How Do We Know What Works? Challenges and Opportunities for Building Evidence for Leaders and Decision Makers examines evidence-based practice from the point of view of leaders and managers, who must process information about what works or not, decide if it is credible and is having the intended effect, and assess the implications of their decision at every level of the organization. 

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.

Explore how child welfare agencies, legal and judicial stakeholders, prevention partners, and communities can work together to build prevention-focused systems, starting with jurisdictions' 2020–24 Child and Family Services Plans (CFSPs). 

Get practical information about supporting coordinated strategic and long-term planning.

See how staff can boost their knowledge and skills for engaging families, community providers, and others.

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

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. 

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.