During the past decade, there have been increased efforts to implement evidence-based practices into child welfare systems to improve outcomes for children in foster care and their families. In this paper, the implementation and evaluation of a policy-driven large system-initiated reform is described. Over 250 caseworkers and supervisors were trained and supported to implement two evidence-based parent focused interventions in five private agencies serving over 2,000 children and families. At the request of child welfare system leaders, a third intervention was developed and implemented to train the social work workforce to use evidence-based principles in everyday interactions with caregivers (including foster, relative, adoptive, and biological parents). In this paper, we describe the policy context and the targeted outcomes of the reform. We discuss the theory of the interventions and the logistics of how they were linked to create consistency and synergy. Training and ongoing consultation strategies used are described as are some of the barriers and opportunities that arose during the implementation. The strategy for creating a path to sustainability is also discussed. The reform effort was evaluated using both qualitative and quantitative methods; the evaluation design, research questions and preliminary results are provided.
Typically, when children are placed into out-of-home care due to child maltreatment concerns, people assume that this decision is based on action or inaction on behalf of the child's caregivers. While such elements are likely the main drivers of the decision, a growing body of research suggests that other factors contribute to caseworkers' decisions on the child welfare cases they serve. Drawing from the decisionmaking ecology (DME), this study examines the extent to which caseworker and organizational factors, in addition to case characteristics, play a role in decisions to remove a child from their home. Survey data from 118 investigation or assessment workers in a southeastern state were paired with administrative data from 10,568 child protective services (CPS) responses assigned to the surveyed workers for analysis. Multi-level modeling (cases, and cases within workers) results identified that, controlling for case characteristics and using 95% confidence intervals, workers who were male (aOR: 0.71 [0.50-0.998]), perceived the agency as more supportive (aOR: 0.87 [0.80-0.94]), and those indicating a strong orientation towards family preservation compared to child safety (aOR: 0.58 [0.42-0.81]) were associated with lower odds of placing children into out-of-home care. Staff who felt more cohesion with their co-workers ) were more likely to place children on their caseloads. These results indicate that the current system of decision-making and case trajectories are prone to influences from caseworkers' personal biases and perceptions of support. Implications for CPS workforce selection, development, support, and case assignment are discussed.
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