Session: Promoting and Empowering Positive Perceptions of Implementing Evidence-Based Parenting in Child Welfare (Society for Social Work and Research 23rd Annual Conference - Ending Gender Based, Family and Community Violence)

Decades of research shows that parenting and casework services as usual are ineffective in reducing risk factors associated with maltreatment and foster care involvement (Asgary-Eden & Lee, 2011). Consequently, child welfare leaders are increasingly recognizing the need to implement evidence-supported parenting interventions (ESPIs) in child welfare (CW) agencies to promote child safety, permanency, and well-being. Leaders in a Northeastern U.S. city joined the implementation movement to address these objectives. This symposium provides attendees an opportunity to learn about three different sets of findings from the Promoting and Empowering Positive Perceptions of Evidence-Based Parenting (PEP2) in CW study. The PEP2 study originated in 2015, at which time the first and second authors developed research-practice partnerships with CW leaders to prospectively evaluate implementation processes and client outcomes associated with engaging in TripleP. Over the past 30 years, studies have demonstrated that TripleP promotes positive outcomes by enhancing the knowledge, skills, and confidence of parents in the general population (Alley et al., 2012). However, there is limited guidance on how to increase the likelihood that ESPIs, such as TripleP, are implemented in CW agencies. Aarons, Hurlburt, and Horwitz (2011), drawing from prior research, proposed the Exploration, Preparation, Implementation, and Sustainment (EPIS) model. The EPIS model pinpoints inner (within agency) and outer contextual factors that may impact implementation processes of ESPIs in CW agencies. As delineated in the EPIS model, outer contextual factors include the socio-political context, effective leadership ties across systems, and intra-organizational networks, while the inner context includes adopter characteristics, demographics, adaptability, and attitudes toward ESPIs, as well as organizational capacity, readiness for change, culture, and climate.

Limited efforts have been devoted to capturing the perceptions that clients and leaders in CW agencies have about ESPIs and about how they experience the inner and outer context during the implementation process (Greenhalgh et al., 2004). Thus, potential casual linkages or interrelations between different inner and outer contextual factors remain unknown (Albers et al., 2017), leaving CW agency providers, leaders, and scholars lacking a holistic understanding of how or why previous implementation efforts have failed and how best to ensure children and families engage in ESPIs. The PEP2 study addresses these gaps by collecting data from parents and CW caseworkers and leaders. Paper #1 provides insight into parents' perceptions of the inner and outer contextual barriers and facilitators of engaging in TripleP. Paper #2 relies on qualitative data collected from caseworkers' about their intentions to refer parents to TripleP, and to what extent information-sharing and intra-organizational relationships influence referral patterns. Finally, paper #3 highlights interview data collected from caseworkers, leaders, and Triple-P facilitators to understand to what extent inner and outer contextual factors are theoretically linked with one another, and whether they agree upon these relationships. This symposium will conclude with the discussant connecting the dots, identifying how different actors agree or disagree about the implementation processes. The moderator will introduce two CW leaders to provide commentary on the implementation process, the findings, and the research-practice partnership, and to participate in the Q/A discussion.