Safety and Permanence in Child Welfare
Second Canadian Roundtable on Child Welfare Outcomes
October 8-9, 2009
Montreal, Canada
Barbara Needell, MSW, PhD
Center for Social Services Research
University of California at Berkeley
The Performance Indicators Project is a collaboration of the
California Department of Social Services and the University of California at Berkeley,
and is supported by the
California Department of Social Services and the Stuart Foundation
what can we measure?
rate of referrals/
substantiated referrals
home-based services
vs.
out of home care
reentry to care
permanency
through reunification,
adoption, or
guardianship
counterbalanced
indicators of system
performance
length
of stay
stability
of care
use of least
restrictive
form of care
positive attachments to
family, friends, and neighbors
Source: Usher, C.L., Wildfire, J.B., Gogan, H.C. & Brown, E.L. (2002).
Measuring Outcomes in Child Welfare. Chapel Hill: Jordan Institute for
Families,
three ways to measure
entry
cohorts
data
point
in time
exit
cohorts
the view matters…
How long do children stay in foster care?
January 1, 2008
July 1, 2008
Source: Aron Shlonsky, University of Toronto (formerly at CSSR)
December 31, 2008
California Example:
Age of Children in Foster Care
(2008 entries, July 1st 2008 caseload, 2008 exits)
35
34
30
31
29
27
25
20
%
15
21
22 21
Entries
Point in Time
Exits
22
20
19
18
16
10
5
8
6 5
0
<1 yr
1-5 yrs
6-10 yrs
11-15 yrs
16-17 yrs
public data:
putting it all out there
pros:
 greater performance accountability
 community awareness and involvement, encourages public-private
partnerships
 ability to track improvement over time, identify areas where programmatic
adjustments are needed
 Province/Province and Province/National collaboration
cons:
o
o
o
o
potential for misuse, misinterpretation, and misrepresentation
available to those with agendas or looking to create a sensational headline
misunderstood data can lead to the wrong policy decisions
“Torture numbers, and they’ll confess to anything”
Gregg Easterbrook
The California Experience
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University/Agency collaboration
Publicly available reports since 1994, online since 2000
Nationally mandated measures (CFSR)
State mandated measures (California Outcomes and Accountability
System—AB636 law since 2001)
Enhancements and additional measures
Dynamic, user defined drill down and breakout functionality
All tables refreshed quarterly
Data over time, for California and each of the 58 counties
Presentations, tools, etc.
how’s it working for us?
• All those “cons” WILL happen
• State, county, and UCB are able to respond
quickly and thoroughly to data abuse/number
torturing
• Publicly available data for child welfare has
become business as usual
• Most outcome measures are improving over
time
January 2004-July 2009
California CWS Outcomes System:
AB636 Measures, % IMPROVEMENT
(+) or (–) indicates direction of desired change
PR: Referral Rate (-)
PR: Substantiation Rate (-)
PR: Entry Rate (-)
PR: In Care Rate (-)
3.9%
19.6%
12.3%
23.7%
2B: Timely Response (1 day) (+)
2B: Timely Response (10 day) (+)
3.2%
8.9%
2C: Timely Social Worker Visits (+)
23.8%
4A: Siblings (All) (+)
4A: Siblings (Some or All) (+)
23.3%
8.4%
4B: Entries First Placement (Relative) (+)
4B: Entries First Placement (Group/Shelter) (-)
4B: PIT Placement (Relative) (+)
4B: PIT Placement (Group/Shelter) (-)
15.1%
28.3%
4.7%
14.8%
Decline in Performance
Improvement in Performance
January 2004-July 2009
California CWS Outcomes System:
Federal Measures, % IMPROVEMENT
(+) or (–) indicates direction of desired change
3.0%
S1.1: No Recurrence of Maltreatment (+)
S2.1: No Maltreatment in Foster Care (+)
-0.4%
**REUNIFICATION COMPOSITE (+)
C1.1: Reunification w/in 12m (Exit Cohort) (+)
C1.2: Median Time to Reunification (-)
C1.3: Reunification w/in 12m (Entry Cohort) (+)
C1.4: Reentry Following Reunification (-)
-1.1%
**ADOPTION COMPOSITE (+)
C2.1: Adoption w/in 24m (+)
C2.2: Median Time to Adoption (-)
C2.3: Adoption w/in 12m (17m In Care) (+)
C2.4: Legally Free w/in 6m (17m In Care) (+)
C2.5: Adoption w/in 12m (Legally Free) (+)
///110.4%
24.5%
15.1%
38.2%
12.7%
**LONG TERM CARE COMPOSITE (+)
C3.1: Exits to Permanency (24m In Care) (+)
C3.2: Exits to Permanency (Legally Free) (+)
C3.3: In Care 3+ Yrs (Emancipated/Age 18) (-)
**PLACEMENT STABILITY COMPOSITE (+)
C4.1: Placement Stability (8d-12m In Care) (+)
C4.2: Placement Stability (12-24m In Care) (+)
C4.3: Placement Stability (24m+ In Care) (+)
12.1%
7.5%
8.6%
15.4%
-1.4%
-14.8%
10.3%
12.7%
8.4%
4.0%
4.1%
8.0%
Decline in Performance Improvement in Performance
79.0%
policy
"Our collaboration with the University of California, Berkeley on the
Child Welfare Dynamic Report System allows the State of California
to make data accessible for analysis by the general public,
stakeholders, and policy-makers. The availability of this information
permits us to make informed public policy to improve outcomes for
children and youth in foster care."
