Child Welfare Evidence & Innovation

New report from the IBM Center for the Business of Government:

Scaling Evidence-Based Programs in Child Welfare (February 11, 2020)
Successes, Challenges, and Opportunities Under the Family First Prevention Services Act
http://www.businessofgovernment.org/report/scaling-evidence-based-programs-child-welfare

Related

• Government Executive, When Bigger Is Better (February 12, 2020)
• Author interview (April 27, 2020)

From our friends at Results for America. Children’s Home & Aid and the Social Innovation Research Center have signed this letter and are helping to distribute it. You can read and sign the letter by clicking here.

I’m writing to ask you to consider joining Results for America in supporting the Increasing Opportunities for Former Foster Youth Act (S. 3025). Senators Grassley (R-UT) and Wyden (D-OR) recently introduced this bipartisan bill to improve services for older youth aging out of foster care. 

The bill would commit $100 million over five years to support 10 to 15 programs each year aimed at helping older youth in foster care transition into adulthood. More specifically, this new federal grant program would award validation grants to local governments, State governments, or private service providers proposing to invest federal funds in interventions with preliminary evidence of effectiveness; development and replication grants to support interventions that are working to build causal levels of evidence and interventions with the strongest evidence of effectiveness.

Please let us know by COB Wednesday January 29, 2020 if your organization would like to sign on.

You can sign on by completing this form.

For more information or if you have questions, please contact Kate Tromble at kate@results4america.org or (202) 570-3122.

Kate Tromble
Vice President, Federal Policy
202.570.3122 | kate@results4america.org
www.results4america.org | @results4america

The current version of the letter, complete with signers, can be found here (last updated 2/7/20).

Related

• Bipartisan Bill Introduced to Fund Evidence-based Grants for Youth Aging Out of Foster Care (December 16, 2019)

President Trump today signed into law the Family First Transition Act, legislation that provides additional funding to implement the Family First Prevention Services Act. The legislation was included in a larger spending bill (HR 1865) that Congress passed earlier this week.

The new law will:

• Provide $500 million in funding to states to help implement the Family First Prevention Services Act;
• Provide payments to states to offset most of the financial cost associated with the loss of Title IV-E waiver authority. It would offset 90 percent of state financial losses in FY 2020 and 75 percent in FY 2021;
• Adjust the Family First evidence standards, which currently require 50 percent of evidence-based prevention services funded by the law to be “well-supported” by evidence. Under the new law, this standard will be delayed. By FY 2022, half of such funds must be spent on supported or well-supported programs. The original 50 percent requirement that programs be well supported by evidence becomes effective in FY 2024.

The full text of the Family First Transition Act can be found here.

In other news, the overall bill does not include the Increasing Opportunity for Former Foster Youth Act, legislation that was introduced earlier this month by Sens. Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Ron Wyden (D-OR).

Related

• Chronicle of Social Change, Year-End Spending Bill Includes Hundreds of Millions for Family First Act (December 17, 2019)
• ACYF guidance on new law (January 20, 2020)

Sens. Charles Grassley (R-IA) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) jointly introduced legislation on December 11 that would provide $100 million over five years for evidence-based grants under the John H. Chafee Foster Care Program for Successful Transition to Adulthood.

The bill (S. 3025) would provide funding for 10-15 five-year grants from FY 2021-2025. Federal funding would need to be matched by state and other non-federal sources. If enacted, it would provide funding for three tiers of evidence-based grants.

• Development: Programs with preliminary evidence of the potential for positive impacts;
• Validation: Programs with at least one quasi-experimental study showing positive results;
• Replication: Programs with at least one experimental study demonstrating positive results.

See the bill text for more details.

Sens. Grassley and Wyden are the ranking Republican and Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee respectively. The bill will likely receive support in the Senate, absent any objections from other senators.

Child welfare bills are often considered on a bipartisan basis in the waning days of a legislative session. It is possible that the bill might be enacted before the end of this calendar year.

