Child Welfare Practice Improvement Efforts: A Descriptive Study of Capacity Building Services Received by Courts, States, and Tribes

The staff practices and organizational processes of child welfare agencies and courts influence families’ experiences and outcomes. Capacity building services have been delivered to improve organizational performance and practices, but studies of their impact are hampered by a lack of data on specific features of services. This study describes services delivered by the Child Welfare Capacity Building Collaborative during 2017–2019 using data from the Collaborative’s service and outcome tracking system. By supporting more rigorous study, these data can promote service improvements. These service data also provide a baseline that can be used to explore how services may change over time in response to federal legislation and social contextual factors such as the coronavirus pandemic.

Indigenous Environmental Justice and Sustainability: What Is Environmental Assimilation?

Canada has a long history of assimilative efforts with respect to Indigenous peoples. Legal assimilation efforts occurred on two fronts: the voluntary and involuntary enfranchisement of First Nations people, and the dissolution of First Nations reserve lands. Cultural assimilation occurred through the residential school system, and the removal of Indigenous children from their homes by Canadian child welfare agencies in the “sixties scoop”. Another form of assimilation is through environmental assimilation. I define environmental assimilation as changes to the environment through development, to the extent whereby the environment can no longer support Indigenous cultural activities. Herein, I examine environmental assimilation in northern Ontario, Canada. The “taken-up” clause in Treaty No. 9, the “Exemption Orders” in the Far North Act, the “Except” stipulation in the Mining Amendment Act, and the unilateral streamlining of projects in the Green Energy Act and the COVID-19 Economic Recovery Act—these pieces of legislation pose threats to the environment and serve to facilitate the reality of contemporary environmental assimilation of First Nations.

The Impact of Information System on Interactions of Child Welfare Professionals with Managers and Clients

The use of information systems in public child welfare agencies of different countries is challenging primarily for frontline practitioners. This paper unveils how material information system properties are involved in the interactions of child welfare practitioners with their clients and managers. We analyze the properties on their own (functional requirements) and according to the perception of IS users (non-functional requirements). On the basis of the results of systematic literature review and ethnographic study of the use of information system at Lithuanian Child Rights Protection and Adoption Service during the COVID-19 pandemic, we identify the relation between the absence of functionality or its potential failures and data duplication problem. According to our study, data duplication leads to additional time consumption, affects the ecology of the workplace, reduces reliability of information, challenges data protection and finally keeps away practitioners from direct work with clients and exposes them to overcontrol of managers.

A hairy situation: child protection workers experiences providing hair care to African Canadian children in care

This research explores the experiences of Child Protection Workers regarding Black youth hair maintenance while in care, as hair is a significant identity marker for Black children. Additionally, it is important to understand the rights and responsibilities of the child protection workers, foster parents, biological parents and outside paid resources, as they all play different, but vital roles in a child’s life. The training that child welfare agencies provide and community resources will also be discussed. I began the study by providing an overview of the literature on the topics of Black hair and responsibilities of the child welfare agencies. A critical race theory framework will deepen the understanding of racism intertwined with hair; as well as exploring terms such as organization, whiteness and cultural competency. A narrative approach was used as the methodology and detailed within the findings section. The study found that there was inconsistency within the agency together with lack of resources to be used in the community.

A hairy situation: child protection workers experiences providing hair care to African Canadian children in care

This research explores the experiences of Child Protection Workers regarding Black youth hair maintenance while in care, as hair is a significant identity marker for Black children. Additionally, it is important to understand the rights and responsibilities of the child protection workers, foster parents, biological parents and outside paid resources, as they all play different, but vital roles in a child’s life. The training that child welfare agencies provide and community resources will also be discussed. I began the study by providing an overview of the literature on the topics of Black hair and responsibilities of the child welfare agencies. A critical race theory framework will deepen the understanding of racism intertwined with hair; as well as exploring terms such as organization, whiteness and cultural competency. A narrative approach was used as the methodology and detailed within the findings section. The study found that there was inconsistency within the agency together with lack of resources to be used in the community.

