The California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare

California Department of Social Services’ Research and Data Reports

References:

• (2006). Child Welfare Services System Improvements: 11 County Pilot Implementation Evaluation, Initial Assessment Phase. Child and Family Policy Institute of California. Available here
• In 2003 California initiated a multiyear project with 11 counties to implement and test key child welfare improvement strategies (i.e. standardized safety assessment, differential response, and permanency and youth transition). This initial implementation assessment reports on the financial and human resource investments that the 11 counties have made to bring these improvements to life. The report reviews the strategic planning phase of this effort as well as the collective and individual activities of the 11 counties. The report provides preliminary data (where available) on the families and children served by the pilot counties and chronicles the counties’ successes and lessons learned in carrying out this work.
• (2005). American Public Human Services Association. Guide for Child Welfare Administrators on Evidence-Based Practice. National Association of Public Child Welfare Administrators. Available here

California Child Welfare Outcomes and Accountability System (AB 636) Reports

California Department of Social Services’ Children and Family Services Division: County Data Reports

References:

• Lemon, K. Andrade, A., Austin, M. (2005). Understanding and Measuring Child Welfare Outcomes. Bay Area Social Services Consortium. Available here. This report is divided into three sections. The first section reviews the research literature related to child welfare outcomes, in order to provide a context for federal accountability efforts. The second section summarizes the 2001 federal mandate (AB 636) to hold states accountable for child welfare outcomes and describes California’s response. The third and concluding section includes implications and recommendations.
• (2006). Child Welfare Performance in California: A county-by-county analysis. National Center for Youth Law. This report shows each county’s performance on federal and state performance measures in the area of safety, permanency, and stability. Also included are each county’s safety index compared to the state average and recommendations for improving outcomes.

CWLA’s National Data Analysis System Fiscal Data

Children’s Bureau Express- Flexible Funding for Innovative Programming

References:

• Bess R., Scarcella, C. (2004). Child Welfare Spending during a Time of Fiscal Stress. The Urban Institute. Available from: http://www.urban.org/url.cfm?ID=411124

(2005). County Fiscal Letter (CFL) No. 05/06- 10. California Department of Social Services. Available from: http://www.dss.cahwnet.gov/getinfo/cfl05/pdf/05-06_10.pdf

CWLA’s NDAS Caseload Data

CWLA’s Guidelines for Computing Caseload Standards

References:

• John, L. (2002). Child welfare: attention deficit: California’s overloaded child welfare workers don’t have time to do their job right. Action Alliance for Children. Available from: http://www.4children.org/pdf/302cw.pdf

CWIG’s Child Welfare and the Law

National Child Welfare Resource Center on Legal and Judicial Issues

References:

• Edwards, L. (2004). Mediation in Child Protection Cases. Journal of the Center for Families, Children and the Courts (5, 57-69). Available here. Following an overview of child pro¬tection proceedings and their goals, this article describes the legal structure and judicial role in those proceedings, and then details the shortcomings of the traditional adversarial process in resolving child protection and related family issues. The article offers mediation as a salutary alter¬native to judicial proceedings, discussing mediation’s growth and impact on both the parties and the court system and recommending best practices for a suc¬cessful mediation program.
• Geen, R. Tumlin, K. (1999). State Efforts to Remake Child Welfare: Reponses to New Challenges and Increased Scrutiny. The Urban Institute. Available here. Key components of the project include a household survey, studies of policies in 13 states, and a database with information on all states and the District of Columbia, available at the Urban Institute’s Web site (http://www.urban.org). This paper is one in a series of occasional papers analyzing information from these and other sources.
• Malm, K., Bess, R., Leos-Urbel, J., Geen, R., Markowitz, T. (2001). Running to Keep in Place: The Continuing Evolution of Our Nation’s Child Welfare System. The Urban Institute. Available from: http://www.urban.org/publications/310358.html Key components of the project include a household survey, studies of policies in 13 states, and a database with information on all states and the District of Columbia, available at the Urban Institute’s Web site (http://www.urban.org). This paper is one in a series of occasional papers analyzing information from these and other sources.
• Kaplan, R. (2003). Information Packet: Child Welfare Class Action Lawsuits. National Resource Center for Foster Care & Permanency Planning. Retrieved August 1, 2006 from: here. This packet provides the following information on three of the many class action lawsuits that have been initiated by advocates for children and families: Background of the lawsuit, Court Decision (including settlements and agreements), Reforms that were initiated as a result of the lawsuits, Results in each of the three states which includes: Administration of Children and Family Outcomes; Administration of Children and Family Reviews; and Analyses from advocacy groups in each state. This information packet also includes: A General Fact Sheet, Statistics relevant to foster care, adoption and child welfare outcomes in each of the three states, Descriptions of the Child Welfare Agencies in each state, and a Description of the advocacy groups which initiated and assisted in each of the three lawsuits discussed.

