Projects
We have the great privilege of working with partners who are dedicated to
using research and data to improve services to children and families.
Here are some examples of our projects.
Evaluating the Ohio Kinship and Adoption Navigator (OhioKAN) Program
Under contract with Kinnect through funding from the Ohio Department of Children and Youth (DCY), we took a participatory and developmental approach to help Ohio prepare a new kinship navigator program for rigorous evaluation. Evaluation activities have been conducted in close partnership with an implementation team and statewide advisory team. Major activities have included evaluability assessment, community service mapping, usability assessment, implementation evaluation, and the creation of multiple interactive data dashboards using human-centered design principles. In 2025 we completed an effectiveness trial using a Type 1 hybrid effectiveness-implementation cluster randomized research design to examine community, child, and caregiver outcomes.
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Building Evidence about SAFE and SAFE@Home
We are working closely with model developers and implementation specialists at ACTION for Child Protection to rigorously evaluate two safety interventions that were developed with strong theoretical foundations and practice wisdom and that have been widely implemented across the United States. Safety Assessment and Family Evaluation (SAFE) is a comprehensive safety decision making model and intervention framework. SAFE@Home is a community-based, in-home safety management and parent assistance program. In 2022 we completed a retrospective, quasi-experimental study examining the impact of SAFE@Home on out-of-home placement and reunification in Clark County (Las Vegas), Nevada. This study contributed to the recognition of SAFE@Home as a program with "promising" research evidence by the California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse. We continue to support the development and testing of a standardized assessment of Caregiver Protective Capacities and Caregiver Progress Toward Change, and we are in the process of exploring new partnerships to continue the evaluation of SAFE.
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Evaluating Services under Oregon's Title IV-E Prevention Plan
Under a prime contract between our partner ICF Incorporated, L.L.C. (ICF) and the Oregon Department of Human Services, Office of Child Welfare Programs, we are collaborating to evaluate services implemented as part of Oregon’s Title IV-E Prevention Plan. We will be completing assessments of evidence-based practices to understand what works for whom, co-designing primary data collection tools with lived and learned experts to better understand families’ service experiences, and leading the design and implementation of rigorous evaluations of selected services.
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Supporting Implementation of Ohio START (Sobriety, Treatment and Reducing Trauma)
Ohio START is an evidence-informed model that helps families affected by parental substance use disorders achieve stability and recovery while keeping children safe. The program brings together public children services agencies, behavioral health providers, and Family Peer Mentors to provide coordinated, family-centered support for parents and children. Under contract with the Public Children Services Association of Ohio (PCSAO), we partner with Ohio START program leadership and staff to support implementation and learning across participating counties. Our work has included exploring county readiness for program certification, examining program reach to understand who is and isn’t being served, and developing interactive dashboards that help technical assistance providers use data to support county practice.
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Evaluating Kinnect to Family Ohio
Under contract with Kinnect to Family through funding from the Ohio Department of Children and Youth (DCY), we partner with the state implementation team to support fidelity monitoring and evaluate implementation and outcomes across counties. Kinnect to Family, formerly known as 30 Days to Family Ohio, is a specialized, intensive family search and engagement program that uses diligent search strategies to identify and build connections for children and families involved in child welfare. In partnership with DCY and Kinnect, our early activities included integrating administrative and program data to conduct a longitudinal quasi-experimental study of the program’s impact on kin placement, stability, and permanency. Building on this foundation, our current work focuses on understanding how Kinnect to Family operates within and influences child welfare systems. We are conducting a caregiver survey to better understand families’ experiences, exploring KTF’s influence on agency culture using the Waters of Systems Change framework, mapping decision-making and power dynamics related to kin placement across agencies, and identifying factors that support worker motivation and sustained momentum in key fidelity practices linked to successful kin placements.​
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Informing Development of Ohio's Practice in Action Together (PACT) Model
Funded by the Public Children Services Association of Ohio (PCSAO) and in close collaboration with the statewide practice model design team, we completed a proof-of-concept study in 2024 that tested basic assumptions underlying the PACT practice model. The PACT Model asserts that specific, values-driven casework behaviors will promote healing, relationship building, and shared outcomes for families and caseworkers. During this initial project, we gathered data from successful family-worker dyads to examine the prevalence and perceived importance of PACT casework behaviors and their association with co-defined outcomes. In 2025 we gathered feedback from families about their experiences with county children services agencies to inform Local Advisory Groups as they developed strategies to improve families' experiences.
