Session: Policy Research to Guide Child Welfare Organizational Decision-Making (Society for Social Work and Research 15th Annual Conference: Emerging Horizons for Social Work Research)

Results of Federal Child & Family Services Reviews and individual studies have pointed to the need for child welfare systems to improve policies and practices that will lead to improvements in child safety, permanency, and well-being outcomes for children and their families served by public child welfare agencies. Implementation science suggests that the process of implementing system reforms should be guided by readiness for organizational change as well as by using the best available evidence to guide the implementation process. This symposium reports on the results of three collaborative studies designed to guide organizational decision-making to improve child welfare policies and practices. These three interrelated studies answer questions related to (1) changing policies to set minimally adequate foster care board rates; (2) changing management and marketing practices to successfully recruit and retain foster parents; and (3) waiving pre-service training requirements for MSW students who demonstrate child welfare competencies prior to their employment in public child welfare agencies. Despite the growing need for social services agencies to use research to guide organizational decision-making, prior research suggests that political and organizational factors may impede true collaboration and the utilization of research results by agency leadership to guide decision-making (Anderson, 2001). Researchers can improve prospects of research utilization by better understanding and strategically responding to organizational decision-making contexts in the agencies with which they collaborate. Goughler & Anderson (2009) suggest that critical elements in this partnership include clarification of both short and long term goals for the research partnerships and having mechanisms to build and refine research projects that will provide meaningful data that can be used to drive organizational decision-making. The three papers in this symposium are derived from such partnerships. Paper 1: Estimating the Costs Associated with Caring for Foster Children in the United States reports on a longitudinal study designed to estimate the true costs of caring for children in the United States. This study resulted from collaboration between three national organizations and the university partner. Numerous state agencies have used the methods and results to guide their foster care rate setting policies. The second two papers are based on long-term university- child welfare organizational partnerships in one state. Paper 2: Conducting Surveys of Foster Parents to Guide Recruitment & Retention Efforts reports on an ongoing study requested by the state child welfare agency to inform a major campaign to recruit and retain more qualified foster parents. Results are used to refine recruitment and retention strategies. Paper 3: Assessing a Specialized Educational Program to Build Competency in Public Child Welfare Practice reports on a study to test methods for assessing competency for child welfare practice. Results are used as a basis for justifying a waiver of required pre-service child welfare training for MSW graduates who demonstrate minimal levels of competency prior to employment in public child welfare. The symposium will engage participants to discuss the key elements of successful university-agency partnerships as illustrated through these three studies.