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. 

How Do We Know What Works? Challenges and Opportunities for Building Evidence for Practitioners focuses on the role of frontline staff as important (and discerning) consumers of evidence, critical data, and information from children, youth, and families to inform their practice. This session also addresses the role of frontline staff in continuous quality improvement (CQI) processes and as contributors to building evidence in child welfare.

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.

The Power of Feedback: Being a Vocal Participant in the Process, Elevating the Voices of the Workforce, Children, Youth, Families, and Communities Presentation

Learn about quality contacts, why they are important, and how an agency can successfully implement them.

Hear about the youth-led projects of the Division X Technical Assistance project in fiscal year 2022.

Learn about research and practice insights for implementing evidence-based practices in child welfare systems.

Get tips, guidance, and information about the CQI system assessment and implementation process, and learn how the Center helps agencies build capacity.

Examines why teams should research possible intervention options, how to look for a wide variety of potential options, and what supporting evidence to look for in researching possible solutions.

Explores how teams can assess an intervention to understand the potential for success with the target population; the fit with the system, agency, and context; and the capacity needed to implement it.

Presents how teams can determine whether there is sufficient information about an intervention to be clear and easy to explain, useable (intervention has operational definitions and fidelity process or performance assessments), and in alignment with agency principles and values.

Examines how teams can use a structured approach to determine if an existing intervention with adaptations meets agency needs or if teams need to design a new one.

Describes how teams define the intervention by stating the purpose, goals, and guiding principles; identifying core components and how they align; and then further operationalizing after getting proposal approval.

Presents how to develop a proposal by clearly explaining the intervention to establish a common understanding among stakeholders, and to support communication and decision-making.

Explores how teams can operationalize core components to ensure the intervention meets key criteria, is based on research evidence, and has enough information for teams to carry it out in practice and to measure the results.