Early Childhood Case Managers in Child Welfare: A Survey Study (WITHDRAWN)

Background: This study examined child welfare case managers’ capacity to work with infants and young children.  Very young children are at the highest risk for all forms of child maltreatment (with the exception of sexual abuse) (Administration for Children and Families, 2006), recurrent abuse and neglect (Fuller & Well, 2003), serious injuries, and fatalities (Administration for Children and Families, 2009) and poor developmental outcomes. Despite the high risk and unique needs of this age group; they are the least likely to be referred for developmentally supportive services (Zimmer & Panko, 2006).  Highly qualified case managers will promote development among this particularly vulnerable age group in the child welfare system. We hypothesized that case managers would hold values consistent with quality care, but would be unable to demonstrate best practices consistent with these beliefs. Survey development was guided by the following questions:

Q1: What are the professional qualifications and experiences of case managers serving infants, young children, and their families in Illinois’ child welfare system?

Q2: How do these case managers perceive their knowledge, practice skills, and reflective capacities to provide developmentally-informed and developmentally-appropriate services to this population?

Q3:  What additional knowledge, practice skills, and reflective capacities do case managers perceive they need in order to provide more developmentally-informed and developmentally-appropriate services to this population?

Q4: How do professional qualifications and experiences (i.e., years of education, type of degree, specific infant and early childhood training, years of experience in child welfare, type and amount of supervision, and opportunities for reflective practice and/or reflective supervision) predict case managers’ capacity to select best practice items on the survey?

Methods:  Investigators developed the Early Childhood Case Manager Surveyusing Weisberg’s (2009) “total survey error approach” as it addresses errors that occur in design, data collection and post survey phases.  Cognitive interviewing was used to address construct validity.  Participants were recruited through the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.  The 15-minute online survey was administered to a random sample of 1000 case managers throughout the state of Illinois. Data were analyzed using SPSS.  Missing data were addressed using dummy variable adjustment. In order to respond to the study question measures of central dispersion, and chi-square statistics were calculated. 

Results:  Case managers were found to have limited knowledge, practice skills, and reflective capacities to work in a meaningful way with infants and young children.  They tended to minimize the unique developmental needs of this age group, had difficulty approaching the parents in a collaborative and flexible way, and had few opportunities to engage in reflection about their practice or reflective supervision with their supervisor.    

Implications:  Investigators are working with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services to implement findings into their professional development practices.  These findings are also part of a portfolio of studies intended to address the implementation of evidence into child welfare practice.