1. CENTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES RESEARCH School of Social Welfare, UC Berkeley Administrative Office of the Pennsylvania Courts Children’s Roundtable Summit November 21, 2009 Making Data Informed Decisions (Ramblings from the Left Coast) Barbara Needell, MSW, PhD Center for Social Services Research University of California at Berkeley The Performance Indicators Project is a collaboration of the California Department of Social Services and the University of California at Berkeley, and is supported by the California Department of Social Services and the Stuart Foundation

2. CENTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES RESEARCH School of Social Welfare, UC Berkeley counterbalanced indicators of system performance permanency through reunification, adoption, or guardianship length of stay stability of care rate of referrals/ substantiated referrals home-based services vs. out of home care positive attachments to family, friends, and neighbors use of least restrictive form of care Source: Usher, C.L., Wildfire, J.B., Gogan, H.C. & Brown, E.L. (2002). Measuring Outcomes in Child Welfare. Chapel Hill: Jordan Institute for Families, reentry to care tracking child welfare outcomes

3. CENTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES RESEARCH School of Social Welfare, UC Berkeley entry cohorts exit cohorts point in time data three data views

4. CENTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES RESEARCH School of Social Welfare, UC Berkeley the view matters… How long do children stay in foster care? January 1, 2008December 31, 2008July 1, 2008 Source: Aron Shlonsky, University of Toronto (formerly at CSSR)

5. CENTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES RESEARCH School of Social Welfare, UC Berkeley

7. The California Experience University/Agency collaboration Publicly available reports since 1994, online since 2000 Nationally mandated measures (CFSR) State mandated measures (California Outcomes and Accountability System—AB636 law since 2001) Enhancements and additional measures Dynamic, user defined drill down and breakout functionality All tables refreshed quarterly Data over time, for California and each of the 58 counties Presentations, tools, etc.

8. CENTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES RESEARCH School of Social Welfare, UC Berkeley public data: putting it all out there pros: greater performance accountability community awareness and involvement, encourages public-private partnerships ability to track improvement over time, identify areas where programmatic adjustments are needed County/County, County/State and Agency/Court collaboration cons: o potential for misuse, misinterpretation, and misrepresentation o available to those with agendas or looking to create a sensational headline o misunderstood data can lead to the wrong policy decisions o “Torture numbers, and they’ll confess to anything” Gregg Easterbrook

9. CENTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES RESEARCH School of Social Welfare, UC Berkeley how’s it working for us? Publicly available data for child welfare has become business as usual State, county, courts and UCB are able to respond quickly and thoroughly to data abuse/number torturing Child Welfare Council formed in 2006 (AB2216) chaired by HHS Secretary Kim Belshe and Justice Carlos Moreno Most outcome measures are improving over time

10. CENTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES RESEARCH School of Social Welfare, UC Berkeley

12. Child Welfare County Data Profiles: Court Data Reports - AOC has contributed to state (CDSS) funding for this work - Customized excel reports for judges designed by AOC and CSSR staff -Data restricted to court dependent children when possible - County/State and County side by side table and graph comparisons -% change between timeframes -Presents data from child welfare and court sources (filings) -Provides links to source reports on CWS/CMS reports website to allow users to further explore data

13. CENTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES RESEARCH School of Social Welfare, UC Berkeley CSSR.BERKELEY.EDU/UCB_CHILDWELFARE Needell, B., Webster, D., Armijo, M., Lee, S., Dawson, W., Magruder, J., Exel, M., Glasser, T., Williams, D., Zimmerman, K., Simon, V., Putnam-Hornstein, E., Frerer, K., Cuccaro-Alamin, S., Winn, A., Lou, C., & Peng, C. (2009). Child Welfare Services Reports for California. Retrieved July 1, 2009, from University of California at Berkeley Center for Social Services Research website. URL: Barbara Needell bneedell@berkeley.edu 510 290 6334 Presentation Developed by Emily Putnam-Hornstein and Christine Wei-Mien Lou