Bridging Disciplinary Boundaries (January 11 - 14, 2007)

The Family to Family (F2F) child welfare reform initiative, sponsored by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, currently operates in 15 states. As one of F2F's core components, Team Decision-Making (TDM) is an innovative approach that actively seeks the input of family and community members in determining placement decisions for children. This is the first systematic presentation analyzing data on all aspects of TDM implementation, although sites and technical assistants using these data have completed substantial ad-hoc analyses. For each TDM held, agency facilitators collect data about the meeting's characteristics, which are then entered into an administrative database. This study analyzes quantitative data from the TDM database maintained by the Office of Children's Services (OCS) in Anchorage, Alaska. Analyses are focused on four research questions: (1) the extent and variety of participation among attendees at TDMs; (2) the ratio of agency staff to family and community supports; (3) the most and least common types of group composition; and, (4) the extent to which child characteristics, meeting location, and the ratio of family and community participants to agency staff members predict placement recommendations. Between October 2004 and September 2005, Anchorage OCS conducted 664 TDMs for 385 families and 1090 children. Families averaged 1.72 meetings each. Most TDMs were either initial removal meetings (n=147, 22.1%) or placement change meetings (n=440, 66.4%). Birth parents attended a majority of initial removal meetings (125, 85.0%) and placement change meetings (259, 58.9%). Tribal representatives also attended many initial removal TDMs (32, 32.8%) as did relative caregivers (31, 21.1%). Community members and other human service agency providers attended 48.4% and 86.4% of initial removal TDM meetings and 71.0% and over 85% of change of placement TDMs. Ratios were calculated for each meeting, comparing the numbers of child welfare agency staff members to family and community supports. For initial removal TDMs, the majority (127, 86.4%) contained equal or greater numbers of family and community supports. This dynamic remained true for placement change TDMs (280, 63.7%). Logit models were developed to predict placement recommendations by child characteristics (race and gender), meeting location (agency v. community), and family v. agency attendance. For initial removal TDMs, native Alaskan children were 63.0% less likely (p< .05) than white children to be recommended for placement with a relative caregiver. However, if family and community members met or exceeded the numbers of agency staff in attendance, meetings were 850.4% more likely (p< .05) to recommend remaining or returning to home. Community-held placement change meetings were also 245.3% more likely (p< .01) to recommend a less-restrictive placement or no change in placement. Implications for agency practice and administration are discussed, highlighting the importance of family and community involvement in determining placement determinations, as well as racial equity in decision-making.