References:

• Bernstein, F., Spivack, L. (2001). Responding to the Workforce Crisis: How Unions Promote Workforce Stability. Conference recap provided by Child Welfare League of America.
  Available here.
• Tepperman, J., Foss, J. (2004). Unions in child care? The Children’s Advocate. Available from: http://www.4children.org/news/504union.htm

13th National Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect
(2001) Workshop: Working with the Media

Summary

Audiotape Ordering Information

13th National Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect
(2001) Workshop: Media Matters

Summary

Audiotape Ordering Information

CWIG’s Outreach Resources

15 th National Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect (2005) Workshop: Strategies for Promoting Success in Rural Child Welfare

Audiotape Ordering Information

References:

• Barbell, K.; Sheikh, L. (2000). A community outreach handbook for recruiting foster parents and volunteers. CWLA Press (Book).
  This handbook was developed to help agencies increase their chances of successfully finding foster families and volunteers by designing a carefully planned strategy for engaging the community in foster care. It provides tools to craft effective messages for the public, tips for working with the media, and other research ideas.

The Performance Institute

References:

• 2006). Child Welfare Performance in California: A county-by-county analysis. National Center for Youth Law. Available here.

  This report shows each county’s performance on federal and state performance measures in the area of safety, permanency, and stability. Also included are each county’s safety index compared to the state average and recommendations for improving outcomes.

Children’s Law Blog

CWIG’s Guiding Principles of Systems of Care: Accountability

References:

• eMaio, C., Moore, A., and Badolato, V. (2002). Designing a Performance-Based Competitive Sourcing Process for the Federal Government. Reason Public Policy Institute. Retrieved August 4, 2006 from: here.
• Segel, G. (2002). The State Fiscal Calamity and Competitive Sourcing. Reason Public Policy Institute. Retrieved August 4, 2006 from: here.

  Every dollar saved through the competitive sourcing process is one less dollar that needs to be cut from services or one less tax dollar that needs to be raised. Policy makers cannot afford to ignore the tremendous power and opportunity that lies with competitive sourcing. It must play a large role in righting the ship and getting government finances back where they belong. As a taxpayer I value the services that governments provide me—as long as they are provided as efficiently and effectively as possible. The competitive sourcing process is a powerful tool that can help governments achieve that goal.

• Randsdell, T., Boloorian, S. (2005). Federal Formula Grants: Federal Child Care Programs. Public Policy Institute of California. Available here

  .

  This report reviews federal child care programs and the formulas used to distribute child care assistance funds to states, discusses California’s child care receipts under the current formula framework, compares the state’s experience to that of other states, and considers the effect of key child care reauthorization proposals in Congress on child care financing policies.

National Resource Center for Child Welfare Data and Technology: Resources for Information Technology

References:

• Birkenmaier, J. (2005). Weaving a Web: The Use of Internet Technology in Field Education. Journal of teaching in social work, 25(1-2), 3-19.

  The use of Internet technology in social work education is increasingly being debated. This paper describes applications using two technological tools to enhance one school's field education program. The development & current use of these computer-based strategies for use in the classroom-based Integrative Seminars, as a method to orient students to practicum & to offer an on-line Integrative Seminar, are discussed. Also described is the development of an additional project: the use of video conferencing technology to conduct virtual site visits. Key features, implications for the adoption of this technology in other programs, & student & faculty evaluation data are presented.

References:

• Tracy, EM. (2000). Child Welfare Education and Training: Future Trends and Influences. Child welfare, 79(1), 93-113.

  Based on a review of current economic, political, social, & professional trends, recommendations for child welfare education & training are proposed. Future partnerships between child welfare agencies & schools of social work will need to incorporate cross-system collaboration, multiculturalism, & family-centered approaches with a broader conceptualization of child well-being.

