National Child Welfare Evaluation Summit
August 20, 2019 – August 21, 2019 | 9:00 AM – 5:30 PM | Washington, DC
NCCD Senior Researcher Elizabeth Harris, PhD, and NCCD Researcher Miguel Becerra will team up with Kimberly Giardina, Deputy Director of Child Welfare Services in the County of San Diego, to describe a mixed-methods study of the county’s family visit coaching program at the 2019 National Child Welfare Evaluation Summit.
The summit, scheduled for August 20–21 in Washington, DC, will bring together child welfare leaders, members of the research and evaluation community, and their partners and stakeholders to explore the gap between research and practice.
The presentation by Harris, Becerra, and Giardina grows out of an NCCD study requested by the County of San Diego to determine whether family visit coaching measurably improves the odds of a child’s reunification and, if so, whether investing in family visit coaching reduces child welfare involvement to the point of being self-sustaining. NCCD and the county built a mixed-methods evaluation that answered these questions and demonstrated how the program works.
At the summit, the panel will facilitate a discussion about strategies for building research evidence regarding program efficacy in child welfare without impinging on program design or placing an emotional burden on families. In addition, they will weigh strategies for allowing program implementation to unfold in a way most likely to benefit children and families without compromising evaluation rigor.