Arnold Ventures, formerly the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, is actively seeking applications to fund  evaluations of child welfare-related services, with an emphasis on programs that could be funded under the Family First Prevention Services Act.

“We are very interested in more proposals in this area,” said Jon Baron, Vice President of Evidence-Based Policy. “We are especially interested in programs that could be funded through Family First because the law provides a potential pathway to scale.”

Family First provides matching funds to states for services that prevent child maltreatment and meet its evidence requirements. The law established the Title IV-E Prevention Services Clearinghouse to rate eligible programs. The clearinghouse has reviewed a dozen programs so far, with half receiving its highest evidence rating. Another 16 reviews are in the pipeline for release in the coming months.

The clearinghouse has been criticized for the slow pace of its approvals, but the primary barrier is a shortage of evidence-based programs. Of the 482 interventions catalogued by the California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare, which has similar evidence standards, just 35 meet its criteria for being well supported by research.

Congress anticipated this shortfall when it enacted Family First. Under the law, states will not be able to access federal matching funds for evidence-based prevention programs until they have submitted and received approval of a five-year prevention plan. These plans must include evaluations for any services that do not meet the law’s highest evidence standard.

The Children’s Bureau announced in October that it will cover half the cost of these evaluations, but the remaining expense may be a barrier for some states. The District of Columbia is the only jurisdiction that has received federal approval of its plan so far, but at least eleven states are working their way through the process. It is not clear how they are handling the cost of evaluations.

Baron said that Arnold Ventures would be willing to help cover these expenses if the studies are sufficiently rigorous. “We have funded randomized controlled trials that are also partly funded by the federal government,” he said, citing previous projects in K-12 education. “We could do so in child welfare.” Continue reading →

What kinds of projects have drawn funding from Arnold so far? Here are details on five that are child welfare-related.

Child First Replication Study ($2,499,968): This is a replication of a previous study of Child First, a home visiting program for families with young children at high risk of child maltreatment. The previous study was a well-conducted randomized controlled trial that indicated it still reduced family involvement with child protective services by 33 percent a full three years after the intervention. The study also showed a significant decrease in child behavioral health problems, among other impacts. The new study will examine the program’s impact after it has been replicated across twelve different sites in Connecticut and North Carolina.

Educational Liaison (EL) Program for High School Students in Foster Care ($498,908): This is a study of a dropout prevention program for middle and secondary school students in the foster care system. The intervention is based on Check and Connect, an intervention that has been shown to improve school attendance and graduation rates in two prior well-conducted RCTs. The new study will examine the program’s impact on participation in alternate graduation path (AGP) programs, which will serve as a proxy for school dropouts. It will also examine other outcomes such as credit hours earned, attendance, academic achievement based on state test scores, disciplinary referrals, suspensions, and expulsions.

Fostering Healthy Futures for Teens ($548,455): This study is of an adaptation of Fostering Healthy Futures, a mentoring program for preadolescent maltreated children (ages 9-11) in foster care. A previous study of the original intervention indicated that it improved mental health symptoms (including trauma symptoms), reduced mental health treatment, and reduced placements in residential treatment centers. The tested intervention is similar to the original program, but adapted for teenagers (8th and 9th graders) with open child welfare cases. The Arnold-funded study will examine impacts on youth delinquent behavior over 15 months.

Fostering Opportunities Program ($266,033): This is a study of a dropout prevention program for 7th-10^th grade youth in foster care. The intervention uses a youth advocate to reduce or prevent school transfers, which contribute to lower graduation rates. The program was funded by a pay-for-success initiative launched by the Colorado governor’s office and was piloted in the same Colorado school district where the current study is taking place. The study will examine its impacts on school attendance and course completion.

