Evaluating Family Preservation in Nevada: A University-State Agency Collaboration

In this paper, concepts from the emerging family-centered paradigm in child welfare and mental health are applied to evaluative research in family preservation: the ecological perspective, enhancement of competence, a consumer orientation, and collaborative relationships. The experience of family preservation research collaborators from the School of Social Work at the University of Nevada, Reno and the Nevada Division of Child and Family Services illustrate these concepts. The researchers apply the theory of isomorphism to the research endeavor to produce eight principles of effective research partnerships derived from family-centered concepts and their own experiences.

Family Preservation: The Parents’ Perceptions

This research documents the perspective of 100 parents who had an open case with the Department of Children and Family Service’s (DCFS) regarding their family’s well-being, reasons for referral and satisfaction with services. Two DCFS services, Family Preservation (FP) and routine Family Maintenance (FM) were examined using standardized instruments. Parents’ responses regarding reasons for involvement with the system differed from DCFS administrative data. FP parents had more children, were more likely to be monolingual Spanish speakers, and perceived greater improvement in discipline and emotional care of children and housing than FM parents. FP parents reported being satisfied with services. Implications include supporting community based culturally competent FP programs.

The Impact of Title IV-E Training on Case Outcomes for Children Serviced by CPS

This study was designed to determine if the professional social work education provided by Title IV-E stipends leads to better case outcomes for children serviced by a southern state in the U.S. Desired case outcomes included lower levels of recurrence of child maltreatment, lower levels of foster care re-entries, greater stability of foster care placements, more reunifications with families within 12 months of placement in foster care, and more adoptions within 24 months of being placed in foster care. Data were obtained from the state’s case outcome records. The findings from the study indicate that Title IV-E stipend workers had significantly better outcomes than Non-Title IV-E workers in two areas: reunifications within twelve months and finalized adoptions within twenty-four months. In addition, non-Title IV-E workers with social work degrees were significantly more likely to achieve positive outcomes regarding recurrence of maltreatment, stability of foster care placement, and length of time to achieve adoption. The study recommends that state child protective service (CPS) agencies continue to offer Title IV-E child welfare training programs and hire degreed social workers. CPS should also continue to support the Title IV-E program and encourage employees to participate in the program. In addition, it is recommended that jobs be restructured to maximize activities that positively impact case outcomes and that the salaries of CPSworkers be increased. Additional research should also be conducted to contribute to a better understanding of other factors that positively impact case outcomes.

Supporting Families through Short-Term Foster Care: An Essay Review

Aldgate, J. and Bradley, M. (1999). Supporting families through short-term fostering. London: The Stationery Office. This essay reviews a British qualitative study of short-term foster care from the perspectives of birth parents, children, foster parents, and social workers. Respondents highlighted the value of short-term foster care as a family support service and also offered many recommendations for improving service delivery. The study provides useful implications for restructuring child welfare services in the United States and for promoting cross-national collaboration in future research activities in the area of child and family services.

What's Working in Family-Based Services--or, What's Left to Believe in During a Time of Such Doubt?

This article is a qualitative, personal report from the field, designed to highlight current developments in family-based theory and practice that bring hopefulness to workers and clients. The author, an experienced human services consultant and family therapist, draws from his recent experience in a number of states to identify exemplars of practice in the following areas: integrative theory building, functional family assessment, systems change in regard to inter-agency coordination and foster care, community building in low income neighborhoods, developing humility as helpers, and addressing issues of hope and spirituality with clients and with co-workers. Given the turbulent and hostile political environment for family-based services, this article challenges us to remember that effectiveness in helping others is directly related to our feelings of hopefulness about ourselves and our world.

The Family Partners Credit Card: A Token Economy System Adapted for Intensive Family Preservation Services to Enable Families to Manage Difficult Behavior of Adolescents

Increasingly, families referred for Intensive Family Preservation Services have not experienced a crisis of maltreatment, focused on the parent; rather these families have children with chronic behavioral difficulties for which their parents lack the skills to cope. These are the same families whose children were formerly placed in residential programs. This paper presents The Family Partners Credit Card System, incorporating behavioral techniques developed to treat children in out-of-home placements into a family preservation model. Two case examples illustrate how the system has been modified to train biological or adoptive parents in parenting skills, enable them to teach their children pro-family behaviors, and reinforce new behaviors through a credit card that monitors an ongoing balance of credits and fines.

