An Evaluation of Family Group Decision Making in Child Welfare

Background and Purpose: The use of family meetings in child welfare is a commonly used practice designed to empower families to have a say in agency decisions about their children. Current family meeting practice within and across child welfare jurisdictions in the United States is widespread and varies greatly, which presents a challenge to rigorous research, evaluation, and implementation fidelity. The focus, among the few studies that have been conducted, has typically been on the use of family meetings for children in foster care, not for families receiving in-home services, and the results have been mixed or inconclusive.

The Kempe Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect was funded through a 2011 Family Connection grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Children’s Bureau, and partnered with Casey Family Programs to rigorously evaluate the use of Family Group Decision Making (FGDM)—a structured process for conducting family meetings—among a child welfare population under court supervision and receiving in-home services.

Methods: This multi-site, multi-method evaluation of FGDM uses two research designs, each specific to a site—one quasi-experimental (propensity score matching) and one experimental (randomized controlled trial (RCT)). The evaluation employed worker surveys, caregiver surveys, fidelity assessments, and administrative data analysis. We examine the impact of FGDM on child safety (re-reports), permanency (out-of-home placements), and family well-being (social support) for 544 families in the experimental design and just over 900 families for the propensity score matching approach.

Results: Our analysis revealed that the treatment group had significantly higher social support following the meetings than the control group in the RCT state. Initial and very preliminary analysis of administrative data has not revealed significant differences in out-of-home placements or re-reports. Final data and analyses for placement and re-reporting will be examined more thoroughly in a multivariate and longitudinal context with a follow-up period of up to two and a half years for some families). Key questions such as the relationship of fidelity of FGC practice to placement outcomes will be analyzed. These results will be available and presented.

Conclusions and Implications: This research will confirm, validate, or refute some of the mixed findings for family meeting practice. In addition, it will provide jurisdictions with information on whether or not this resource-intensive structured practice is useful for families in the in-home service track, at least for achieving the desired outcomes of increased child safety and reduced placement disruption. The philosophical underpinnings of the family engagement component of family meetings will be weighed and discussed in the context of these findings. Also, in the context of this panel, we will discuss the application of the quasi-experimental and experimental design in each state and the challenges and opportunities therein.