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Proceedings of the Tools That Work Conference,
November 12-14, 2003
Key:
 Microsoft Word file
 Microsoft Excel file
 Microsoft Powerpoint file
 Adobe Acrobat Reader file
Poster Sessions
Poster Session 1:
Paying for Child Welfare Services During a Recession: Changes in Spending Between 2000 and 2002
Poster Session 2:
Research on Inter-rater Reliability of a Structured Decision Support and its Implication for Child Welfare Practice
Poster Session 3:
Evaluation of the Current Status of Drug Assessment Instruments for Mothers and Its Implications for Child Welfare Practice
Poster Session 4:
Using Outcome Data to Inform Program Improvement Planning
Poster Session 5:
Developing a Child Abuse and Neglect Data System for Tribal Child Welfare Programs
Poster Session 6:
Developing Effective Data and Human Capital Systems to Meet Federal Standards of Child Safety, Permanency, and Well-being
Poster Session 7:
Integrating Best Practice into Permanency Planning
Poster Session 8:
Methods in Implementing an Effective CQI Program in a Social Services Setting
Poster Session 9:
Moving Research to Practice in Adoptions: The Quality Improvement Center Model
Poster Session 10:
Preparing Heterosexual and Sexual Minority Youth for Independent Living: Perceptions of Foster Parents
Poster Session 11:
The Kentucky Foster Care Census: Profiles of Permanency
Poster Session 12:
Monitoring Federal Outcomes at Your Fingertips
Poster Session 13:
Program Evaluation as Teaching Best Practices: Linking Process and Outcomes
Poster Session 1:
Paying for Child Welfare Services During a Recession: Changes in Spending Between 2000 and 2002
The purposes of this poster are to inform the audience of the continued changes in child welfare financing, to educate those who are not aware of all the funding streams used to pay for services, and to discuss the potential impacts of federal financing reforms. The presentation focuses on findings from the fourth round of a survey collecting child welfare financing data. Changes over time, with special attention on spending during a recession, will be presented.
Roseana Bess and Cynthia Andrews Scarcella, Research Associates, Urban Institute, Washington DC
Intended Audience: State and local public child welfare administrators, federal, state, and local policymakers, advocates, researchers, providers and practitioners
Poster Session 2:
Research on Inter-rater Reliability of a Structured Decision Support and its Implication for Child Welfare Practice
The purpose of this study was to investigate the level of inter-rater reliability of the Illinois Structured Decision Support Protocol through examining the level of workers' agreement regarding child abuse case interventions. Forty-five workers recruited from three field offices participated in this study by assessing three cases using the Structured Decision Support Protocol. The three cases were selected from ten case vignettes that had been developed based on cases investigated by the agency. Cohen's kappa was used to calculate the level of workers' agreement. The result showed a weak reliability (kappa=.29). Further analysis revealed a wide range of identified risk factors and levels of intervention for each identified risk factor even among the workers who made the same final decisions. The result indicated idiosyncrasies in CPS caseworkers' thought processes in decision-making and the protocol's vulnerability to workers' subjective interpretations.
Hyun-ah Kang, Doctoral Candidate, and John Poertner, Faculty Fellow, School of Social Work, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL
Intended Audience: Child welfare practitioners including CPS caseworkers and supervisors, scholars in the field of child welfare, and child welfare policy makers and administrators
Poster Session 3:
Evaluation of the Current Status of Drug Assessment Instruments for Mothers and Its Implications for Child Welfare Practice
This poster presentation (1) highlights previous literature reviews on mothers' substance use and its influence on the well-being of both mothers and their children, as well as highlights the current response of child welfare to mother's substance abuse; and (2) introduces the study methodology and findings. The study included a literature search on evaluation studies since 1990 on existing drug assessment instruments with female samples. Four instruments were selected and the status of their validity and reliability were then analyzed. The findings revealed that substance-abusing women, although recognized as a distinct group from their male counterparts, were still treated the same and that gender differences have not been analyzed in existing evaluation studies. The study also found that the importance of identifying subgroups of substance-abusing women has not been acknowledged in the literature. Two methodological issues are raised in the comparison of instruments: the lack of uniformity in methodology and indiscriminate types of drugs in the existing drug instruments. The study findings suggest a great need for further research on validating existing drug assessment instruments for women and developing female-sensitive assessment instruments. Subgroup differences among substance-abusing women require further attention. In particular, existing drug assessment instruments need tp be evaluated for their sensitivity to the culture and history of minority women. The study findings suggest that social work professionals should be aware of the lack of female-sensitive drug assessment instruments. Social work professionals need to gather more information in the assessment process rather than rely solely on existing drug assessment instruments.
