Fred Wulczyn, Principal Investigator
2009

In Florida, community-based care agencies (CBCs) are charged with maintaining child welfare services, and a monitor is responsible for assessing the degree to which the system of care complies with accepted best practices and regulatory requirements and with establishing the outcomes that will be used to interpret how well the system performs overall. Chapin Hall is responsible for monitoring and evaluating the performance of community-based care agencies in the Broward and Miami/Monroe districts. This involves reporting outcome data derived from Florida’s administrative data system.

The data Chapin Hall presents to these districts will show outcomes over time and by provider, including comparative data to better understand performance. The first core outcome to be explored is safety—that is, recurrence of maltreatment and maltreatment while in foster care. The permanency outcome centers on the likelihood of placement into foster care, the likelihood of achieving permanency, placement stability, placement reentry, and exits from care to such nonpermanent outcomes as running away. The third outcome concerns child well-being in terms of such factors as access to appropriate health services, educational services, and appropriate early intervention and other behavioral health services.