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Barbara Needell, MSW, PhD Center for Social Services Research University of California at Berkeley

California’s Child Welfare Outcomes & Accountability System: Using Performance Measures to Encourage Improvement. Barbara Needell, MSW, PhD Center for Social Services Research University of California at Berkeley The Performance Indicators Project is a collaboration of the

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Barbara Needell, MSW, PhD Center for Social Services Research University of California at Berkeley

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  1. California’s Child Welfare Outcomes & Accountability System: Using Performance Measures to Encourage Improvement Barbara Needell, MSW, PhD Center for Social Services Research University of California at Berkeley The Performance Indicators Project is a collaboration of the California Department of Social Services and the University of California at Berkeley, and is supported by the California Department of Social Services and the Stuart Foundation

  2. Child Welfare is a System Rate of Referrals/ Substantiated Referrals Home-Based Services vs. Out of Home Care Reentry to Care Permanency Through Reunification, Adoption, or Guardianship Counterbalanced Indicators of System Performance Use of Least Restrictive Form of Care Length of Stay Positive Attachments to Family, Friends, and Neighbors Stability of Care SOURCE: Usher, C.L., Wildfire, J.B., Gogan, H.C. & Brown, E.L. (2002). Measuring Outcomes in Child Welfare. Chapel Hill:  Jordan Institute for Families,

  3. Background… California’s Child Welfare System Improvement and Accountability Act • Became law (AB 636) in 2001 • Went into effect in January 2004 with publication of first quarterly report • Began with county self assessments and System Improvement Plans (SIPS) that identified key challenges and strengths, based on public data Currently includes all federal measures (17 in CFSR2), augmented by state measures that capture important aspects of performance • Participation rates (referrals, substantiations, entries, in care) • Sibling placements • Key process measures (e.g., child visits, time to investigation) • Least restrictive placements • Measures added over time

  4. CDSS / CSSR Collaboration • Longstanding Interagency Agreement • Funding from CDSS* and Stuart Foundation • Quarterly Data Reports for CA and counties • Dynamic excel documents with data, charts, etc. • Data Publicly Available: cssr.berkeley.edu/ucb_childwelfare • Site organized around federal measures (with extensions) • Full data refresh quarterly • Ad hoc data tabulations (filtering capacity) • Composite viewer/composite planner * A portion of CDSS funding comes from AOC for work especially relevant to the courts

  5. Example… • Measure • C1.3: Reunification within 12 months (entry cohort) • Federal Base • Of all children entering foster care for the first time in the 6-month period who remained in foster care for 8 days or longer, what percent were discharged from foster care to reunification in less than 12 months from the date of latest removal from home? • Site Extensions • Agency, Days in Care, Time Period Views, Episode Count • Age, Ethnicity, Gender, Placement Type, Removal Reason • Exit Status at 3m, 6m, 12m…120m • Subgroup filtering, Count/Percent, Excel Export

  6. January 2004-July 2009California CWS Outcomes System:AB636 Measures, % IMPROVEMENT (+) or (–) indicates direction of desired change Decline in Performance Improvement in Performance

  7. January 2004-July 2009California CWS Outcomes System:Federal Measures, % IMPROVEMENT (+) or (–) indicates direction of desired change 110.4% Decline in Performance Improvement in Performance

  8. Public Data:Putting it All Out There PROS: Greater performance accountability Community awareness and involvement, encourages public-private partnerships Ability to track improvement over time, identify areas where programmatic adjustments are needed - County/County and County/State collaboration CONS: Potential for misuse, misinterpretation, and misrepresentation Available to those with agendas or looking to create a sensational headline Misunderstood data can lead to the wrong policy decisions “Torture numbers, and they’ll confess to anything” Gregg Easterbrook

  9. Child Welfare County Data Profiles: Court Data Reports • Customized excel reports for judges designed by AOC and CSSR staff • Data restricted to court dependent children when possible • County/State and County side by side table and graph comparisons • % change between timeframes • Presents data from child welfare and court sources (filings) • Provides links to source reports on CWS/CMS reports website to allow users to further explore data

  10. Barbara Needell bneedell@berkeley.edu 510-290-6334 CSSR.BERKELEY.EDU/UCB_CHILDWELFARE Needell, B., Webster, D., Armijo, M., Lee, S., Dawson, W., Magruder, J., Exel, M., Glasser, T., Williams, D., Zimmerman, K., Simon, V., Putnam-Hornstein, E., Frerer, K., Cuccaro-Alamin, S., Winn, A., Lou, C., & Peng, C. (2009). Child Welfare Services Reports for California. Retrieved April 1, 2009, from University of California at Berkeley Center for Social Services Research website. URL: <http://cssr.berkeley.edu/ucb_childwelfare> Presentation Developed by Emily Putnam-Hornstein and Christine Wei-Mien Lou

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