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.

This “Service Array Data Inventory Sample Worksheet” (Worksheet) is a companion tool to A Data-Driven Approach to Service Array Guide developed by the Capacity Building Center for States. To use the Worksheet, you can print it out and fill in the blank squares, or use the questions as a guide.

This guide is designed to support administrative leaders in states and other jurisdictions in using data to assess and identify ways to improve their service array.

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

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

Discusses new software and technologies used in child welfare.

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

Explore how having access to the right information at the right time can improve assessment and decision-making at the child/family level, and how aggregate data can be used to support system improvements. 

This video highlights engagement as a caseworker visits a 16-year-old youth months after a placement.

This reference guide describes the six short videos and paired discussion guides that demonstrate what quality visits look like in practice within one family system over a period of time. 

Pair this discussion guide with its corresponding video to understand the value of engaging a supervisor in coaching for family visits.

Pair this discussion guide with its corresponding video to understand the value of engaging youth after removal from their parental home.

Pair this discussion guide with its corresponding video to understand the value of engaging resource parents to collaborate around caring for children in foster care.

Pair this discussion guide with its corresponding video to understand the value of engaging children after removal from their parental home.

This video highlights engagement as a caseworker visits with a resource parent shortly after child placement.