Indicating Success in Public Child Welfare Child Outcomes, System Performance and the CFSR Process Susan Smith and Lisa Tuttle Casey Family Programs July 29, 2011

Monitoring the Vision: Casey’s Dashboard Goal: Every child deserves a safe, permanent home Vision: Reduce the children in the United States in foster care in half by the year 2020 In 2005 there were ½ million children; moving to ¼ million by 2020 Monitor: Key performance indicators at a national level Evaluate: Work and efforts at the state and county level

Long term trends in entries & exits Data notes: For years before 2000, data are averaged across a two-year period. Data for 1995 and before should not be compared to data from 1996 and beyond. Data on entries and exits not available for Data from retrieved from the American Public Welfare Association/Voluntary Cooperative Information System (VCIS). Data from based on the VCIS and retrieved from the Children’s Bureau website. Data from retrieved from CWLA/NDAS. Data from based on AFCARS.

Trends In Out-of-Home Care: Slides prepared by Data Advocacy, 7/25/11 Data source: AFCARS

National Entry Rates, FY09 - improved overall entry rate Slides prepared by Data Advocacy, 7/25/11 Data source: AFCARS

National Foster Care Trends 6

U.S. Foster Care System highly simplified CHILD IN a bunch of stuff happens CHILD OUT *adapted from Lyle, G. L., & Barker, M.A. (1998) Patterns & Spells: New approaches to conceptualizing children’s out of home placement experiences. Chicago: American Evaluation Association Annual Conference But is the child safe? (Whether in foster care or at home) And what is the child’s level of well-being?

Background Child and Family Services Reviews (CFSR) Goal: Improve the performance of state child welfare systems Timeline: 1994 Federal government mandate to review and evaluate state foster care and adoption services Children’s Bureau of the Administration on Children and Families (ACF) administers the process Purpose of CFSRs: To ensure states are in “substantial conformity” with Titles IV-B and IV-E Federal Funding, within the domains of safety, permanence, and well-being.

Outcome Measures: What we have What we need Permanency C1.1 C1.2 C1.3 C1.4 Adoption C2.1 C2.2 C2.3 C2.4 C2.5 Long- Stayers C3.1 C3.2 C3.3 Placement Stability C4.1 C4.2 C4.3 valid reliable comprehensible = a good measure

Outcome Measures Data should be gathered and analyzed in a manner that facilitates understanding of how one area of practice affects another Acknowledgement to Emily Putnam-Hornstein and Barbara Needell, University of California, Berkeley, for the slide content.

Proposed Measures – outcome measures required Maltreatment Recurrence Entry to Care Abuse in Care Placement Stability Length of Stay Exits to Permanency Maintenance of Permanence

Additional Measures – optional IGNORE THIS LEVEL Reporting rate Response rate investigation rate case opening rate victimization rate re-reporting rate in-home services exits from in- home services re-reports post in-home services adoption disruption

Proposed Measures process measures - required Worker-Child Visits Timeliness of Investigations

Proposed Measures well-being measures IGNORE THIS LEVEL medical evaluation dental evaluation mental health screening school enrollment status at / after emancipation

Data-sharing / interoperability [near-term goal]

Outcome Measures…. birth home visiting family supports referralentry family preservation Measures of primary and secondary prevention services?

Data-sharing / Interoperability Longer-term vision social services data concerning vulnerable children and families current fully linked and integrated (real- time) administrative data systems for the coordinated delivery and evaluation of services future

National Dashboard

Efforts, Approaches, Outcomes

State Comparisons

State Detail in National View

State and County Level

Interactive Dashboard by State

Casey Direct Service Targets

Office numbers and targets

Conclusions Child welfare needs to be considered an integrated system of child safety and well-being, not a foster care program The Federal role is to assure accountability and compliance, which includes child safety Innovations in states and agencies lead the way in integrating and translating data into information about what works

QUESTIONS?