For public and private child welfare agencies, the focus on outcomes for children has intensified in recent years. To help align the child welfare system's focus on outcomes with how services are financed, more states are using performance-based contracting. With performance-based contracting, states shift incentives so that service providers find it easier to match the needs of children and families with the array of services offered. Despite this advantage, adopting a performance-based model poses significant policy, practice, and implementation challenges.

Please join us as we explore these challenges and discuss the research that is helping to shape and refine performance-based contracting models. We will examine how Tennessee shifted its fiscal approach through performance-based contracting. We will also discuss how providers can implement a performance-based model and use outcomes data to improve services for children within their existing structure.

• Elizabeth Black, executive director, Office of Child Permanency, Tennessee Department of Children's Services

• Gino DeSalvatore, director of residential treatment and academy services, Centerstone

• Fred Wulczyn, research fellow, Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago

• Moderator: Patrick Boyle, editor, Youth Today