Idiographic Self-Monitoring Instruments to Empower Client Participation and Evaluate Outcome in Intensive Family Preservation Services

Intensive Family Preservation Services seek to reflect the values of focusing on client strengths and viewing clients as colleagues. To promote those values, Intensive Family Preservation Programs should include a systematic form of client self monitoring in their packages of outcome measures. This paper presents a model of idiographic self-monitoring used in time series, single system research design developed for Family Partners, a family preservation program of the School for Contemporary Education in Annandale, Virginia. The evaluation model provides a means of empowering client families to utilize their strengths and promote their status as colleague in determining their own goals, participating in the change process, and measuring their own progress.

Improving Family Functioning Through Family Preservation Services: Results of the Los Angeles Experiment

This article describes a study of the outcomes of home-based family preservation services for abusive and neglectful families in Los Angeles County. It focuses on changes in family functioning during the 3 month service period and one year after case closing. Families known to the public child welfare agency were referred to the project based on caseworker judgement of the need for services rather than on the criteria of imminent risk of placement. Two hundred forty families were randomly assigned to either the service group receiving family preservation services from two non-profit agencies or to the comparison group receiving regular public agency services. Both caseworkers and families reported small but significant improvements in family functioning for the service group families, but not for the comparison group families. Study findings also suggest the aspects of family functioning most changed by services, the characteristics of families most affected by services, and variables which predicted service success.

Institutionalizing Intensive Family Preservation Services: A Strategy for Creating Staffing Standards Based on Projections of At-Risk Children from Referral Sources

In spite of new legislation and much public and professional interest, intensive family preservation service (IFPS) remains in a vulnerable position as compared to other child welfare services. This article details a method to project ideal IFPS caseloads as a function of children who are at-risk for placement by various referral sources. Using this approach, resource allocation for IFPS can be more nearly on equal ground with the traditional child welfare functions and help IFPS to assume its needed place as a core service in the child welfare continuum.

Intensive Family Preservation Services: Do They Have Any Impact on Family Functioning?

Tills article presents a review of the intensive family preservation evaluation literature, the prepost test rnethology employed to evaluate three models in one state and the findings which have informed policymakers and program designers as the service expands. After intensive family preservation services, significant changes were found in parent-centered risk, parental disposition, and child-centered and child performance. No changes were found in economic risk and household adequacy.

Intensive Family Reunification Services: A Conceptual Framework and Case Example

Recent federal mandates require child welfare agencies to make reasonable efforts to reunify families after out-of-home placement. Consistent with those mandates, agencies are increasingly employing techniques from family preservation services intended initially to prevent out-of-home placement. The purpose of this article is to articulate a conceptual framework and practice guidelines for family reunification services and to describe an experimental reunification program based on a family preservation model. A case example illustrates the way in which the services affected one family that participated in the experiment.

Targeting Families to Receive Intensive Family Preservation Services: Assessing the Use of Imminent Risk of Placement as a Service Criterion

The process for targeting families to receive intensive family preservation services was examined for 71 child welfare agencies in the United States. The focus of this exploratory/descriptive study was the concept of imminent risk of placement as a criterion for providing services. Findings indicated that agencies had difficulty defining imminent risk and were unable to successfully restrict services to imminent risk cases. Several factors besides imminent risk were identified in relation to the targeting process.

Intensive Family Preservation Services: A Short History but a Long Past

Intensive family preservation services (IFPS) is a program model that has been disseminated widely throughout the country, and has received federal recognition and monetary support since the early 1980s. Recently, IFPS has been criticized for seemingly being unable to prevent out-of-home placements. The authors contend that many evaluators and policy analysts have lost sight of the historical roots of IFPS, and are focusing only on recent fiscal and policy contexts when assessing IFPS program effectiveness. This article reviews the therapeutic and programmatic origins of IFPS including desired treatment outcomes, and suggests that evaluators and policy analysts redirect their focus accordingly.

Family Reunion Services: An Examination of a Process Used to Successfully Reunite Families

Family Reunion Services, an intensive-home-based service for families whose children are unlikely to return home without additional services, was evaluated. The 196 children who received FRS services and remained home had fewer previous placements, were more likely to be black and to come from families where the FRS worker intervened in the areas of parenting skills or communication. FRS workers' activities are described.

Measuring Consumer Satisfaction in Family Preservation Services: Identifying Instrument Domains

Measuring consumer satisfaction in the social services has become an important source of feedback for the improvement of service delivery. Consumer satisfaction has recently been incorporated into family preservation evaluation. This article reviews instruments used to measure consumer satisfaction in family preservation services and other related areas. Trends in current practice are examined and instrument dimensions are identified. Finally, some recommendations are made about the application of consumer satisfaction measurement in family preservation services.