Center for State Child Welfare Data | Continuous Quality Improvement

Google Chrome users may receive an untrusted site warning when trying to log in to the FCDA web tool. The most recent version of Chrome cannot verify the legacy SSL certificate. Until this issue is resolved, please use other browsers. Thank you.

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.

August 13, 2021

The Impact of Youth Villages’ Intercept Program on Placement Prevention: A Second Look

Reassessing Youth Villages’ Intercept® Program with Recent Data Following their report from last year, Scott Huhr and Fred Wulczyn report findings from their reassessment on the impact of Intercept using Tennessee DCS administrative data to examine a more recent period. Intercept is an intensive in-home services program that targets families with children at risk of placement. Key features of the… Read more >

Download PDF >

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.
Learn more >

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.
Learn more >

Education, Training, and Technical Assistance

Read about the Data Center’s online and in-person educational opportunities.
Learn more >

Learn from The Data Center’s Research

The Project on Research Evidence Use by Child Welfare Agencies

Results of the first wave of analysis from the Project on Research Evidence Use by Child Welfare Agencies show that the more often agency staff use research evidence to learn about children in their care, the faster the agency discharges children in foster care to permanency. Read more about our initial findings, implications for staff development, and avenues for future research >

The Dynamics of Foster Home Recruitment and Retention

By Fred Wulczyn, Britany Orlebeke, Kristen Hislop, Florie Schmits, Jamie McClanahan, & Lilian Huang

In order to boldly test new foster home recruitment and retention strategies, child welfare systems need data capacity that allows them to ask and answer clearly defined questions about the structure and functioning of their current foster home system. In this report, we demonstrate the use of administrative data to generate robust evidence to maintain a stable supply of high-quality foster homes.
Download the PDF >

Promoting Transparency

Because transparency promotes ongoing quality improvement in child welfare, we have launched an initiative encouraging Data Center members to publish a set of Data Center-generated reports that provide aggregate data on statewide trends pertaining to key permanency indicators.
Learn more about this initiative>
Access the publically available reports >