Rapid Responders for Runaway Youth ($387,093): This study is of a rapid response case management program intended to refer runaway youth and their caregivers to evidence-based services. Rapid responders will meet youth and their families within 72 hours of the runaway incident. Referrals will be to evidence-based programs like Multi-systemic Therapy and Functional Family Therapy, both of which have been rated as “well-supported” by the Title IV-E Prevention Services Clearinghouse. One goal of the intervention is to raise referrals to evidence-based services from approximately 10 percent to at least 50 percent. The project was funded through a state pay-for-success project managed by the Colorado governor’s office. The study will measure impacts on criminal charges and out-of-home placements.

Related

• Arnold Ventures to Fund Family First Studies (November 20, 2019)

At least 13 states have indicated that they will implement the evidence provisions of the Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA) starting October 1. Under the law, states can now use federal IV-E entitlement money for evidence-based preventive mental health, substance abuse, and in-home parenting programs for children at risk of entering the child welfare system.

According to a survey by the Chronicle of Social Change, the initial states will include: Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Utah, Washington and West Virginia. Each of these states, plus the District of Columbia, is expected to submit the necessary paperwork to the Children’s Bureau to obtain federal funding. Three states (Arkansas, Kentucky, and Utah) and DC have reportedly already submitted their plans to the Children’s Bureau for review.

The Children’s Bureau must approve amended state plans before they are eligible for federal matching funds, but at least one state (Kansas) has already announced $13.5 million in new grants. The Kansas funding was allocated by the state legislature earlier this year. The federal portion of those grants will presumably be covered once the state’s plan is approved by the Children’s Bureau.

Federal Implementation So Far

Since its enactment last year, the Children’s Bureau has undertaken a number of actions to implement the evidence provisions of the law, some in partnership with ACF’s evaluation arm, the Office of Planning, Research & Evaluation (OPRE). These have included:

• On June 22, 2018, HHS published an initial Federal Register Notice (FRN; 83 FR 29122) requesting public comment on initial criteria and potential programs and services to be considered for a systematic evidence review.
• In late September, 2018, OPRE announced a $5.2 million contract to Abt Associates to operate the Prevention Services Clearinghouse, which has been tasked with reviewing evidence for programs to determine if they qualify for funding under the law.
• On November 30, 2018, the Children’s Bureau issued program instructions outlining related requirements for states. It also included an initial list of 10 programs and services that were expected to be reviewed to determine if they qualify as evidence-based under the law.
• In April, 2019, OPRE published a technical handbook providing guidance to program developers on the law’s evidence requirements.
• In June, the Prevention Services Clearinghouse completed the first of a dozen program evidence ratings.
• On July 12, OPRE announced the Supporting Evidence Building in Child Welfare Project Evaluation Opportunity, which invited program developers to apply for evaluation assistance. This project is being operated under contract by the Urban Institute in partnership with Child Trends and Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago. The application deadline was August 30, 2019.
• On July 19, the Children’s Bureau issued new program instructions providing information to states on transitionary funding for programs that have not yet been rated by the evidence clearinghouse.
• On August 13, the Children’s Bureau released a general Evaluation Plan Tip Sheet, which states may use for designing their evaluations under Family First.
• From August 20-21, the Children’s Bureau hosted the 2019 National Child Welfare Evaluation Summit in Washington, DC, the first conference of its kind in eight years. A list of speakers and related events is here. Materials from the event are here.
  

Congressional Fix to Ease Transition

More states are expected to take advantage of the Family First evidence provisions over the next two years. One roadblock is the law’s new restriction on funding for congregate care. Several states have elected to delay their implementation of Family First until they have the necessary policy changes in place. Some states have also been grappling with the expiration of federal child welfare waivers, which ended September 30.

Congress is currently considering legislation to ease the transition to Family First. Major provisions are expected to include:

• $500 million to support state implementation;
• additional payments to offset funding lost from the expiration of federal waivers; and
• a delay in the requirement that 50 percent of funds be spent on services that meet the law’s highest (well-supported) evidence standard.

It appears likely that the legislation will be adopted before the end of the year, with the provisions retroactive to October 1.

Related

• Evidence-based Child Welfare Legislation Enacted (February 9, 2018)