The C-CFSR or

Some of My Best Friends are Outcome Measures

National Resource Center for Child Welfare Data and Technology

8th National Child Welfare Data Conference July 20, 2005

Barbara Needell, MSW, PhD

Center for Social Services Research

University of California at Berkeley

The Performance Indicators Project is funded by the

California Department of Social Services and the Stuart Foundation

Measuring Child Welfare Outcomes

Child In Child OutA bunch of stuff happens

*adapted from Lyle, G. L., & Barker, M.A. (1998) Patterns & Spells: New approaches to conceptualizing children’s out of home placement experiences. Chicago: American Evaluation Association Annual Conference

Government Performance Results Act of 1993 (GPRA)

Annual Outcomes Report to Congress mandated by Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) of 1997

Statewide Data Indicators in Child and Family Services Reviews -- a subset of the Annual Outcomes—from National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) and Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS)

California Child Welfare System Improvement and Accountability Act (AB636) became law in 2001 and went into effect in January 2004

Outcomes, outcomes, everywhere

Quarterly distribution of county specific outcome

indicators data• Includes national standards (from AFCARS),

but also draws heavily on previous work done by CWDA and UCB using entry cohort measures

• Mirrors Family to Family Outcomes

• Retains key process measures (e.g., child visits, time to investigation)

Statewide Data Indicators from

AFCARS Stability Of Foster Care

Placement

Length Of Time To Reunification

Foster Care Re-entries

Length Of Time To Adoption

Why do we use entry cohort measures in addition

to measures from AFCARS?

Who is in AFCARS?

AFCARS contains data on children in foster care during a federal fiscal year

Each reporting period’s submission is a separate dataset. Reporting periods are linked together by the Children’s Bureau to form the annual databases. ANNUAL DATABASES ARE NOT LINKED TO EACH OTHER.

11/02 11/03 11/04

Data snapshots can be biased

Source: Aron Shlonsky, University of Toronto (formerly at CSSR)

California EXAMPLE: Age of Foster Children

(2003 first entries, 2003 exits, July 1 2004 caseload)(2003 first entries, 2003 exits, July 1 2004 caseload)

22

31

2220

54

30

2422

19

5

24 24

32

16

0

10

20

30

40

50

<1 1-5 6-10 11-15 16+

Age in Years

Per

cen

t

Entries

Exits

Point in Time

Federal—Of all children who were adopted during the year, what % had been in care for less than 24 months?(national standard = 32%)

State enriched—Of all children entering care for the first time, what % are adopted in less than 24 months? (we do not have state standards)

32% National Standard

• Baseline100 kids adopted, 33 within 24 months=33% substantial conformity achieved

Two pronged approach—faster adoption for 100 new entries (50% adopted within 24 months), additional adoptions for 100 kids in long term care

• 2 years later200 kids adopted, 50 within 24 months=25%substantial conformity NOT achieved

Are you getting better or worse? Data from the Multi State Data Archive

Adoption within 24 Months

State A

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

Ad

op

ted

Federal

State

year

Source: Chapin Hall Center for Children

Why don’t we have state standards ?

The Cycle of Experiences in the Child Welfare The Cycle of Experiences in the Child Welfare SystemSystem

CounterbalancedCounterbalancedIndicators ofIndicators of

SystemSystemPerformancePerformance

PermanencyPermanencyThroughThrough

Reunification,Reunification,Adoption, orAdoption, orGuardianshipGuardianship

LengthLengthOf StayOf Stay

StabilityStabilityOf CareOf Care

Rate of Referrals/Rate of Referrals/Substantiated ReferralsSubstantiated Referrals Home-BasedHome-Based

Services vs.Services vs.Out-of-HomeOut-of-Home

CareCare

Positive Positive AttachmentsAttachments

To Family,To Family,Friends, andFriends, andNeighborsNeighbors

Use of LeastUse of LeastRestrictiveRestrictive

Form of CareForm 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,

Reentry to CareReentry to Care

Lack of understanding about the limitations of the national standards, and pressure to

achieve “substantial conformity” (pass), could

drive changes in policy and practice that may not be best

for children and families.

Components

• Quarterly distribution of county specific outcome indicators data

• County Self Assessment

• Peer Quality Case Review

• County Self Improvement Plan

• Continuous monitoring of outcomes

AB636=State / County Partnership

• Shifts focus from process measured compliance to outcome based review system, but requires linking outcomes to related processes.

• Data are our friends, not our dictators. • Requires county collaboration with community partners (SIPs signed by Boards of Supervisors).

• Promotes sharing of promising practices among counties.

UCB Website

cssr.berkeley.edu(Child Welfare Services Reports)

includes

age, ethnicity, gender breakoutskin vs non-kin

for all AB636 measures and more

use “Datadude” to examine performance over time

State Websites http://www.dss.cahwnet.gov/cdssweb/

(Child Welfare Systems Improvements)

http://www.childsworld.ca.gov/CDSSCounty_1954.htm

(AB636 Quarterly Reports)

Go Bears!

bneedell@berkeley.edu510 642 1893