Family Preservation Programs Research Articles

Utilization-Focused Evaluation of a Family Preservation Program

The Federal Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 requires states to maintain children at risk in the least restrictive environment possible. Accordingly, practitioners try to keep these children with their families, using out-of-home placement as a last resort. Studies suggest that certain types of families benefit most from family preservation services. This article reports the results of a pilot family preservation program in which 26 families met the following four admission criteria: urgency, high risk, child's age, and willingness to enter the program. The families received intensive intervention from an assigned social worker who provided case management services, casework counseling, family therapy, and a domestic educational program. At the end of the three-month program, 24 families retained their children, and three months later, 23 families remained intact. This evident success may be attributed to (1) the use of purposeful admission criteria, (2) intervention by skillful social workers who established rapport with the families, and (3) follow-up undertaken by the same social workers. The results also provide empirical support for utilization-focused evaluation.

An Examination of Treatment Fidelity in an Intensive Family Preservation Program

An Examination of Treatment Fidelity in an Intensive Family Preservation Program

Intensive family preservation programs: What are they?

This paper outlines the basic characteristics of intensive family preservation programs which have very recently been introduced into the child welfare systems of most Australian States. Typically these programs have been used to prevent placement or to assist families whose children are being returned to their care. Highly intensive and with 24 hour availability these short-term services draw on a range of theoretical approaches and are delivered in the family's home and natural environment. It is argued that Australia should avoid both the ‘cultural cringe’ and the ‘Tall Poppy Syndrome’ in assessing what intensive family preservation services may have to offer us.

Opportunity and risks in emerging family policy: An analysis of family preservation legislation

The Family Preservation and Support Services legislation present both opportunity and risks for the emerging family policy. The opportunity is in the funding for the States to conduct needs assessments and thorough plans to address the problems facing families. The risks are due to lack of strong specific guidelines for establishing family preservation programs. This article gives a brief overview of the legislation, analyzes the legislation and provides suggestions.

Family Preservation and Poor Families: When “Homebuilding” is not Enough

Various studies suggest that family preservation intervention is less effective with maltreating families characterized by extreme poverty, single-parent status, low educational attainment, and mental health problems. Using a stress-and-coping model, the author explores the interactive effects of these factors in contributing to child maltreatment. Current research findings on the direct and indirect effects of poverty on parenting are cited. Ways of enhancing family preservation programs effectively to address the needs of poor, maltreating families are identified.

Mandatory Reporting Laws: Child Protective Case Finding Gone Awry?

Recent attacks on the child protective system have included criticism of the mandatory reporting laws to protect children from maltreatment. After a brief history of the development of the reporting laws and an evaluation of the assumptions underlying the use of these laws for case finding, this article analyzes the costs and benefits of the reporting laws for four stakeholders—the state, professionals, families, and children—and concludes that the costs of the laws outweigh the benefits. Recommended policy revisions include improved income maintenance, general social services and family-preservation programs to support families in their care of children, and narrowed definitions of child maltreatment.

Organizational Supports to Sustain Intensive Family Preservation Programs

In response to increased funding for programs to avoid unnecessary out-of-home placements, family preservation programs are being implemented by private and public agencies. The authors identify the organizational supports that are required to sustain family preservation programs over time. These supports include ongoing training, a broad view of supervisory responsibilities, and careful attention to maintaining relationships with referring and other agencies. Future issues facing family preservation programs also are discussed.

An Evaluation of Family Preservation Services: Fitting Agency Services to Family Needs

Intensive family preservation programs provide comprehensive services to families at risk that are intended to strengthen families and prevent the out-of-home placement of children. These programs have been operating for the past two decades and have reported placement prevention rates of between 75 percent and 90 percent. Evaluations of these programs often examine placement rates as the sole outcome criterion; other indicators of program effectiveness have not been adequately evaluated. Evaluations also have not sufficiently examined the elements of intensive services that contribute to family preservation. This evaluation of a family preservation program in northern California examines the progress and outcomes of 367 cases served during a three-year period. Detailed analysis examines the specific service elements of the program, the match of services to families' needs, and the resulting gains made by parents in a variety of skill areas.

