This session explores how research, evaluation, and continuous quality improvement (CQI) efforts can help you strengthen practice to achieve a common goal of all child welfare professionals: becoming more effective in your work and being better able to ensure that children are safe, in healthy and intact families, and thriving.

Adapt strategies from this publication to improve specific areas of culture and climate to support partnering with families after conducting an assessment.

Adapt proven strategies from this publication to improve specific areas of culture and that support collaborative development of an effective service array.

Explore tips and strategies to effectively engage and sustain the involvement of families and youth at the agency level. 

Get guidance, tips, and strategies for assessing agency culture and climate. 

Get guidance for completing the CQI self-assessment instrument, see suggested sources for local assessment data, and learn to rate assessment results.

Learn about applications that can make information gathering more efficient, increase useful data, and help you better understand those you serve. 

Learn to facilitate a normalcy conversation and to promote normal and developmentally appropriate experiences for youth in foster care.

Examine a five-step framework that helps organizations promote youth engagement in normalcy conversations about the youth’s own care.

Get informed about creating normalcy for LGBTQ children and youth in foster care and browse relevant examples.

Explore the various aspects of the importance of normalcy for children and youth in care.

Hear about the challenges and experiences of an adoptive family and how they created belonging, healthy development, and normal experiences.

Learn the definition and find information about normalcy and the reasonable and prudent parent standard in the PL 113-183.

This handout is part of the series, “Perspectives on Normalcy: Videos and Discussion Questions.” It is designed to facilitate discussion about the issues raised in the video, “Community-Based Provider: Empowering Caregiver Decision-Making.” 

Examine new software and technology innovations, which provide better, more integrated services and cut costs for states and jurisdictions.