Session: Learning in a Pay for Success Environment: Results from a Program for Housing Unstable Families with Children in out-of-Home Placement (Society for Social Work and Research 25th Annual Conference - Social Work Science for Social Change)

In 2015, the first county-level social impact bond in the U.S. was launched in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. With a focus on homeless and housing unstable families with a child in foster care, the primary goal was to more rapidly address families' housing needs, thereby allowing children's stays in foster care to be reduced. Though any exit from out-of-home placement was valued, there was an implicit expectation that reunification was a desirable path to permanency for the majority of children. The initiative involved a homeless-serving agency to be assigned to identified families to work with them using a Critical Time Intervention approach and Trauma-Adapted Family Therapy. Families were offered case management services and housing supports.

This symposium presents three papers based on the mixed-methods evaluation of the five-year initiative. The symposium will share results of an RCT used to evaluate the quantitative outcomes for children and families in regard to length of out-of-home placements and exit status, based on 270 families enrolled in the study. In addition, the results of qualitative methods will be explored that draws on the perspectives of child welfare staff, housing services staff, and clients engaged in services. Collectively, these methods show that while lengths of stay were not reduced, there was an important difference in exit status by race, such that African-American children were more likely to be reunified when their families were engaged in the new intervention. The qualitative methods surface the important role of client advocacy in empowering these families to continue pursuing reunification despite contextual challenges. The symposium will also highlight how the process of research and learning is undertaken in a Pay For Success environment involving investors and a predetermined primary outcome metric.