Chapin Hall

The Challenge

Under the Family First Prevention Services Act, child welfare agencies must use evidence-based practices (EBPs) in their prevention plans to support children and families. But it’s not enough to just offer these services—agencies also need to show that programs are working and being delivered the way they are supposed to.

For many agencies, this can pose several challenges. Data on their practices may be stored in different systems that are not well connected, agencies might not be collecting the right information to show whether services are effective, and even when data is available, it’s often not leveraged in continuous quality improvement (CQI) efforts.

What We Did

Chapin Hall has created the new CQI Measurement Toolkit for Evidence-Based Practices, a robust resource that outlines standardized and model-specific data elements for 22 different EBPs. The toolkit and accompanying brief walk agencies through:

• federal Family First continuous quality improvement requirements,
• standardized reach measures to track the extent to which eligible children and families referred to services engage and complete those services,
• standardized capacity data elements to assess the degree to which necessary resources were devoted to support implementation,
• outcomes differentiated between federal requirements, jurisdiction-specific recommendations, and model-specific recommendations typically tracked by Family First programs,
• model-specific fidelity measures,
• best practices when adopting sound CQI processes, and
• how technology, such as provider portals, can help agencies and providers collect, share, and use data more easily.

Why It Matters

The toolkit and brief help child welfare agencies follow federal guidance on how to monitor and improve their prevention services and collect better data on what is working and where changes are needed. They also help agencies work more closely with providers and communities to understand and improve outcomes, so systems support ongoing learning and stronger results for families.

Have questions about these resources or want to learn how Chapin Hall could partner with your agency to provide tailored guidance? Contact Policy Analyst Alana Barr or Senior Policy Fellow Jennifer O’Brien.

Read the brief

Download the toolkit