Module Five
Forward & Onward: Practice, Policy, and Research
Ideas & Discussion for Practice
There is no “one size fits all” approach to child welfare service delivery because there are such different goals and client groups being served. Additionally, there are many different laws and statutes designed to ensure effectiveness and accountability. Administration and management within the child welfare system are crucial to the successful implementation of culturally competent evidence-based practice.What do we know about practice?
Here are some examples of integrating evidence-based practice and cultural competence.
In the area of prevention, Family Connections, a study from the University of Maryland at Baltimore (DePanfilis & Dubowitz, 2005), worked with families in their homes and in the framework of their neighborhoods to reduce the risk of child neglect. Selected families received either a 3 month or a 9 month intervention. The study is one of the few effectiveness studies that was designed and used with a specific at-risk population of color identified at the time of the design.
Listen to Susan Wells’ description of this study
Read the article about the study by DePanfilis & Dubowitz.
Among studies of interventions to improve parenting, there are three programs of varying cost that have been shown to be effective and that attend to potential racial or cultural differences. Please click on each of the following for more information on the interventions:
In Minnesota, at least two examples of state-level changes in the administration and management of child welfare were related specifically to culturally competent evidence-based practice:
- 1). Observations by social workers and the community led to the incorporation of considerations specific to American Indian families in a state-mandated risk assessment instrument.
- 2). Statewide shift to a diversion program for lower-risk child protection cases led to more positive feelings from families and increased perception among workers that clients were cooperative. The hope is also this diversion program might aid in state racial disparities as well.