Using a Data-Informed Approach for Developing and Supporting a Strong Agency Workforce

A strong workforce is paramount to the success of child welfare agencies in achieving their mission and serving children and families. Yet, most agencies struggle to recruit, develop and retain a committed, high-performing, diverse and culturally competent staff. The consequences of high turnover and inexperienced, unprepared staff are profound and costly for agencies and negatively impact outcomes for children and families. The literature suggests a number of individual and organizational factors that significantly impact the functioning of the agency, including job satisfaction, workload, peer support, leadership and supervision among others. Agencies must create and nurture an organizational environment that supports agency goals, fosters mutual trust and respect, makes staff feel valuable and promotes workers’ performance and skill development. This workshop will discuss a comprehensive framework to analyze and measure agency performance in these areas, and one urban county’s experience in systematically assessing organizational health and developing interventions to strengthen the workforce and improve the organizational environment.

 The National Child Welfare Workforce Institute (NCWWI) developed the Workforce Development Framework (WDF) to describe the complexity of child welfare workforce development and help agency leaders use an integrated approach to workforce development across numerous domains identified through years of research.  These domains include Leadership, Practice, Supervision, Organizational environment, Recruitment, Professional development, and Incentives and Work conditions among others. The Comprehensive Organizational Health Assessment (COHA), utilizes a valid assessment process that includes a mixed-methods approach to data collection and analysis through surveys, interviews, administrative data and document review to assess the overall health and functioning of agency workforce across the WDF domains. The COHA is designed to be used as diagnostic tool as well as a tool to measure workforce outcomes.

The City and County of San Francisco, in collaboration with the NCWWI, administered the COHA to child welfare agency staff, and used the results to improve agency performance. Guided by the COHA results, agency leaders developed an organizational systems-level change initiative to develop and support a workforce that is performance-oriented, data-driven and team-focused. Logic modeling was used to guide the overall work, and agency staff at multiple levels participate in work groups and activities to support organizational change.

 In the first part of the session, NCWWI team members will discuss domains of the WDF and COHA methods and design, as well as use of the tool for evaluation research purposes. Agency staff will discuss the experience of engaging employees in the assessment and planning process, key workforce issues identified through the assessment, and development of structures and processes to improve organizational functioning.

 After this overview, the presenters will facilitate a structured discussion guided by participants’ interest in application of this or similar approaches to workforce development and organizational assessment. Questions will include: What workforce challenges persist across service areas? How can organizational assessment identify areas for agency improvement?  What are the challenges for use of the WDF and the COHA in public services beyond child welfare? What are strategies for strengthening the workforce, and how can we measure their effectiveness?