New Guide for Child Welfare Leaders Provides Improvement Roadmap for Kids and Families - The Annie E. Casey Foundation

New Guide for Child Welfare Leaders Provides Improvement Roadmap for Kids and Families

Posted April 22, 2015
By the Annie E. Casey Foundation
Blog newdeskguide 2015

Eval­u­at­ing and installing improved prac­tices has not always been a strong suit for gov­ern­ment agen­cies. That is chang­ing as more agen­cies — includ­ing some respon­si­ble for child wel­fare — use data to deter­mine what works and use that knowl­edge to improve services. 

A new tool from the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion, 10 Prac­tices: A Child Wel­fare Leader’s Desk Guide To Build­ing a High-Per­form­ing Agency,” helps new and expe­ri­enced child wel­fare lead­ers devel­op an effec­tive agen­da for agency improve­ment. The desk guide pro­vides a struc­tured, yet flex­i­ble roadmap for change that draws on research on what works to effec­tive­ly help chil­dren and families. 

Lead­ers play a crit­i­cal role

Lead­ers know there is a clear busi­ness case to be made for improv­ing their agen­cies,” says Tracey Feild, direc­tor of Casey’s Child Wel­fare Strat­e­gy Group. The desk guide puts all the infor­ma­tion lead­ers need to know in one place, so they and their staff can com­pare their out­comes to oth­er agen­cies across the coun­try and install improve­ments proven to make a dif­fer­ence for chil­dren, fam­i­lies and communities.”

The desk guide has two parts. The first briefly describes 10 best prac­tices and out­comes for mea­sur­ing where an agency stands com­pared to oth­ers in the field. Busy lead­ers can use infor­ma­tion to devel­op a snap­shot of their strengths and oppor­tu­ni­ties for improve­ment, then take action,” Feild says. 

Part Two is more detailed. It includes 20 pages of links to research, mate­ri­als and tools that agency staff mem­bers can use to advance poli­cies, prac­tices and pro­grams. Appen­dices pro­vide infor­ma­tion on urgent top­ics, such as how to upgrade data col­lec­tion and mea­sure racial and oth­er dis­par­i­ties in child outcomes.

The 10 prac­tices in this desk guide can help moti­vate inter­nal and exter­nal part­ners to change for the bet­ter. When child wel­fare improve­ments are thought­ful­ly cho­sen, sequenced and installed, agen­cies do a bet­ter job of meet­ing the needs of chil­dren and fam­i­lies while ensur­ing qual­i­ty and con­trol­ling costs,” Feild says.

Qual­i­ty work pro­motes bet­ter outcomes

Among desk guide recommendations:

  • Focus on out­comes. If agen­cies can only make one step toward improve­ment, they should focus on out­comes, defined as what hap­pens to chil­dren and fam­i­lies in their care. Agen­cies can do this by ded­i­cat­ing them­selves to track­ing out­comes sys­temwide – and tying agency suc­cess to being effective.
  • Get con­trol of case­loads. An agency will only limp along if staff mem­bers don’t have the time and ener­gy to work direct­ly with chil­dren and fam­i­lies and make good deci­sions. Case­work­ers must have rea­son­able case­loads. If they don’t, agen­cies expe­ri­ence high staff turnover that fuels poor deci­sion mak­ing, spurs poor child and fam­i­ly out­comes, requires inor­di­nate recruit­ment and increas­es train­ing costs.” What are rea­son­able case­loads? The desk guide sug­gests lim­it­ing inves­tiga­tive staff to 810 new cas­es a month and in-home case­work­ers to 1215 cas­es at a time. 

Proven strate­gies

The desk guide’s proven strate­gies will help lead­ers make the case for change, improve child and fam­i­ly out­comes and pro­vide a fis­cal­ly sound path toward agency advance­ment,” Feild says. Research is reshap­ing our knowl­edge of what works; it is imper­a­tive that pub­lic sys­tems act on that knowledge.”