Sam Choi, Research Assistance, Children and Family Research Center at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL
Intended Audience: Child welfare professionals including researchers and practitioners who have interests in issues related mothers substance abuse
Poster Session 4:
Using Outcome Data to Inform Program Improvement Planning
This presentation focuses on strategies that enable child welfare managers and supervisors to successfully develop and achieve program improvement goals. This poster presents the three ingredients to success: 1) Effective reporting systems (e.g., easy to use, relevant to individual managers, lean, and flexible); 2) Managers skills (e.g,. interpreting outcomes data, action planning); and 3) Organizational culture (e.g. productive actions that shape a results-oriented culture). Additional information is provided regarding on-line training that is available at no cost.
Terry Moore, Research Associate, University of Kansas School of Social Welfare, Lawrence, KS
Intended Audience: Child Welfare Managers at any level
Poster Session 5:
Developing a Child Abuse and Neglect Data System for Tribal Child Welfare Programs
Currently, there is no reliable information on the extent and nature of child abuse and neglect in Native American communities. To help address this issue, the National Indian Child Welfare Association is conducting a pilot project with five tribal communities over the next three years. The overall goal of this project is to design a model child abuse and neglect data reporting system that will provide accurate and reliable data to tribes, policymakers, practitioners, and funding agencies regarding child abuse and neglect in Native American communities. One of the unique features of this project is the inclusion of individual and family strengths-based indicators in the data reporting system. This poster presentation provides participants with background information on the research leading up to the project and key project activities.
Jody Becker-Green, Research Coordinator, National Indian Child Welfare Association, Portland, OR
Intended Audience: Program administrators, MIS coordinators, social workers (e.g., case managers, intake workers, supervisors, etc.) service providers, and policymakers
Poster Session 6:
Developing Effective Data and Human Capital Systems to Meet Federal Standards of Child Safety, Permanency, and Well-being
This poster highlights the objectives and results of two national studies conducted by the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) that focus on: (1) staff recruitment and retention-published in March 2003 and (2) the implementation of statewide automated child welfare information systems and federal data reporting requirements-published in July 2003. Specifically, this poster is organized to focus on the workforce and information/data system challenges facing child welfare agencies; how these challenges affect the delivery of services; and the promising practices several agencies have implemented to overcome these challenges and improve the safety, permanency, and well-being of children in their care.
Joy Gambino, Senior Policy Analyst, Sara Schibanoff, Senior Policy Analyst and Diana Pietrowiak, Assistant Director, United States General Accounting Office (GAO), Washington, DC
Intended Audience: The poster will be of interest to managers and caseworkers, but the target audience is child welfare directors, information managers, trainers, and human resources staff.
Poster Session 7:
Integrating Best Practice into Permanency Planning
The poster highlights the models and tools that were produced from a year long effort to create and standardize best practice "steps" within the permanency process. The presentation explains how a statewide system used a change model to accomplish standardization of existing practice within 74 private, non profit adoption agencies across the state, while also developing standards for new practices related to child and family preparation / profile work. Handouts and samples are available for the audience.
Sue Cohick, Best Practice / Training Specialist, Diakon / Family Design Resources, Inc., Harrisburg, PA
Intended Audience: Child welfare and permanency practitioners, administrators, and policy makers
Poster Session 8:
Methods in Implementing an Effective CQI Program in a Social Services Setting
The poster is divided into four quadrants with the following key areas: 1) CQI process within the agency; 2) Table format of short term objectives with indicators and re-measurements; 3) Trending graphs and tables; and 4) Program Area examples (including data sets from goal and objective development, baseline data, and re-measurement and result analysis).
Shirley Crawford, Director, Special Programs, and Michael Colangelo, Statistical Manager Mid-Cumberland Community Services Agency, Nashville, TN
Intended Audience: Individuals within organizations that are contemplating or in the early stages of implementing a continuous quality improvement program
Poster Session 9:
Moving Research to Practice in Adoptions: The Quality Improvement Center Model
The Quality Improvement Center on Adoption (QICA) represents an experiment by the Children's Bureau to examine the feasibility and benefits of regional involvement in designing/managing research and disseminating findings. The QICA has funded three projects featuring local public-private partnerships, staff specialization, and use of evidence-based practices to positively impact the adoption of foster children. The poster presentation demonstrates how the QICA has engaged practitioners in Virginia in knowledge development, reducing the gap between adoption research and practice.
