1. CHILD WELFARE SYSTEM IMPROVEMENT:
PARTNERING FOR
CHILD WELFARE SYSTEM IMPROVEMENT:
Implementing Federal and State Mandates for Reform
XXth ISPCAN
International Congress on Child Abuse
& Neglect
Nagoya, Japan
9/16/2014
Daniel Webster, PhD
California Child Welfare Indicators Project
University of California, Berkeley
Alicia Sandoval
Child Welfare Data Analysis Bureau
California Department of Social Services
Dave McDowell, PhD
Child Welfare Outcomes and Accountability Bureau
Barbara Needell, PhD
CCWIP is supported by the
California Department of Social Services and the Stuart Foundation

2. BACKGROUND The Challenge A Coordinated Reform Effort
Addressing Child and Family Service Review (CFSR) improvements
Large state with many independent jurisdictions
Supporting State DSS with data expertise
A Coordinated Reform Effort
California Outcomes and Accountability System (Assembly Bill 636)
Aligns with federal mandates, with key augmentations
Shift from compliance to continuous quality improvement – outcome driven and collaborative
California Child Welfare Indicators Project
Public reporting of administrative outcome data
Developing tools and system outcome measures
Technical assistance
Public child welfare reform—particularly for a state as large and varied as California is a daunting prospect.
This presentation describes ongoing efforts and promising results from a collaboration of staff from CDSS, and UCB as well as the Stuart Foundation [who provide financial support] who have partnered together to approach this important task. 
The collaboration has been instrumental in the implementation and continued oversight of the CA outcomes and accountability system which we will briefly describe. 
Presentation focus is on the dynamic public website and some of the tools available to help users monitor system improvement.
Statewide outcome data show some indication of improvements in almost all systemic outcomes since the advent of these coordinated efforts.
This success underscores the benefits of this productive partnership, the value of public access to child welfare data, and can hopefully serve as a model to be adopted by other jurisdictions.
An overview of Child Welfare in California…
Most populous state
California has a population that is roughly the size of Canada (total population is over 36 million, child population is over 9.6 million )
State supervised, county administered child welfare system
58 diverse counties (ranging from the very rural to very urban)
AB636 passed in 2001
Individualized county self-improvement plans
Quarterly data reports made available to state and county officials
Longitudinal data publicly available
Public-private collaboration to support key reforms
QTRLY DIST OF OUTCOME DTA
Includes national standards, but also draws heavily on previous work done by CWDA and UCB using entry cohort measures
Retains key process measures (e.g., child visits, time to investigation)
STATE CTY PARTNERSHIP
Shifts focus from process measured compliance
to outcome based review system, but requires
linking outcomes to related processes.
Requires county collaboration with community
partners.
Promotes sharing of promising practices among
counties

3. Partnering Roles Collaboration
California Department of Social Services
California Child Welfare Indicators Project, UC Berkeley
Children’s Data Network, USC
Children’s Research Center
Statewide Data Committee
Stuart Foundation
CDSS & UC Berkeley share responsibility for child welfare reporting, analysis, and official publications

4. A PORTAL FOR PUBLIC ADMINISTRATIVE DATA

5. Monitoring system Reform

6. Making Analysis Transparent
Publicly –Available Data
Uniform across state, 24/7 availability
Aggregate data, with drill down capability
Pluses and minuses of public data
Continuous Quality Improvement
Local staff must be able to question/challenge analysis, and get an explanation
A learning not punitive process
Continually test data & communicate with users
Ongoing feedback loop
Pros and Cons of public data
Pros
Greater performance accountability
(Numbers are there for all to see)
Community awareness and involvement, encourages public-private partnerships
(Funders can be shown “results”)
Allows state and counties to track improvements over time and to identify areas where programmatic adjustments are needed
(Counties can see the big performance picture)
County/County and County/State collaboration
(County A is doing well in X by doing Z. Maybe that would work in our county as well…)
Cons:
Potential for misuse, misinterpretation, and misrepresentation
(e.g., inappropriate county comparisons, treating small insignificant differences as meaningful, taking statistics out of context)
Available to those with agendas or looking to create a sensational headline
(Accurate statistics can be used to bolster inaccurate arguments (or create attention-grabbing headlines))
“Torture numbers, and they’ll confess to anything”

7. and Meeting New Challenges
MOVING FORWARD
and Meeting New Challenges
An Evolving Landscape with CFSR Round 3
New measures, risk adjustment, improvement standards
Rethink and re-tool quarterly report
Inform child welfare agency staff
Remain responsive & supportive to the field’s needs
Nimble adaptability of dynamic website
Create new tools
Develop new outcome metrics
Partner with CDN in new research areas
Turning Data into Knowledge
Promote familiarity of data throughout agencies
Support the link from outcome to practice
Educate current and emerging professionals
(Graduate courses, Trainings, Data Fellows Program)
Creating new tools to respond to user needs
--website tiled display
Nimble adaptability of site:
--if new state programs or foci appear, the ability to quickly change parameters or add measures is a strength of the project
Adapting analyses, reporting, and monitoring system reform under an evolving federal review process
--new fed measures, children in congregate care 1+ years
Educating new and existing professionals in data-driven system improvement
--EPH graduate course; in-service trainings on tools; partnering with CH on advanced analytics,
--Data Fellows Program with partners at USC, UW (and potentially UMinn.)

8. Questions? dwebster@berkeley.edu