Buzzwords: Moving to Behavioral Descriptors doodle video is a short, animated video that follows a child involved in a child welfare investigation. The video describes what buzzwords are and illustrates the impact they can have on children and families. It also demonstrates how to recognize buzzwords and offers strategies for transforming buzzwords into objective, behavior-based descriptors.

This publication looks at buzzwords in the context of words or phrases commonly used in child welfare reporting and documentation that can be subjective or carry negative connotations, and offers strategies to minimize their negative impact.

Explore considerations for monitoring and evaluating new interventions and applying findings to make adjustments aligned with equity and inclusion. 

Explore information and strategies for advancing racial equity through problem exploration.

Learn how to collect, analyze, and use data about the implementation and outcomes of a program or other intervention.

Summarizes the change and implementation process and provides an overview of the Change and Implementation in Practice series briefs, “how to” guides that explain key steps and tasks in the process.

Watch the Change and Implementation in Practice: Overview video to learn how key steps, tasks, and concepts fit together to support your agency’s change initiatives. 

This tool is a role-playing activity, designed to help child welfare workers and supervisors become more familiar with the process of recognizing and translating buzzwords into descriptive language.

Consider ways to be intentional about advancing race equity while implementing new child welfare programs and practices. This publication includes questions for teams to consider throughout change and implementation processes—from the earliest stages of exploring a problem to identifying solutions to ensuring sustainable implementation.

Use this resource to prompt discussion and adopt a change management approach  during the development of child welfare information systems.

This workbook and this video series are part of a collection of resources designed to help child welfare agency leaders, managers, and teams work with evaluators and data analysts to monitor and evaluate the implementation and impact of a program or other intervention and apply findings over the course of the change and implementation process. Use this workbook to further your understanding of concepts and prepare to move learning into action with your team.

Support skill development for individuals and teams and facilitate team discussion and targeted action planning.

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). 

Use this brief to help your agency coordinate strategic and long-term planning, monitoring, and reporting processes—such as the Child and Family Services Plan (CFSP) and Child and Family Services Review (CFSR)—with agency continuous quality improvement (CQI).

Use this brief to explore actionable strategies for meaningful partner engagement in child welfare agency strategic planning, monitoring, and review processes.