Children's Bureau Express

Evaluating a Community Partnership Initiative

Evaluation of a pilot project that focused on community partnerships and involvement found several positive outcomes for child welfare practice but no reduction in rates of child maltreatment. Chapin Hall Center for Children conducted an evaluation of Community Partnerships for Protecting Children (CPPC), an initiative that was piloted in four urban sites. The initiative focused on:

Individualized course of action plans for all families
Neighborhood networks of formal and informal services
Agency practices that place workers in the communities and improve services
Local decision-making by workers and community members together

The evaluation involved surveying the different groups of stakeholders, as well as longitudinal studies of data from 2000–2004. There were three areas of findings:

Child safety showed no improvement as measured by child abuse reports, recurrence reports, service availability, or service quality.
Child welfare practice showed improvements in case assessment, service planning, worker satisfaction, collaborative decision-making, and perceptions of workers by residents.
The CPPC conceptual framework showed a need for improvement in helping families address their parenting challenges, integrating informal supports, sustaining collaborations, and altering community’s normative values.

Community Partnerships for Protecting Children: Phase II Outcome Evaluation, by D. Daro, S. Budde, S. Baker, A. Nesmith, and A. Harden, is available on the Chapin Hall site:

www.chapinhall.org/article_abstract.aspx?ar=1420&L2=61&L3=129

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