Implementing Comprehensive Evidence-Based Preventive Interventions in Child Welfare in NYC

Children and families served by child welfare systems are among the most vulnerable in western society with well documented risks for a multitude of negative outcomes and intergenerational involvement.  There is an abundance of evidence that a large portion of the children placed in foster care fail to achieve satisfactory well-being outcomes, and that strategies to improve well-being outcomes have been difficult to implement because the child welfare system (CWS) has been slow to adopt evidence-based practices (EBPs) relative to other public service systems such as mental health and juvenile justice. The reluctance to adopt EBPs in the CWS has been fueled by tensions between the fields of research and social work practice, and perceptions by CWS leadership and case workers of the narrowness of intervention targets in studies compared to the complexity of CWS client needs.  Also multiple funding streams are typically used to support services to CWS-involved children and parents. All of these factors inhibit attempts to implement system reform.  The present study examines the implementation of two linked EBPs with 200 caseworkers and their supervisors in 5 agencies in the New York City CWS.  The linked interventions are KEEP, to provide support and skills to foster and kinship parents and Parenting Through Change (a version of PMTO) to provide support and skills to biological and adoptive parents.

Method: The sample includes 2,000 children placed in foster care and their parents.  The NYC Administration for Children’s Services initiated the reform and named it Child Success NYC (CSNYC).  Targeted well-being outcomes, as designated by the NYC Administration for Children’s Services, include 17% reductions in a) lateral moves (disruptions), b) reunifications, c) number of care days (in foster care), and d) re-entries following reunification.  Outcomes are being tracked through CWS administrative data. Additionally implementation success/failure is being evaluated using the Stages of Implementation Completion measure that tracks performance and time in 8 stages from engagement to sustainability.

Results: The study uses a quasi-experiment design in which agency records data from 2000 to the present will be used to examine changes in the four outcomes described above. Intraagency comparisons will be made pre- and post-study onset to test whether agencies met the targeted 17% improvements. The relationship between SIC scores of implementation outcomes and the 4 targeted child well-being outcomes will be examined. Comparisons also will be made to agencies not implementing CSNYC (n = 32).