Chapin Hall

Child Welfare Assessments Can Be Improved to Better Help Families

What We Did

Washington State Department of Children, Youth, and Families partnered with Chapin Hall for the first phase of its Assessment Redesign project. The project sought to improve child welfare assessments, guide caseworker decision making, engage family members in case planning, and improve outcomes. After a review of several assessments, DCYF opted to pilot test a modified North Carolina Family Assessment Scale for General Services & Reunification (NCFAS-G+R) assessment. The team also developed a novel Brief Support Inventory (BSI) assessment. Chapin Hall then designed a focus group methodology to consult parents who had prior experience with the child welfare system. The team synthesized the results of the focus groups and confirmed that the insights were accurately captured in follow-up member-checking sessions. Finally, the assessments were tested by several caseworkers as part of their standard work with families. 

What We Found

• Parents who had prior experience with the child welfare system emphasized that communication with families must be more transparent and consistent, and that the assessments must capture families’ unique needs. They also strongly recommended providing families who are navigating the child welfare system with an effective peer support process and resources to better understand the next steps, like a physical copy of the assessment and a link to a video that explains timelines and what to expect from the caseworker. 

• Caseworkers felt the new assessments facilitated rapport-building with families, enabling families to open up about certain sensitive topics that other assessments overlooked. 

• Caseworkers emphasized that transformative change would require refiguring departmental practice more broadly. Further, deeper engagement with families would take more caseworker time, which has implications for managing workload. 

 What It Means

Child welfare assessments should support caseworkers as they assess safety and the family’s strengths, challenges, and access to needed resources. Agencies can work to co-design improved assessment tools that better engage parents and processes that support caseworkers. Policymakers and child welfare administrators can use these insights to:  

• Better partner with teams comprised of those who have experienced the child welfare system and shift from a culture of consultation to co-design.   

• Design focus groups that empower those who have experienced system involvement to provide substantive feedback on casework tools.   

• Improve assessment tools and processes to support caseworkers so they can engage and support families.  

• Review lessons learned on working to remove bias from assessment tools, strengthening trust with families, and building a more supportive system.