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Evaluating Youth Centered Permanency Roundtables (YCPRT) in Ohio
Under contract with Kinnect through funding from the Ohio Department of Children and Youth (DCY), we partner with the state implementation team and counties across Ohio to support ongoing learning and improvement of YCPRT. YCPRT puts young people at the center of a structured case consultation process designed to bring together diverse perspectives to identify and strengthen permanency options for youth. Our initial work included assessing program reach, dosage, and adherence to key practices, conducting retrospective analyses of administrative data to examine permanency outcomes, and completing a prospective study of proximal outcomes. More recently, we completed a case study to identify conditions and practices that support sustainable implementation and conducted a photovoice project to learn from youth about how participation in YCPRT has shaped their experiences. We are currently supporting counties to examine program reach and performing a comparative analysis to explore differences in demographic characteristics and system involvement between youth served and those eligible but not served.​
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Supporting the Implementation of Ohio’s Youth Navigator Network (YNN) Program
Under contract with Kinnect through funding from the Ohio Department of Children and Youth (DCY), we are part of a statewide implementation team supporting the design of an intervention for youth and young adults in the foster care system. Since 2022 YNN's aim has been to center youth voice and preferences to co-create a program that meets the needs of young people across Ohio. Our services have included usability testing with young adults, co-designing a survey for participating youth, and supporting a continuous quality improvement (CQI) infrastructure.
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Reconceptualizing and Measuring Child Well-being and Relational Permanency
In 2025, we partnered with the Washington Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC), Family and Youth Justice Program, and its array of interagency collaborators, as well as Data Savvy Consulting and Re-Unify Family Solutions, to redefine how child well-being and relational permanency are measured for children and families involved in Washington’s child welfare system. We reviewed research and engaged over 80 lived and professional experts in the process of identifying and defining dimensions of child well-being and relational permanency that would be meaningful to measure. We also solicited input from experts across Washington's child serving systems to map and catalog relevant data that are already collected and to identify gaps. Together, we prioritized measures and developed a set of phased recommendations that could immediately capitalize on opportunities for improved coordination while also laying the groundwork for more transformative data collection and reporting. Our recommendations were released in a legislative report and legislative briefing for the Washington State Senate Human Services Committee.
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Building Capacity to Use Implementation Science in Child Welfare Practice
In collaboration with Tailored Implementation, LLC, we developed a training program with tools and activities to support leaders in the Oregon Department of Human Services (ODHS), Office of Child Welfare Programs to strengthen their use of implementation science in practice. Together, we explored how ODHS could leverage stage-based implementation assessments to inform planning. We also developed a framework that identifies indicators of success at every stage of implementation and intentionally uses implementation data as part of feedback loops to inform continuous improvement efforts.
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Learning about SOUL Family
SOUL Family is a framework designed to help states expand potential permanency pathways beyond adoption and guardianship for young people exiting foster care. Funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation (AECF), we partnered with the SOUL Family team at AECF to document: (1) the genesis and initial design of SOUL Family, (2) insights gleaned from young leaders with lived expertise on the design and implementation of SOUL Family, (3) how AECF and its partners (advisory team, Kansas system partners) approached the SOUL Family effort in Kansas, and (4) insights about what worked well, challenges and lessons learned. We co-designed interview protocols to elicit learnings and facilitated sessions to make meaning of the data with interview participants and the SOUL Family team. In 2024 we archived learnings in briefs that highlighted how key practices from SOUL Family informed expert-led systems change and led to equitable and effective collaboration between lived and learned experts. The project also provided us with an opportunity to partner with a young adult participatory researcher, who co-constructed learning opportunities, collected and analyzed data, and prepared findings.