John Wagner
Director
California Department of Social Services
legislation
“As a county administrator, I am fully in support of public access to county
level child welfare data for many reasons. One in particular that has been
most effective for me in my role as a legislative advocate is to be able to
cite data on the CSSR when arguing for or against a particular bill
impacting child welfare. The fact that we can drill down to a particular
population the bill addresses and help inform the debate on both policy
and fiscal impacts results in data driven legislation; data that all the
stakeholders can view and understand leads to consensus on the facts.
This is a major breakthrough in the legislative process that before had to
operate on inaccessible data or data embedded in paper reports at the
local level that were a challenge to gather and analyze.”
Kathy Watkins
Legislative Program Manager/Legislation and Research Unit
San Bernardino County Human Services System
training
“The publicly available data
provided by CSSR/CDSS is
invaluable for the training
system. All of the statewide and
regional training systems can
integrate actual data into their
curricula - this brings training
alive for the participants, and
reinforces practice that is
informed by outcomes.”
Barrett Johnson
Director
Child Welfare In-Service Training Project
California Social Work Education Center
(CalSWEC)
“As a trainer in child welfare, the
accessible public data base
provides current information to
support many of the topics we offer
in our Regional Training
Academy. We refer to it frequently
and are grateful for the gifted folks
who created this resource and
made it open to those of us who
are peripheral but important to
supporting good child welfare
practice.”
Liz Quinnett
Program Coordinator
Public Child Welfare Training Academy
(PCWTA)
program evaluation
“I use the data from the UCB/CDSS site almost every week in my job
as principal analyst in the Program Evaluation & Research unit. The
data is invaluable for analysis of trends over time, answering
specific questions posed by Children & Family Services managers,
and for routine program monitoring reports. I frequently respond to
requests for ad-hoc analyses by working directly with the staff
person and showing them how to create reports from the website following the principle of ‘teach them how to fish’. I also refer staff
from community based agencies who ask for data for grant
proposals to the website and often show them how to extract data.
Tom Clancy
Program Evaluation & Research
Alameda County Social Services Agency
irresistible information
"We commend Dr. Needell and the work of her staff at UCB/CDSS in
creating and refining the child welfare services data posted on the
public website. From an administrative perspective, the information
has been instrumental in identifying trends, program adjustments
and training needs. Being available to the public, the data has
supported our efforts in program transparency as well as serving to
educate the community on client needs and agency services."
Ken Jensen
Deputy Director
Santa Barbara County Dept. of Social Services
Barbara Needell
bneedell@berkeley.edu
CSSR.BERKELEY.EDU/UCB_CHILDWELFARE
Needell, B., Webster, D., Armijo, M., Lee, S., Dawson, W., Magruder, J., Exel, M., Glasser, T., Williams, D., Zimmerman, K.,
Simon, V., Putnam-Hornstein, E., Frerer, K., Cuccaro-Alamin, S., Winn, A., Lou, C., & Peng, C. (2009). Child Welfare Services
Reports for California. Retrieved July 1, 2009, from University of California at Berkeley Center for Social Services Research
website. URL: <http://cssr.berkeley.edu/ucb_childwelfare>
Presentation Developed by
Emily Putnam-Hornstein and Christine Wei-Mien Lou