Change and Implementation in Practice

Explore this collection of resources to learn how child welfare agencies can achieve meaningful changes in practice and improve outcomes.

Are you looking to address complex problems and challenges in your agency or system?

The Change and Implementation in Practice series is a collection of research-informed and user-friendly resources that can help agencies achieve meaningful changes in child welfare practice and improve outcomes.

How Can These Resources Help You?

The Change and Implementation in Practice series draws from current research and information on organizational development and implementation science to offer clear, concise steps for making changes and improvements. Child welfare leaders, program managers, teams, and other stakeholders can use these materials to build their understanding of implementation concepts and practices and apply them at their agencies.

Agencies can use these resources in the context of processes already in place—such as ongoing continuous quality improvement, program planning, Child and Family Services Review-related improvements, and strategic planning (e.g., Child and Family Services Plan)—to analyze problems, research potential solutions, and monitor and evaluate outcomes. The resources are structured so that agencies can begin using them no matter where they are in an improvement process.

Access topical resources below that include publications, recorded webinars, articles, videos, and other helpful materials.

Problem Exploration

Access tools and resources that focus on using data to understand agency performance and underlying issues.

Teaming

Access tools and resources that address forming teams to guide change and implementation to improve agency performance.

Theory of Change

Access tools and resources that can help your agency chart a clear and achievable path from a problem to a desired outcome.

Intervention Selection and Design/Adaptation

Access tools and resources on identifying programs and practices your agency can implement to improve outcomes and reach identified goals.

Readiness

Access tools and resources on assessing agency readiness for change, including general agency capacity for change as well as readiness for the specific intervention.

Implementation Planning and Capacity Building

Access tools and resources to help you develop strategies and sequence tasks to prepare your agency for implementation.

Intervention Testing, Piloting, and Staging

Access tools and resources that focus on testing and strategically rolling out agency interventions.

Monitoring, Evaluating, and Applying Findings

Access tools and resources that support the process of measuring the quality and outcomes of your implementation efforts and making any needed adjustments.

New to Change and Implementation?

Watch the Change and Implementation in Practice: Overview video for a bird's-eye view of the process.

Read the Change and Implementation in Practice: Overview brief to understand how to use the resources in this collection.

Don't Miss!

Focusing on Race Equity Throughout Change and Implementation

Find prompts that help teams reflect and take steps to advance equity while implementing new programs and practices.

Interested In a High-Level Summary of Each Topic?

Explore the Change and Implementation at a Glance series to find high-level overviews of each topic. Each resource summarizes the topic and its key tasks with information about how to get the most out of each step by intentionally focusing on racial equity and integrating people with lived expertise in change and implementation efforts.