Family Preservation Services: Problems of Measurement and Assessment of Risk

A statewide family preservation program was evaluated using a preand postservice assessment of the risk of out-of-home placement for 995 families. Results indicate modest, but statistically significant, increases in family functioning during family preservation services, as measured by scales assessing parent-centered, child-centered, and economic risk. However, the instrument assessing risk did not predict out-of-home placement as there was no difference between low-risk and high-risk groups in the critical outcome measure. Implications of these results for family intervention programs are discussed.

Assessing family preservation programs

The major existing evaluations of family preservation programs are reviewed and assessed. Although most of the evaluations used randomized experiments or close equivalents and were well carried out, the evaluations reviewed do not provide definitive findings concerning effectiveness. The evaluations were found to have the following shortcomings: 1) The numbers of subjects were too small to detect effects reliably, 2) The programs evaluated were not given enough time to be fully operational before being evaluated, 3) The major criterion of success, placement avoidance, is arguably insufficient, and 4) The analysis strategies used were overly simple. As a consequence, the evaluations neither support nor contradict the effectiveness of family preservation strategies

Establishing the design

Careful evaluation is a prerequisite for progress in developing effective programs for children. In this regard, objective empirical information is central to understanding the effectiveness of family preservation programs. In this article four issues that need to be considered when evaluating family preservation programs are considered. First, there is a need to specify goals of the intervention in advance. Second, evaluation strategies need to consider the difference between treatment and effects. Third, it is important to examine the design considerations that effect the credibility of the evaluation. Finally, the article provides suggestions for measures that could be used in multisite interventions.

Strategies for evaluation

Appropriate strategies for evaluations of family preservation programs are discussed in this paper. The case is made for randomized controlled experiments as providing the most credible effectiveness measures. The article also argues for considering changes in the well being of children and families as major criteria for successful treatment, with a corresponding lesser emphasis on placement avoidance. A distinction is made between “site” and “grand” strategies, the former being appropriate for local agencies and the latter for the national scene. “Site” strategies profitably may use simple one-factor experiments whereas “grand” strategies call for complex factorial experiments which test variations in family preservation programs as well as effectiveness with different kinds of clients.

Random assignment

It is widely believed that the existing child welfare system is in crisis. In response, many have called for the implementation of intensive family preservation programs. In this brief paper, we identify four issues to be considered when attempting to evaluate the success or failure of family preservation programs. First, we emphasize why evaluators and policy makers must specify the goals or purposes of their interventions in order to ensure that their assessments are valid. Second, we discuss the treatment or “independent variables,” and the need to avoid confusing the independent variables (effects). Third, we review some basic experimental design and measurement considerations that are likely to affect the credibility and comprehensiveness of the evaluation. Finally, we offer some ideas about the sorts of measures that could be used in a large multisite intervention study.

The assessment of imminence of risk of placement: Lessons from a family preservation program

Intensive family preservation programs are a form of family services aimed at preventing the placement into foster care of children deemed at imminent risk of removal. There is considerable debate, however, on how best to determine the risk of imminent placement. This article presents an analysis of the determination of imminent risk within one family preservation program, and finds that the conventional and accepted risk factors to be used in making a risk determination at intake are more accurate at predicting placement after leaving the program than in predicting who is judged to be at imminent risk at intake. Specific elements contributing to this discrepancy are discussed, with implications for risk assessment research and policy.

The State of Crisis: Some Theoretical Considerations

are used interchangeably, or, at best, are used descriptively and not in a sufficiently precise conceptual manner. How we conceptualize the problem and the state of being which propels people to seek help will influence the methods and techniques we develop and the way in which we deploy community and professional resources. This paper seeks to explore the theoretical underpinnings of the concept of the state of crisis and to examine some: of the distinctive ideas that characterize it. It is hoped that such a characterization may help the practitioner to differentiate the theoretical notions about crisis from more familiar but loosely used concepts-such as "problem," "need," and "stress"-found so prominently in social work thought.