Families in the United States experience significant challenges accessing social support services. And they're sometimes reported to child protection hotlines when what they really need is better social support.
To better understand these challenges, we worked with San Diego County's Office of Child and Family Strengthening from August to October 2025. Our goals were to understand families' experiences accessing services, identify their met and unmet needs, and recommend ways agencies can help families find support more easily.
To do this, we spoke directly with San Diego County families about their experiences, needs, and priorities. We also spoke with professionals from child welfare services and community partners, and local community experts.
This research builds on Bloom Works’ earlier work exploring warmlines as a tool to connect families with support. Read about key features and lessons learned from warmlines across the country.
What families need
We heard from families that they're being supported by a patchwork of services and resources that doesn't cover all their needs:
- Housing is needed most, but it’s the hardest for families to find and access. Many are on years-long waiting lists, and face challenges overcoming barriers like eviction records, criminal records, or low credit scores. What they often need most is help finding housing units that will accept them regardless of their circumstances or past renting history.
- Food support, like WIC and CalFresh (SNAP), decreases grocery bills and allows families to buy fresh foods, but it’s not always enough to meet the needs of their entire household.
- CalWorks (TANF) is critical, but not everyone is able to access it due to strict eligibility and application requirements, a lengthy application process, and often being denied without clear reasons. It also may be further complicated by other services, like ongoing child support cases.
- MediCal (Medicaid) was needed to cover children's health and therapy, but some families struggle to maintain continuous coverage.
Getting access to these services, however, isn't straightforward.
How families seek help
Asking for help is hard. There isn't one clear place or person to go to for help, and information is often out of date or incomplete. Parents search online or get referred from services they already use, but they don't always find what they're looking for because of outdated information or long waitlists. Too much information overwhelms families, and long resource lists create more work for them to sort through. And cold contacting families—reaching out when they haven't asked for help—can feel forced and uncomfortable.
Families turn to a few key sources for information. Caseworkers, health facilities, and schools were the most helpful. 211 is well known in the county, but families have mixed experiences with it. It's a helpful starting point, but it doesn't solve systemic challenges like housing, and families still have to figure out which organizations to contact next.
Even when families know where to go, accessing services comes with significant barriers. Government benefits are hard to access because there are complex income thresholds, excessive documentation requirements, and long processing times. We heard that it's easier to apply in-person, especially for families who've applied for any benefits in the past.
All services, regardless of the provider, have barriers to access. Transportation costs add up quickly. Services have long waiting lists with little follow-up or communication. It's often unclear what support is available or what families need to qualify. Customer service is inconsistent. Families in crisis face additional challenges when they don't have required documentation, like birth certificates or proof of address. And this is especially hard when those documents were lost in the crisis itself like evictions or precarious housing.
What actually worked
We learned what does work for families: tailored family-centered navigation with personalized care, advocacy, and empathy. This includes communication that starts with listening to what families need and providing specific, vetted services. This approach to service navigation makes it easier for families to get what they need.
Another important insight: families aren't searching for "prevention services"—they're seeking help with housing, food, and healthcare. The language child welfare agencies use doesn't always match how families think about their needs, which can create additional barriers to access.
What we created from this research
Based on our research findings, we created tools that other jurisdictions can use to better understand and support families:
- Parent personas that capture different family needs, barriers, and how they look for help
- Family journey maps showing where families get stuck, redirected, or overburdened as they try to access support
- Community pathways map highlighting the two ways families get connected to support in San Diego County: through mandated reporters (warmlines/CPS hotlines) or through local helplines that families contact directly
This work is supported by the Doris Duke Foundation as part of the OPT-In for Families Initiative.
We'd love to hear from you. Send us a message at prevention@bloomworks.digital.
Resources
Family personas and journey maps: navigating services in San Diego
Fictional family profiles and journeys that represent real data and insights from Bloom Works' Fall 2025 research on the experience of navigating support services.
Download
Community pathways map: navigating services in San Diego
A map highlighting the two ways families get connected to support in San Diego County: the reporter pathway (where mandated reporters call a warmline or CPS hotline) and the family pathway (run by local helplines that families can call directly).
Download