Child Safety Assessment: Do Instrument-Based Decisions Concur with Decisions of Expert Panels?

To make decisions on children’s immediate safety, child welfare agencies have been using safety assessment instruments for decades. However, very little research on the quality of these instruments has been conducted. This study is the first to inspect the concurrent validity of a child safety assessment instrument by comparing its outcomes to a different measure of immediate child safety. It was examined to what extent decisions of practitioners using a safety assessment instrument concur with decisions of child maltreatment expert panels. A total of 26 experts on immediate child safety participated in 7 expert panels, in which the safety of children as described in 24 vignettes was discussed. Additionally, 74 practitioners rated the same vignettes using the ARIJ safety assessment instrument. The instrument-based safety decisions of practitioners concurred for a small majority with the safety decisions reached by the expert panels (58% agreement). Expert panels often identified more types of immediate safety threats than practitioners using the instrument; however, the latter group more often deemed the child to be in immediate danger than the first group. These findings provide indications on how the instrument can be improved and give insight into how immediate safety decisions are made.

Assessing Organizational Role and Perceptions of Programmatic Success in Policy Implementation

This study utilizes the Strategic Action Field (SAF) framework as a lens to study implementation effectiveness of Ohio START, a multiactor and multilevel implementation process. We examine the extent to which perceptions of successes and challenges vary across organizational roles in county-level child welfare agencies during Ohio START implementation. Preliminary findings reveal that perceptions of implementation effectiveness differ based on organizational role.

Deliberation and Deliberative Organizational Routines in Frontline Decision-Making

Deliberation is a widely recognized but understudied aspect of frontline decision-making. This study contributes to theory development by exploring deliberative practices in frontline organizations and their implications for decision-making. Drawing on a multi-sited ethnographic study in three Danish child welfare agencies, the analysis clarifies the multiple purposes of deliberation in everyday practice and shows how deliberation is enabled and structured by formalized and informal deliberative organizational routines. Findings show that deliberation may influence individual decision-making or amount to collective decision-making. Depending on how deliberative organizational routines are enacted, deliberation may serve to enhance professional judgment, ensure appropriate justification for decisions and alleviate uncertainty and emotional strain. Yet, while deliberation represents a productive form of collective coping, deliberative routines may also obscure transparency and reify dysfunctional group dynamics. A conceptual framework is developed to support further research into the purposes, practices, and implications of deliberation across diverse street-level contexts.

Beyond the Rhetoric

Culturally effective practice remains elusive within child welfare agencies. Recognizing the hierarchical nature of becoming culturally competent, this article presents specific strategies that enhance cultural effectiveness at the individual, interprofessional, middle management, and upper management levels. The approaches evolve from a five-stage model of change: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance. Becoming culturally competent requires a clear assessment of where the individual practitioner and agency are on the change continuum. The article also explores barriers to culturally competent practice, with a focus on multilevel strategies that work within child welfare agencies.

The Evolution of Federal Child Welfare Policy through the Family First Prevention Services Act of 2018: Opportunities, Barriers, and Unintended Consequences

The Family First Prevention Services Act of 2018 affords child welfare agencies a new opportunity to fund evidence-supported interventions to prevent children’s removal into public foster care and ensure that youth in care receive appropriate treatment in the least restrictive (most family-like) setting. The new law has been generally heralded as a much-needed improvement over prior funding constraints, but there are concerns among a growing number of child welfare leaders, researchers, professional membership organizations, and advocacy groups that its focus on the families of children who are at immanent risk of removal because of maltreatment is too limiting and that overreliance on strict evidence standards may contribute to racial disparity. This article considers how child welfare agencies can best leverage the opportunities presented by Family First while addressing potential barriers posed by the paucity of evidence-supported prevention programs and avoiding the unintended consequences of limiting reimbursement to only selective prevention services that meet rigorous evidence standards of effectiveness.