Friday, 14 January 2005 - 4:00 PM

This presentation is part of: Evaluating Child Welfare Intensive Services: Results from California's Title IV-E Waiver Child Welfare Demonstration Project

California's Title IV-E Child Welfare Waiver Demonstration Project Evaluation: An analysis of Wraparound in Alameda County

Purpose Wraparound in California is a response to the increasing costs of providing services to children in high-level group care in California without the corresponding positive outcomes. The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of Wraparound at producing better outcomes for two target populations in Alameda County: children in high-level group care, or at risk of such a placement setting. Specifically, the study tests three hypotheses: children receiving Wraparound through Project Destiny will have (1) higher levels of child safety than children receiving traditional services, (2) higher levels of placement stability, and (3) higher levels of permanence than children receiving traditional services.

Method The data collection design for the present study was a posttest-only control group design. The salient characteristic of the design is the random assignment of study subjects to two groups: a treatment group receiving Wraparound and a comparison group receiving traditional child welfare services. The general conditions for participation in the study include: (1) the child was eligible for federal foster care dollars, (2) the child was in a high level group care placement, or at-risk of such placement at the time of enrollment, (3) the child was receiving services as a child welfare dependent. Children were randomly assigned at a ratio of 5:3, treatment and comparison groups. Data for the study were acquired in a number of ways. Process study data was collected through focus groups. The Child and Adolescent Functional Assessment Scale (CAFAS) was used to assess the behavioral functioning of children in the two target populations for differences to ensure that the groups could be analyzed together. The Wraparound Fidelity Index (WFI) was used to provide the assessment of model fidelity of the intervention being implemented in Alameda County. Quantitative data on the outcome variables of child safety, stability, and permanence a longitudinal relational database containing data from California’s child welfare management information system.

Results The sample for this study included 194 children, 121 (62%) in the treatment group and 73 (38%) in the comparison group. The majority of children in the sample were at risk of high level group care placement (n=157, 81%). Overall, children receiving Wraparound, as compared to children receiving traditional child welfare services did not have significantly higher levels of child safety, placement stability, or permanence. However, the direction of the findings appears to be generally positive. This was most evident in the finding that the odds of living in a family-based environment at the end of the study was greater for children receiving Wraparound (p=0.0023).

Implications The findings suggest a number of programmatic recommendations: first, a reduction in the heterogeneity of the target population would help concentrate the intervention; second, a focus on the development of informal supports would increase model fidelity; and third, improved capacity to work with family situations where a primary caregiver is not immediately identified may lead to improved outcomes. Finally, as a question of policy, the findings appear to support the continuation of Wraparound in Alameda County.

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