Quality Parenting Initiative

The Quality Parenting Initiative (QPI) ensures every child removed from their home due to abandonment, abuse, or neglect is cared for by a foster family who provides skilled, nurturing parenting while helping them maintain connections with their family. The child welfare system commits to fully supporting exceptional parenting by putting the needs of the child first.

QPI has five core principles:

1. Excellent parenting is an essential service we can provide to children and youth in care. 
2. Child development and trauma research indicate that children need constant, consistent, effective parenting to grow and reach their full potential.
3. Each community must define excellent parenting for itself.
4. Policy and practice have to align with that definition.
5. Participants in the system are in the best position to recommend and implement change.

QPI is an approach, a philosophy, and a network of sites that share information and ideas about improving parenting, recruiting, and retaining excellent families. It is an effort to rebrand foster care, not simply by changing a logo or an advertisement, but by changing the expectations and support for caregivers. 

The key elements of the approach are:

• Defining the expectations of caregivers.
• Communicating expectations to staff, caregivers, and other stakeholders.
• Aligning system policy and practice with those expectations.
• QPI resources.
• QPI documents.
• Resources for foster parents/caregivers, CBC/Agency staff, and the public.

Find out more about foster parenting by contacting Brevard Family Partnership.