• Curry, D. (2005). Training, Transfer, and Turnover: Exploring the Relationship among Transfer of Learning Factors and Staff Retention in Child Welfare. Children and youth services review, 27(8), 931-948.

  Although training is often used in child welfare as an intervention to promote effective performance on the job (transfer of learning—TOL) as well as staff retention, there is not a preponderance of empirical evidence to support this practice. The “ transfer problem” is well documented in training and development literature and the relationship between training and turnover in child welfare is unclear. This article describes a longitudinal research study that attempted to promote a better understanding of the training, transfer, and turnover relationship. The research identified transfer of learning factors and an indicator of overall transfer support and explored their relationship to child welfare social worker retention. Overall transfer support, demographic variables (experience, age, education, gender) and several transfer support factors (supervisory support, coworker support, application planning, caseload size) were identified as predictors of retention. The results provide support for the use of training and development activities as part of comprehensive staff retention programs. The results also raise additional questions about the ambiguous relationship between training and turnover and suggest the need for ongoing research in child welfare regarding training, transfer of learning and staff retention.

• Birkenmaier, J. (2005). Weaving a Web: The Use of Internet Technology in Field Education. Journal of teaching in social work, 25(1-2), 3-19.

  The use of Internet technology in social work education is increasingly being debated. This paper describes applications using two technological tools to enhance one school's field education program. The development & current use of these computer-based strategies for use in the classroom-based Integrative Seminars, as a method to orient students to practicum & to offer an on-line Integrative Seminar, are discussed. Also described is the development of an additional project: the use of video conferencing technology to conduct virtual site visits. Key features, implications for the adoption of this technology in other programs, & student & faculty evaluation data are presented.

• Bogo, M. (2004). Toward New Approaches for Evaluating Student Field Performance: Tapping the Implicit Criteria Used by Experienced Field Instructors. Journal of social work education, 40(3), 417-426.

  This study determined the reliability of ratings & consistency of descriptions generated by experienced field instructors using only their acquired practice wisdom as a framework to evaluate students. Ten field instructors independently divided 20 student vignettes into as many categories as necessary to reflect various levels of student performance, described their categories, & ranked the individual vignettes within each category. The independently generated categories & their descriptions were very similar across instructors, & the inter-rater reliability was very high both for the placement of vignettes into categories (0.77) & the rankings (0.83).

• Mason, SE. (2003). The Importance of Including Supervisors When Evaluating Child Welfare Workers. Professional development, 6(3), 20-28.

  Child welfare professional workers & their supervisors responded to surveys on training effectiveness three months after a series of staff development seminars. Participants in the seminars, which took place in the New York Metropolitan area, 1998-1999, volunteered the names of their agency supervisors & agreed that both they & their supervisors would be asked to complete a follow-up questionnaire on how attendees' professional behavior may have changed related to the staff development training. A total of 285 trainees & 115 supervisors returned mailed surveys with response rates of 82% & 47%, respectively. Training participants were more likely than their supervisors to think that co-workers & supervisors noticed changes in their work. Both groups thought that the training benefited clients but there was no formalized way of documenting this finding. Professional workers & their supervisors favored additional training even when perceptions of efficacy differed. This article demonstrates that in child welfare settings, workers & their supervisors may hold disparate perceptions about the specific benefits of staff development but are positive about its value in general. The authors suggest that good communication between professional workers & supervisors coupled with articulated & measurable agency goals would go a long way to enhance the long-term effectiveness of staff development.

• Turcotte, D. (2003). The Pairing of Intervention Teams. A New Training Form in Youth Protection. Canadian social work review, 20(2), 169-183.

  Work placement is a major component of professional education in social work. For many students, it represents the first direct contact with psychosocial intervention, in which they have an opportunity to acquire the knowledge that will be particularly useful when they enter the job market. However, the practicum is an especially complex element of education. Student placements in child protection agencies involve particular issues for which the traditional formula, pairing a student with a supervisor, is not well suited. At the Centre jeunesse de Quebec-Instit universitaire, the supervisor-student model is replaced with a model in which the student is paired with a team of workers & the supervisor provides a coordinating role. Despite the limitations of this model of practicum placement, it overcomes many obstacles to the placement of students in child protection settings & it offers many advantages to students & workers.

The Campbell Collaboration

CWIG’sEmerging Practices in the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect