Webinar Highlights 10 Practices of High-Performing Child Welfare Agencies

“Case­loads always mat­ter,” Tracey Feild told par­tic­i­pants in a Feb­ru­ary webi­nar on Casey’s pub­li­ca­tion, A Child Wel­fare Leader’s Desk Guide to Build­ing a High-Per­form­ing Agency. The webi­nar, 10 Prac­tices to Build­ing a High-Per­form­ing Child Wel­fare Agency: An Overview, was the first in a three-part series.

In addi­tion to man­ag­ing case­loads, Feild not­ed that to be suc­cess­ful, child wel­fare agen­cies must engage fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers to keep chil­dren safe and help them to thrive.

Feild, man­ag­ing direc­tor of Casey’s Child Wel­fare Strat­e­gy Group, walked webi­nar par­tic­i­pants through 10 key prac­tices cru­cial to the suc­cess of child wel­fare agen­cies. The prac­tices were iden­ti­fied through more than 25 years of Casey col­lab­o­ra­tion with pub­lic agencies.

Desk guide prac­tices describe how agen­cies can bet­ter sup­port fos­ter par­ents and kin care­givers and ensure that chil­dren and teens live in fam­i­lies when­ev­er pos­si­ble. They describe the kind of data agen­cies need to col­lect and the neces­si­ty of address­ing any racial dis­par­i­ties in child outcomes.

“The desk guide iden­ti­fies five sys­tem-lev­el prac­tices and five front­line prac­tices,” Feild said. ​“Agency lead­ers and staff can use these suc­cinct char­ac­ter­is­tics and met­rics to gauge their cur­rent prac­tices and plan improve­ments. Advo­cates, judges and elect­ed offi­cials can use the desk guide along­side agency offi­cials to dri­ve improved child and fam­i­ly outcomes.”

Two oth­er webi­na­rs are planned in this series.

Address­ing Racial Dis­par­i­ties: Data Strate­gies for Mea­sur­ing and Pro­mot­ing Equi­ty in Child Wel­fare Agencies
April 5, 2– 3 p.m. EST
Agency lead­ers, man­agers and data staff will learn to iden­ti­fy at which deci­sion points chil­dren of dif­fer­ent races expe­ri­ence inequitable out­comes, then mea­sure the effec­tive­ness of improve­ment efforts. Please reg­is­ter in advance.

Get­ting to Per­ma­nence: The Prac­tices of High-Per­form­ing Child Wel­fare Agencies
June (Date TBA), 2– 3 p.m. EST
How do the most effec­tive agen­cies make fam­i­ly rela­tion­ships and per­ma­nence the focus of their case­work? A look at prac­tices that improve and build fam­i­ly rela­tion­ships for all chil­dren who come to the atten­tion of your agency. Reg­is­tra­tion infor­ma­tion will be shared at a lat­er date. If you have reg­is­tered for the oth­er webi­na­rs in this series, you will receive an email with reg­is­tra­tion instruc­tions as soon as it’s available.