National Quality Improvement Center for Collaborative Community Court Teams
Funded By: Administration on Children, Youth and Families – Children’s Bureau
Two Part Webinar Series: Strengthening the Ties that Bind
A two part webinar series to help your Collaborative Court support positive, healthy parent-child relationships to heal children and improve family functioning. Please check out the pre webinar presentation, webinar recording, and resource guide below for more information.
Pre-webinar Mock Case Planning Presentation
Part 1 Webinar Recording
The needs of families in or at risk of entering the child welfare system are complex. Families require services that support the needs of adults and their capacity to parent, the developmental needs of infants and children, and healthy parent-child relationships. Timely and appropriate provision of such services requires thoughtful planning, coordination and a comprehensive process to understand how parents/caregivers can be supported in providing for the safety and well-being of infants and children. This includes screening, assessment and triage processes to understand what interventions are needed to strengthen parental capacity and address the developmental needs of infants and children. This webinar provides a framework to help Collaborative Court Teams assess the needs of families, identify which parent-child interventions are best matched to families, and provide timely, appropriate and coordinated services.
Part 2 Webinar Recording
Once families are connected to services, monitoring progress through a coordinated and formalized system of information sharing is key to continued success. Collaborative Court Teams must work with community service providers to decide what information needs to be shared, with whom it needs to be shared, and how best to share that information. By successfully integrating information about parenting and children’s services into collaborative court processes, Collaborative Court Teams can develop a more complete assessment and understanding of parenting capacity, parent-child relationships and overall family functioning. What information is needed from the providers of these interventions to inform decision making about parenting time/visitation, permanency, and a family’s readiness for reunification? This webinar highlights the key components of an effective communication and information sharing approach and examples from the field that court teams can use to improve their systems of care.
Resource Guide
Resource | Description |
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Improving Outcomes by Improving Practices: A Practice Focused Newsletter- Matching Services to Child and Family Needs | The newsletter published by The Child Welfare Group (CWG) outlines the challenges within the child welfare system that impede the development of individualized service plans and a responsive service array in, as well as strategies to overcome these challenges through policy and practice changes. When both child welfare staff and service providers commit to providing “needs-based rather than service-driven solutions”, they are able to address the underlying factors influencing behavior and improve functioning of both parents and children. |
Closing the Need–Service Gap: Gender Differences in Matching Services to Client Needs in Comprehensive Substance Abuse Treatment | This article studies the effect of matched services on substance abuse treatment outcomes in a sample collected from the National Treatment Improvement Evaluation Study. The study found that: 1) there is a “need-service gap” in substance use treatment, as fewer than a third of those who expressed needs received services matched to those needs; 2) the use of matched services is related to increased time in treatment and reduced substance use after treatment; and, 3) the relationship between matched services and positive treatment outcomes is stronger for woman than for |
Improving the Match between Connecticut Families and Child Welfare Services | This resource summarizes the collaborative work between the Connecticut Department of Children and Families and Harvard Kennedy School’s Government Performance Lab to improve child welfare practice in three areas: 1) matching families with services; 2) using data to assess the needs of the population being served; and, 3) collaborating more effectively with service providers. The Enhanced Service Coordination project has resulted in a redesigned referral process that better assesses families’ needs and matches them to services, increased data collection to inform real-time decision making and improvements, and improved collaboration and communication with service providers. |
The Match between Family Needs and Services for High-Risk Neglecting Families | This article studied child welfare involved families from El Paso County, Colorado, and found that high-needs, high-risk families are the least likely to experience appropriate service matching. Services were not well allocated to family need and family needs were not covered by available services. To address these issues, communities should form collaborative partnerships across service areas and systems, and use local data to better inform case planning practice and service provision. |
A Core Elements Approach to Child Welfare In-Home Services | This article lists eighteen evidence-informed core elements found in promising child welfare in-home services. The National Resource Center for In-Home Services developed this list through a meta-analysis that evaluated effect sizes of common components of programs. While these components do not together make an evidence-based practice, they do provide a guide to developing best practices. This resource also includes a matrix, which provide information detailing what outcomes each component supports and the evidence base for each component. |
Parent-Child Attachment: A Review of Literature and Evidence-Based and Promising Practices | This resource provides: 1) a list of programs addressing parenting and parent-child bonding and attachment, including a description of the intervention and website; 2) additional resources addressing the needs of children; and, 3) a literature review. While this resource is not exhaustive, it does provide an overview of available services and relevant research to support parent-child relationships and child development for families involved in child welfare or the court systems. |