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Reviewing Research Evidence to Support Family-Centered Reunification
Under contract with the Innovations Institute at the University of Connecticut through funding from the Children’s Bureau for the Quality Improvement Center for Family-Centered Reunification, we conducted a scoping review of interventions that have demonstrated positive impact on family reunification from foster care. We also provided training and technical assistance and developed a tip sheet for evaluators striving to meet Title IV-E Prevention Services Clearinghouse standards.
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Evaluating the National Adoption Competency Mental Health Training Initiative (NTI) for School Professionals
NTI for Schools is a training developed by the Center for Adoption Support and Education (C.A.S.E.) to build the capacity of school-based mental health professionals to better address the needs of families formed through foster care, adoption, and kinship care. Funded by C.A.S.E., we completed an effectiveness evaluation in 2024 using the New World Kirkpatrick Model for evaluating trainings to understand experiences (i.e., reactions and learning) of school-based mental health professionals who participated in NTI for Schools and their perceptions of behavior change and impact on school staff, children and families as a result of applying NTI for Schools content. A single group, quasi-experimental pre-posttest with follow-up design was chosen to inform C.A.S.E.’s planning for future scaling of NTI trainings.
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Evaluating Ohio’s Accelerated Safety Analysis Protocol (ASAP)
Funded by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS), we designed and conducted a rigorous quasi-experimental outcome evaluation of ASAP in close collaboration with state and county program staff. ASAP uses data to flag cases at risk of fatality or serious injury, so that ASAP reviewers can conduct safety-focused reviews and provide real-time feedback to caseworkers and supervisors responsible for the case. The evaluation explored ASAP’s impact on the outcomes of children served by constructing a comparison group of similar children whose cases were not reviewed and exploring outcomes like custody/placement, abuse or neglect related fatalities, subsequent maltreatment reports, and repeat maltreatment. The evaluation also explored ASAP’s impact on the caseworker job satisfaction and lead indicators of turnover, using qualitative and survey data from workers.
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Evaluating the Jim Casey Initiative’s Youth Leadership Institute (YLI)
YLI was designed to develop leadership and advocacy skills among young people with a history of placement in foster care. Funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, we conducted a three-phase evaluation of YLI from 2017 to 2020. Our mixed-method, multi-informant study used online surveys and qualitative interviews with young people and their mentors before training, after training, and one year following training. This study was guided by the Kirkpatrick model for training evaluation to explore young leaders' learning, behaviors, and results after YLI.
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Performing a Comprehensive Implementation Evaluation of Evidence-Based Home Visiting Programs in Washington, DC
Funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), we partnered with Georgetown University to co-lead the evaluation of a Maternal Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) grant awarded to the District of Columbia Department of Health which was implementing Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY), Parents as Teachers (PAT), Healthy Families America (HFA), and the Fussy Baby FAN (Facilitating Attuned iNteractions). We used the RE-AIM implementation evaluation framework to develop a comprehensive evaluation plan and led data management and analysis for implementation and effectiveness outcomes. We also used Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) in a comparative case study, drawing from triangulated interviews, case notes, and administrative data to understand transition practices that home visiting service providers can implement to maintain family engagement after home visitor resignations.
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Assessing Child and Family Service Needs and Resources to Inform Strategic Planning
Funded by the Prince George's County Department of Families Services, we conducted two comprehensive needs and resources assessments of child and family services, one in 2014 and another in 2023. The assessments included analyzing child well-being data, surveying youth and families, and taking inventory of all child and family services in the county. We also supported strategic planning processes following both assessments to support the Commission on Children, Youth, and Families to use the results to identify and develop strategies as part of the county's strategic plans.​
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Assessing Progress in a Modified Settlement Agreement after a Class Action Lawsuit
Under the direction of the Office of the Federal Court Monitor, we conducted several studies of southern state's progress toward meeting the requirements of its modified settlement agreement. Research methods included interviewing state and county staff, designing and managing a review of case records—with a team of over 30 reviewers, and analyzing administrative data. The studies examined (1) maltreatment in out-of-home care, (2) the provision of services to children in out-of-home care, and (3) an array of safety, permanency, and practice indicators.
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