To improve outcomes for children and families, programs must effectively engage participants in services. Program participant enrollment and engagement in services, as well as participation in evaluation activities, are essential for building the evidence for services for children and families served by or at risk of becoming involved with the child welfare system.

This report summarizes the extent of and reasons for low participation in services for families served by the child welfare system, and how participation affects evaluations. It then presents ways to improve program and evaluation participation and discusses how doing so supports program effectiveness and the ability to study effectiveness.

Key Findings and Highlights

Participant engagement is important for both programmatic and evaluative purposes. Solutions to poor program engagement can increase both engagement in services and participation in an evaluation. Both implementers and evaluators should be prepared to prevent, look for, and address barriers to program engagement. Here are our key findings:

• Many barriers are program-related and can be addressed in program development and implementation. Program developers and implementers should strive to include input from client target populations when planning, designing, and implementing programs.
• A close and ongoing partnership between the evaluator and program implementer (and developer, if the program is new) is important to ensuring both program and evaluation engagement.

Recommendations

Program developers, implementers, and evaluators need to consider participant engagement as integral to each stage of program development and evaluation. Less than desired engagement in services not only prohibits children and families from benefiting from services, but it also presents barriers to examining whether, and in what ways, the services are beneficial. More input early on from the client population is recommended to ensure participant engagement.

This resource is part of the Roadmaps to Building Evidence in Child Welfare series—a collection of instructional resources about conducting child welfare evaluations. 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.