Guest contribution from Brittaney Ratzlaff, LCSWA, a clinical social worker, parenting educator, and trainer based in North Carolina. The views here are her own, offered for general education rather than as clinical or legal advice.
My name is Brittaney Ratzlaff. For as far back as I can remember, I have wanted to "help the wold." That is how I spelled it as a child, and it is still the shortest honest description of what I do.
Childhood and my mother
As a child I felt the hardships of the world and the pressure of not feeling supported. Like many children who carried burdens that were never meant for them, I missed parts of what a childhood should be, including the freedom to be carefree. When children are worried about whether their needs will be met or whether they are safe, there is little room left for childhood.
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Kids need protection from harm, consistent care, a chance to laugh and play, and support that arrives before a hard situation has already become a crisis. I did not have language for that then, and I still watch families try to put those pieces in place without anyone showing them where to start.
As I grew older I began to understand the weight parents and caregivers carry when they are trying to keep everyone safe and stable while money is tight, their own struggles are still there, resources are thin, and the systems that are supposed to help are hard to get into. I learned that most clearly from my own mother. I watched her give us everything she had and still feel as though she fell short.
Her experience is why I pay so much attention to whether the adult in the room has support. I still think about how much can be lost when fear and unmet needs take up the space that should have been childhood. In the jobs I have had since then, I have seen families get a resource that actually fits and a person who will help them use it instead of handing them another number to call.
What a decade of this work has shown me
I came into social work to help people through life's challenges, a value I have had since I was young. For more than a decade I have worked alongside children and families in some of their most difficult moments, and with the communities and systems meant to support them. The roles have included child welfare, child-abuse prevention, behavioral health, parenting education, community resource development, advocacy, and collaborative systems work.
The settings look different, but I still run into the same problem. Families can be surrounded by services and still struggle to find the right support at the right time. Many families have unmet needs that resources exist for, and yet they still cannot access them. One of those reasons is not knowing what is out there.
I have watched caregivers learn that support was available all along, and I have watched that discovery change the course of their family's life. Those moments are why I still spend a lot of my time on resource sharing.
Prevention has to start before a crisis
Child-abuse prevention cannot begin only after risks have become visible. The earlier work is family support, less isolation for the caregiver, a response to unmet needs, and a path into help that a tired parent can actually use. Prevention looks like a struggling caregiver getting support before they are overwhelmed, and professionals talking across systems so a family can move between services with clarity and dignity. For families of children with developmental delays or disabilities, that often means acting on the first concern rather than the third, which is part of why early intervention matters so much in the first few years.
Education can reach a caregiver before stress has already become a crisis. One resource I point families to is the Triple P Positive Parenting Program. Triple P has online and in-person support for caregivers and families, and in many communities where a public agency funds it, including across North Carolina through NCDHHS, it is offered to families at no cost. Parents do not need judgment or impossible standards; they need practical strategies that work in real family life. Caregivers learn how to understand the needs beneath behavior and how to respond to difficult moments with more confidence than they had before.
In a randomized trial across 18 South Carolina counties, counties that rolled out Triple P showed roughly a 25% lower rate of substantiated child maltreatment, a 33% lower rate of out-of-home placements, and a 35% lower rate of hospital and emergency room visits for maltreatment injuries at two-year follow-up, compared with counties that continued services as usual (Prinz et al., 2009; summarized by Kansas Health Matters). I cite those figures because they track maltreatment, children leaving home, and injury visits, which is what I am trying to reduce when usable support reaches caregivers before they reach a breaking point.
Making support easier to find
This is one reason the Special Needs Care Network's directory matters to me. It makes services easier to locate and connects families with resources that fit, which takes some pressure off caregivers who are already trying to understand several organizations and systems of care at once. A parent in my state can start from a single page of North Carolina schools and providers rather than piecing together a list from a dozen phone calls, and families elsewhere can begin from their own state. For a lot of parents I have worked with, finding the right program is the first time the week has a next step.
One thing you can do this month
No one parent or agency can meet every need in a child's life, and children's wellness is shaped by the people around them. Build one new relationship this month with a professional, organization, or community program that could become a resource for someone else. If you work for an organization that serves children and families, consider sending what you offer to the Special Needs Care Network team so other readers can learn about it, the same way one parent's collection of free autism binders and visual supports ended up reaching thousands of families who needed it. One introduction, or one shared resource, can be how a caregiver finds a service they had been missing.
Training and how to reach me
In my own practice I do clinical work, consultation, and training. I provide virtual training throughout all 50 states and in-person opportunities within North Carolina for professionals, parents, and caregivers. I also do speaking and collaborative sessions on trauma-informed practice, parenting support, prevention, or advocacy.
To discuss virtual or in-person training, speaking, or collaboration, email me at brpeacecounseling@gmail.com. You can also follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn as Brittaney Ratzlaff, LCSWA, where I share information on children's wellness, child-abuse prevention, parenting education, and community resources.
Sources: Prinz et al., "Population-Based Prevention of Child Maltreatment: The U.S. Triple P System Population Trial," Prevention Science (2009) | Kansas Health Matters, Triple P Promising Practice | North Carolina's Triple P Program, NCDHHS
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