Child Welfare

Identifying Skillful Practice in Child Welfare Case Record Data Through the Use of Qualitative Data-Mining

Carnochan, S.
Weissinger, E.
Austin, M.J.
2015

This study addresses the need for research that examines child welfare practice. It documents frontline practice as reflected in the case records created by child welfare workers as part of their day-to-day work, and identifies skillful practices in these records. The analysis examines the relationship between child welfare worker practices and short-term client outcomes in cases involving youth in foster care, identifying examples from case record data to enhance our understanding of skillful child welfare practice. The analysis focuses on youth aged 12-18, as this group represents a...

Coming back home: The reintegration of formerly incarcerated youth with service implications

Anthony, E.K.
Samples, M.
de Kervor, D.N.
Ituarte, S.
Lee, C.
Austin, M.J.
2010

More than 100,000 youth return each year from some form of detention in a juvenile justice facility to families and communities with needs of their own. Despite information about the offense types and general demographic characteristics of detained youth, less is known about the needs and experiences of youth as they prepare to re-enter the community after a period of detention or how they fare post-release. A heightened awareness of the complex array of needs and the match between these needs and the social and educational service sector has the potential to streamline the reintegration...

Family Assessment in Child Welfare Services

Johnson, M.A.
Stone, S.
Lou, C.
Vu, C.
Ling, J.
Mizrahi, P.
Austin, M.J.
2008

Family assessment instruments can enhance the clinical judgment of child welfare practitioners by structuring decision-making processes and demonstrating the linkages between assessment, service provision, and child and family outcomes. This article describes the concept of family assessment in the child welfare context and provides an overview of the theoretical and disciplinary influences in the family assessment field. Based on a structured review of 85 instruments, the article discusses 21 that appear to the be the most valid and reliable for evaluating four federally-defined...

Assessing Parent Education Programs for Families Involved with Child Welfare Services

Johnson, M.A.
Stone, S.
Lou, C.
Ling, J.
Claassen, J.
Austin, M.J.
2008

Parent education programs may be offered or mandated at various stages of the child welfare services continuum. However, little is known regarding their efficacy in addressing the parenting problems that bring families to the attention of child welfare services. This article synthesizes outcome data generated from 58 parenting programs with families determined to be at-risk of child maltreatment and/or abusive or neglectful. It places parent education programs within the broader context of research on effective parenting as well as the leading etiological models of child maltreatment to...

Substance Abuse Interventions for Parents Involved in the Child Welfare System

Austin, M.J.
Osterling, K.L.
2008
As child welfare systems across the country face the problem of parental substance abuse, there is an increasing need to understand the types of treatment approaches that are most effective for substance-abusing parents in the child welfare system-the majority of whom are mothers. This structured review of the literature focuses on evidence related to two areas: (1) individual-level interventions designed to assist mothers and women in addressing their substance abuse problems, and (2) system-level interventions designed to improve collaboration and coordination between the child welfare...

Understanding and Measuring Child Welfare Outcomes

D'andrade, A.
Osterling, K.L.
Austin, M.J.
2008

The new “Children's and Family Services Reviews” (CFSR) process focuses on the effectiveness of services to children and families by measuring client outcomes. This article reviews the research literature related to child welfare outcomes in order to provide a context for federal accountability efforts. It also summarizes the 2001 federal mandate to hold states accountable for child welfare outcomes and describes California's response to this mandate. Implications of the outcomes literature review and measurement problems in the CFSR process suggest CSFR measures do not always capture...

Risk and Safety Assessment in Child Welfare

D'andrade, A.
Austin, M.J.
Benton, A.
2008

The assessment of risk is a critical part of child welfare agency practice. This review of the research literature on different instruments for assessing risk and safety in child welfare focuses on instrument reliability, validity, outcomes, and use with children and families of color. The findings suggest that the current actuarial instruments have stronger predictive validity than consensus-based instruments. This review was limited by the variability in definitions and measures across studies, the relatively small number of studies examining risk assessment instruments, and the lack of...

Understanding and Addressing Racial/Ethnic Disproportionality in the Front End of the Child Welfare System

Osterling, K.L.
D'andrade, A.
Austin, M.J.
2008

Racial/ethnic disproportionality in the child welfare system is a complicated social problem that is receiving increasing amounts of attention from researchers and practitioners. This review of the literature examines disproportionality in the front-end of the child welfare system and interventions that may address it. While none of the interventions had evidence suggesting that they reduced disproportionality in child welfare front-end processes, some of the interventions may improve child welfare case processes related to disproportionality and outcomes for families of color.