Di Hayes, Division Director, Community Based Services, United Methodist Family Services of Virginia, Richmond, VA
Intended Audience: Child welfare professionals, including public and private adoption practitioners and researchers/evaluators
Poster Session 10:
Preparing Heterosexual and Sexual Minority Youth for Independent Living: Perceptions of Foster Parents
The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine whether there are differences in how foster parents prepare heterosexual youth and gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (GLBTQ or sexual minority) youth for independent living. The sample included ten private agency foster parents who were interviewed for approximately two hours on questions in the domains of tasks of daily living; birth family relationships; social relationships; education/employment; foster parent training; and agency policy and practice. Content analysis, in addition to frequencies and percentages, provided the methodology for analyzing the results. Findings were that most foster parents had not received formal training on how to prepare youth of any sexual identity for independent living. Most "straight" foster parents did not feel that they differentiated between heterosexual and sexual minority youth in preparation. But foster parents who were sexual minorities identified specific issues that should be addressed when working with GLBTQ youth. The findings offer numerous compelling and informative quotes from the participating foster parents. In addition to these examples, the poster presentation will offer a copy of the research instrument, the references, and contact information to access the entire 100+ page report.
Eileen Mayers Pasztor, Department of Social Work, and Danielle Ramos, Children's Social Worker, California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA
Intended Audience: Administrators, practitioners, researchers from family foster care agencies
Poster Session 11:
The Kentucky Foster Care Census: Profiles of Permanency
The Kentucky Foster Care Census was designed to see every child in out-of-home care on one particular day. During the census, extensive data were collected on child well-being from 6,000 children placed within residential, private foster homes, state-approved foster homes, and relative placements. Eighty percent of foster parents, relative providers, and agency care providers completed an interview about child needs and their relationship with social service agencies. Results were merged with the state agency SACWIS system to yield cross sectional and longitudinal case-based data. This poster section will describe the Kentucky Foster Care Census and share results from an analysis of the well-being factors associated with goals and stability in care. This analysis will be related to achieving the standards of the Federal Child and Family Services Review. A continuously looping video focusing on the census will be shown. Handouts about the process and findings will be available.
Ruth A. Huebner, PhD, Child Welfare Researcher, Viola P. Miller, EdD, Secretary. Kentucky Cabinet for Families and Children, Eastern Kentucky University, Frankfort, KY
Intended Audience: Persons interested in child well-being among children in out-of- home care are invited: including for example university faculty, students, social workers, psychologists, educators, researchers, and agency staff and administrators
Presenter Contact Information Presentation Abstract Presentation Slides
Poster Session 12:
Monitoring Federal Outcomes at Your Fingertips
The PSU Child Welfare Partnership provides the case practice and CPS Child Welfare staff training for Oregon and is also completing a sec 426 grant from the Children's Bureau to train Child Welfare supervisors on how to use data to achieve ASFA outcomes. Under this grant, the Partnership developed a simple, easy to use secure web-based data display system that allows a supervisor or worker to access a "dash board" for each federal outcome indicator. The displays, accessed through the internet, show how they are performing at the state, county, unit, and case levels. This poster session features the system (which can be developed very inexpensively for any state agency) and also has information about the Partnership's training, research, and graduate education programs.
Caleb Heppner, Executive Director of the Child Welfare Partnership, Graduate School of Social Work, Portland State University, Portland, OR
Intended Audience: Child Welfare supervisors, managers and administrators
Poster Session 13:
Program Evaluation as Teaching Best Practices: Linking Process and Outcomes
We studied the relationship between state-level program evaluation, program accreditation status, and outcome measures for child mental health, program effectiveness, and state-level cost savings in children's residential facilities. We surveyed all facilities of this type in Kentucky over a 3-year period (reoccurring n = 38) and found strong relationships between our quality standards, program accreditation status, and outcome measures for children's mental health. Using MANOVA analyses, main effects were found for accreditation status and for an interaction between year and accreditation (Y*A). Program effectiveness was found to drastically improve in unaccredited programs as a result of our quality standards, and improved mental health outcomes for children saved the state Cabinet for Families and Children an estimated $1,780/day.
Dan Chesire, Assistant Professor, Children's Review Program University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY
Intended Audience: Social work program administrators in children's mental health; Federal and state policy-makers in child welfare and health and human services
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