Introduction
Child welfare administrators and evaluators conduct evaluations to understand whether, how, and how well programs, policies, and initiatives work for children, young people, and families. The Child Welfare Evidence Strengthening Team (CWEST) aims to increase the number of evidence-based interventions and improve the child welfare field’s ability to build, understand, and use evidence. As part of these efforts, the team works to build the capacity of child welfare administrators and researchers to conduct rigorous evaluations in the field of child welfare.
Key Findings and Highlights
To support the field in conducting rigorous evaluations, CWEST has developed the Roadmaps to Building Evidence in Child Welfare series—a collection of instructional resources about conducting child welfare evaluations.
- Ten Key Design Elements for Rigorous Impact Evaluations in Child Welfare: A Desk Reference for Evaluators
- A Guide to Writing High-Quality Evaluation Reports in Child Welfare
- Conducting a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) in Child Welfare: A Guide to What, Why, and How for Child Welfare Agency Staff
- Quasi-Experimental Designs in Child Welfare Evaluations: Opportunities for Generating Rigorous Evidence
- Administrative Data in Child Welfare Evaluations: Using Administrative Data to Understand Populations and Measure Outcomes
- How to Develop a Theory of Change and Logic Model for Your Kinship Navigator Program
- Engagement and Persistence in Child Welfare Services: Implications for Program Effectiveness
- Evaluating Your Capacity for Impact Evaluation: A Guide for Public Child Welfare Agencies and Service Providers
Recommendations
Making better decisions in child welfare requires evidence. One way to create evidence is through evaluations, which can answer questions about the implementation and effectiveness of a program or intervention.
You can find more practical guidance on data, evaluation, and evidence in the child welfare field from CWEST in materials from the Child Welfare Evidence Building Academy, a program of trainings for child welfare agency staff, practitioners, and evaluators.