Chapin Hall

Improving Collaboration Between Child Welfare and Home Visiting Workers in Illinois

As part of its Family First Prevention Services plan, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) is connecting families receiving child welfare services with home visiting programs. Chapin Hall and the Erikson Institute DCFS Early Childhood Project are co-leading a Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) process to monitor the implementation of the Family First plan’s home visiting component.

This brief explores the experiences of child welfare case workers and home visitors who are integral to implementing the home visiting component of Illinois’ Family First plan. It is based on data collected as part of a collaborative Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) process.

What We Did

Chapin Hall researchers surveyed and interviewed child welfare caseworkers and home visitors to learn about their experiences connecting child welfare system-involved families with home visiting programs and delivering home visiting services to those families.

What We Found

• Caseworkers and home visitors share a commitment to supporting families, but often lack a shared understanding of their respective roles in providing that support.
• Families are referred to home visiting programs for different reasons and in different ways.
• Enrollment and engagement in home visiting services are affected by many factors including perceptions about the voluntary nature of home visiting
• Both home visitors and caseworkers expressed interest in additional training to deepen their understanding of their respective roles in supporting families.

What It Means

It is important to place these findings within the larger context in which child welfare caseworkers and home visitors work. The Erikson Institute DCFS Early Childhood Project and its partners have taken several actions to bridge the knowledge gaps we identified and increase collaboration between home visitors and child welfare caseworkers.  Our ongoing CQI process will shed light on the effectiveness of these efforts to improve implementation of Illinois’ plan to connect child welfare system involved families with home visiting programs.

Read the brief

Questions about this work? Reach out to Beth McDaniel.