Archive: December 2012

Case record review gives you an in-depth look at how aspects of casework may be driving variability in outcomes for children in foster care. In this webinar, we discussed how to identify an appropriate sampling frame and how to use the FCDA web tool to select cases for review. View the PowerPoint slides >

This two-day webinar focused on how to use advanced analytics to diagnose child and family outcomes that need improvement, identify opportinies for intervention, and measure the impact of implemented strategies, both programatically and fiscally. View the PowerPoint slides >

2012 Read this post from the Data Center’s user-support blog, Recipes, about how longitudinal data can help your agency answer questions about system performance throughout the cycle of continuous quality improvement. Read the post >

Fred Wulczyn, Eileen Sheu | 1997 Child welfare services currently operate in an environment characterized by increasing need for services and calls for cost containment and system reform. The authors of this paper suggest that capitated rates represent a potentially useful strategy for meeting those demands. This paper discusses issues related to setting a capitation rate and how to estimate the maximum rate of expenditure permissible for solvency under the proposed capitation rate. Download the PDF  >

Fred Wulczyn, Britany Orlebeke, Jennifer Haight | 2009 From year to year, child welfare directors allocate resources in the hope that their efforts will improve children’s outcomes. In this paper, we present a framework that state and local child welfare agencies can use to monitor their return on those investments. Focusing on traditional child welfare outcomes pertaining to child maltreatment and foster care, the goal is to burrow through the complexity involved in understanding whether system performance is improving and whether the improvements are connected to changes in how resources are invested. Download the PDF  >

Fred Wulczyn, Deborah Daro, John Fluke, Sara Feldman, Christin Glodek, and Kate Lifanda | 2010 In this collaboration between UNICEF, Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, and the Child Protection Research Center (CPRC) of the American Humane Association, the authors review the existing multidisciplinary literature on systems approaches to child protection and present findings from interviews with key stakeholders engaged in creating or monitoring such systems at the international and national levels. Download the PDF >

Fred Wulczyn | 2011 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. Download the PDF >

On February 2, 2012, Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago hosted a Child & Family Policy Forum on research, policy, and practice issues regarding racial disparity in the child welfare system. Watch the webcast >

Jennifer Haight In 2005, Tennessee’s Department of Children’s Services engaged the Data Center in an effort to improve outcomes for children placed with contracted private services providers. We helped the state design and implement a performance- based contract that led to improved permanency for children and $20 million in savings to the state over five years. Read the fact sheet >

Fred Wulczyn, Kristen Brunner Hislop, Lijun Chen | 2005 Among all of the provisions included in the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA), those that relate to the termination of parental rights and adoption are perhaps most central to the law’s overarching purpose. This paper analyzes data from the Multistate Foster Care Data Archive to understand what effect, if any, the federal law has had on the proportion of children adopted from foster care and on the time needed to complete those adoptions. Download the PDF >