Children's Bureau Website - Wisconsin

Wisconsin

Demonstration Type:	Assisted Guardianship¹
Approval Date:	September 10, 2004
Implementation Date:	October 14, 2005
Expected Completion Date:	August 30, 2010
Interim Evaluation Report Expected:	May 31, 2008
Final Evaluation Report Expected:	March 31, 2011

Target Population

The target population for Wisconsin's Guardianship Permanency Initiative consists of title IV-E- eligible and non-IV-E-eligible children ages 0–18 who have been in licensed relative foster care for a minimum of 12 months. A small number of children placed with non-relatives may also participate in the demonstration. Exceptions to the 12-month placement minimum may be made in the case of children for whom reasonable efforts to achieve reunification are not required, children for whom reunification has been ruled out as a permanency option, and for siblings of children already in assisted guardianship.

In addition, children in Milwaukee County for whom guardianship was previously awarded under State law, but whose cases had remained open in foster care for payment purposes, are being transferred to the assisted guardianship demonstration.

Jurisdiction

The Guardianship Permanency Initiative is currently being implemented in Milwaukee County by the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare (BMCW). In the future, the State may consider expanding the demonstration to other counties in Wisconsin as well as to Wisconsin Tribes for cases involving the Indian Child Welfare Act.

Intervention

Wisconsin's Guardianship Permanency Initiative seeks to improve permanency outcomes for children in out-of-home care by promoting guardianship as a permanency option, using relatives as permanency resources, and encouraging family-based permanency planning for children. The State's demonstration includes the following components:

State guardianship statutes have been revised to clarify the nature of guardianship as a permanency outcome and to allow for the payment of guardianship subsidies.
Guardianship subsidy payments are based on the foster care payment amount in effect for a child at the time that guardianship is awarded. Guardianship payments may continue until a child turns 18 years old or until age 19 to facilitate a child's completion of high school or an equivalent degree.
Licensing activity has been increased to recruit relatives as permanency resources and to assist them in meeting foster care licensure requirements.
Support services before and during the transition to guardianship parallel those offered to adoptive families. Examples of support services include preliminary screenings for guardianship, assessment of the home, assistance in applying for subsidies, referrals to community services, access to post-guardianship resource centers, and post-permanency support services.
Training for case managers, court staff, and attorneys is provided to promote an understanding of guardianship as a permanency option. Case managers receive training in presenting guardianship to families and involving families in the identification of appropriate permanency goals for children.
Prospective guardians have access to educational resources, including printed materials, information sessions, and educational home visits by child welfare case managers.

Evaluation Design

The State's evaluation includes both process and outcome components, as well as a cost analysis. Using an experimental research design, the State's evaluation contractor randomly assigns children from the demonstration's Target Population to an experimental group (eligible to receive a guardianship subsidy) or to a control group (ineligible for the guardianship subsidy) at a 1:1 ratio.

Children in Milwaukee County for whom guardianship was previously awarded under State law, but whose cases had remained open in foster care for payment purposes, are automatically converted to the assisted guardianship program and are exempt from random assignment. These cases comprise a "special experimental group" for which key evaluation outcomes are tracked longitudinally but not compared against outcomes for the control group.

Sample Size

Phase I of the State's guardianship demonstration began in October 2005 with the conversion of the special experimental group to assisted guardianship. The State originally estimated that up to 400 cases would be included in the special experimental group. Due to natural attrition as children aged out of foster care, along with other reasons, only 185 special experimental cases were identified for immediate conversion to guardianship. In addition, during Phase 2, a number of additional cases were discovered with a guardianship order in place prior to January 1, 2006 and were added to the Phase I population.

Phase II of the guardianship demonstration began on January 1, 2006, with the assignment of 275 children. The State expects approximately 8 to 9 children will be randomly assigned on a monthly basis throughout the duration of the waiver.

Process Evaluation

The State's process evaluation describes how the demonstration is being implemented and identifies differences between services received by children in the experimental group and those received by children in the control group. The State's evaluation contractor will use focus groups and interviews with foster caregivers and caseworkers to address the following questions:

How were caseworkers and foster caregivers informed about the guardianship option, and what procedures were put into place for pursuing guardianships?
What were caregivers' reasons for accepting or declining guardianship?
Among caregivers that pursued guardianship, what were the barriers to establishing guardianship?
What were additional reasons that guardianships were not finalized?

Outcome Evaluation

The State's outcome evaluation compares the experimental and control groups for statistically significant differences in the following outcome measures:

Length of time in out-of-home placement;
Net permanency rates, defined as the total number of children who exit to reunification, guardianship, or adoption;
Number of children who enter guardianship with relatives;
Number and proportion of children with a subsequent report of abuse or neglect, and the number of such reports that are substantiated;
Number and proportion of guardianships that are disrupted, and the reasons for any disruptions;
Number and proportion of children who re-enter foster care; and
Child well-being and family functioning.

In addition, major outcomes to be examined for children in the special experimental group include the following:

Number of guardianships that are disrupted and the reasons for any disruptions;
Number of children in guardianship arrangements who re-enter foster care, as well as the number and types of these foster care placement settings; and
Number of reports and substantiated findings of abuse or neglect for children living in an assisted guardianship arrangement and the relationship of the perpetrator to the child.

Cost Analysis

The State's cost analysis examines the costs of key services received by children in the experimental group and compares these with the costs of providing traditional services to children in the control group. The cost analysis also involves an examination of the use of key funding sources, including all relevant Federal sources such as titles IV-A, IV-B, IV-E, and XIX of the Social Security Act, as well as State and local funds.

Evaluation Findings

Phase I of the demonstration (October 2005 to January 2006) focused on children in the special experimental group. As of March 2008, a total of 212 children have been assigned to the exempt group. Of these, 131 (61 percent) were converted to assisted guardianship. The child welfare cases of 57 (29 percent) remain open with BMCW.

Phase II of the demonstration began in January 2006 by assigning children who met the eligibility requirements for assisted guardianship to the experimental and control groups. As of November 30, 2007, 320 children had been assigned to the demonstration, with 157 children assigned to the experimental group and 163 children assigned to the control group.

Outcome analyses indicate that the availability of assisted guardianship to children in the experimental group resulted in statistically significant differences in all three key permanency outcomes tracked for the Wisconsin waiver demonstration. Specifically, children assigned to the experimental group (1) were less likely to remain in long-term foster care (% difference = 19.5 percentage points, p. = .005); (2) stayed in foster care for shorter durations (mean difference = 76 days, p = .01); and (3) were more likely to exit to a permanent home through reunification, adoption, guardianship, and relative custody (% difference = 19.9 percentage points, p = .005). In addition, adoption rates were statistically similar for the experimental and control groups, suggesting that assisted guardianship does not supplant adoption as a viable permanency option for relative foster caregivers.

Additional outcome findings will become available as implementation of the State's assisted guardianship demonstration continues.

¹ Based on information submitted by the State as of March 2008. Back

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