Center for State Child Welfare Data | Continuous Quality Improvement

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Knowledge-based investments and improved outcomes for children and families

Each year, federal, state, and local child welfare agencies spend approximately $26 billion to promote the well-being of vulnerable children and their families. That’s a serious commitment. What are we achieving with those investments? And how can we direct our resources in the future to do better?

Learn more about how the Data Center can help you use knowledge to promote continuous quality improvement.

New on CQIdeas:

February 24, 2015

Webinar recap: Building capacity for evidence use throughout the CQI process

The Data Center’s last CQI webinar reviewed the role evidence plays at each stage of the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle and how understanding the demand for evidence positions a child welfare agency to assess and build its capacity to implement CQI. Download the webinar materials from the CQIdeas blog.... Read more >

Turn Knowledge into Action

Analytic Tools

The Data Center’s suite of resources and services helps agencies integrate knowledge-driven strategic planning into their standard operating procedures.
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Continuous Quality Improvement

Read about how the Data Center is using analytic infrastructure and decision support to help child welfare agencies improve outcomes from the inside out.
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Education, Training, and Technical Assistance

Read about the Data Center’s online and in-person educational opportunities.
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Learn from The Data Center’s Research

Principles, Language, and Shared Meaning: Toward a Common Understanding of CQI in Child Welfare

By Fred Wulczyn, Lily Alpert, Britany Orlebeke, & Jennifer Haight

Regardless of how they are structured, all child welfare CQI systems are responsible for supporting the same basic CQI process—a cycle of problem solving activities that requires the deliberate use of evidence. In this paper we propose a common vocabulary for describing what CQI is, the core principles on which CQI rests, and the critical role that evidence plays throughout the CQI process.
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Research is Action: Disparity, Poverty, and the Need for New Knowledge

By Fred Wulczyn

A great deal of work has already been done to explore racial disparity in maltreatment rates and admission to out-of-home care. However, there are still fundamental research questions and policy and practice implications that must be addressed before we can reasonably expect to make progress on such a deep and important problem. This report explores the issue of disparity and the reasons for investing more in understanding it.
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Promoting Transparency

Because transparency promotes ongoing quality improvement in child welfare, we have launched a new initiative encouraging Data Center members to publish their Foster Care Profiles—a series of Data Center-generated reports that provide aggregate data and systemic trends pertaining to key permanency indicators.
Learn more about the Foster Care Profile Initiative>
Access the Foster Care Profile reports >