limits on child behaviors; Social connections - engaging friends, family members, neighbors, and others in the community who may provide emotional support and assistance; Concrete support in times of need - accessing life essentials such as food, clothing, and housing when there is an immediate need; Social and emotional development of children - fostering a child’s ability to interact positively with others and communicate his or her emotions appropriately.

Through over twenty-five years of practice and valuation, we’ve learned how to partner effectively with parents to help them get the skills, tools, and confidence they need to be the best parents they can be. The Children’s Trust does this through deep, long-lasting partnerships with over one hundred of the most effective family support agencies across Massachusetts. We work hand-in-hand with our partners to provide high-quality services that help children and families thrive through: research, including program review and evaluation; sharing proven best-practices; training; and advocacy for family support services statewide. Our programs include: Healthy Families Massachusetts - a home-based family support and coaching program that works with young, first-time parents and helps them create safe, stimulating environments for their children; Massachusetts Family Centers - centers where parents and children go to meet other families, tap into community resources, learn new  parenting skills, and participate in activities and support programs; Parenting Education and Support Programs - group-based programs that help parents enhance the knowledge, skills, and confidence they need to be the best parents they can be; The Fatherhood Initiative - a program that works to advance activities and trainings that support fathers, their families, and the professionals who work with them; One Tough Job - our award-winning parenting website,  onetoughjob.org, gives parents immediate access to current, reliable, and practical information about parenting and child development; Family Support Training Center - a robust offering of a variety of learning opportunities to help family support professionals across Massachusetts stay on the cutting edge of the field

The Children’s Trust has been the Commonwealth’s catalyst for building strong families and preventing child abuse and neglect for over 25 years. We set the state’s highest standards for family support. We ensure our programs create nurturing and supportive families and communities where children can thrive through rigorous research. Some examples of our recent accomplishments include the following: Research by Tufts University showed a high rate of depression among young mothers in Healthy Families Massachusetts. We responded by introducing “Moving Beyond Depression,” a proven treatment and component of our home-based family support and coaching program. The Tufts evaluation has also shown: (1) Children in Healthy Families Massachusetts, on average, were developmentally on-target despite national research that shows children of teen parents are at greater risk for developmental delays. (2) Mothers in Healthy Families Massachusetts showed more positive effects that are important for young parents - reducing impulsive, antisocial, or risky behaviors - than mothers not receiving services. (3) Mothers in the program reported less parenting stress. Increased stress is a risk factor for abuse and neglect. (4) Also, the evaluation showed young mothers in Healthy Families Massachusetts are doing better in school. They’re more likely to re-enroll in high school and get their diplomas. In fact, two years after enrollment in the program, these mothers were nearly twice more likely to have completed one year of college than mothers not in the program. (5) Better education can result in better jobs and less poverty among these families. When parents are less stressed about money, they can create nurturing and loving environments where their children grow up healthy and ready to succeed. Among our Massachusetts Family Centers, surveys have shown that nearly all parents said the program helped them cope better with parenting challenges. In our Parenting Education and Support Programs, nearly all parents indicated they learned new parenting skills and about new resources in their communities to benefit their families. For more information about the Children’s Trust’s many accomplishments and programs, please see our annual report and visit childrenstrustma.org.