Case study for the Child Welfare Study to Enhance Equity with Data (CW-SEED) - New York Office of Children and Family Services

This case study is part of a series of case studies that explore data practices child welfare agencies and their partners use to promote equity for families served by the child welfare system. The case studies were conducted as part of the Child Welfare Study to Enhance Equity with Data (CW-SEED) project and explored: how data are used to understand and address equity in service delivery and child and family outcomes; barriers or problematic practices; and child welfare agencies’ and their partners’ efforts to reduce barriers to equity across the continuum of child welfare services. Information in this case study may be useful for child welfare agency staff and their partners who aim to use data to support their equity efforts.

Data practices: 

• Disproportionality Minority Report packet: OCFS’ Office of Research, Evaluation, and Performance Analytics develops the disproportionality minority report packet for counties on an annual basis. It includes a data dashboard allowing counties to view data at the state and county level by race and ethnicity and shows five-year trends along different points of the child welfare services continuum. The packet also includes a separate file that shows county disparity rate comparisons and a document describing the contents of the packet. Counties can use this information to inform equity conversations and service delivery. 
• Blind removal policy: To decrease racial disparities within the child welfare system, OCFS issued an administrative directive in 2020, requiring all counties to develop and implement blind removal meeting processes, and included information about who should be involved in the meetings. Blind removal meetings intentionally remove identifying information (data elements) such as names, gender, race, ethnicity, and ZIP code. By removing personal and demographic information about a family, the practice aims to reduce bias, so removal decisions are focused on safety, risk, and family strength considerations.

Implementation supports: The resources and trainings provided to county leadership and staff supported implementation of both data practices. Key implementation facilitators for the disproportionality minority report packet were OCFS’ focus on equity and having designated staff that continuously adapt the packet to make it user-friendly. Buy-in from county leadership and having broad and flexible guidance for implementing blind removals were key implementation facilitators for the blind removal policy. 

Implementation challenges: Barriers for implementing the disproportionality minority report packet include: the timing of analysis and dissemination of the packet, need for additional and consistent guidance, difficulty locating data of interest, and a change in the data the used for comparing families involved with child welfare to the overall county population. Staff beliefs about their own biases posed as a barrier for implementing the blind removal policy. 

Opportunities: OCFS hopes to continue improving data practices to enhance equity and reduce racial disparity and disproportionality. Some suggested strategies to do this include offering training to mandated reporters, using the dashboard created for tracking Family First Prevention Services Act implementation to understand equity in prevention services, and including people with lived experience in decision making. 

Site identification. The CW-SEED project team gathered recommendations for potential case study sites from several sources, including: the project’s environmental scan of equity-focused data practices, project team members, the Administration for Children and Families’ regional program managers, and the CW-SEED expert group. The project team held preliminary information calls with child welfare agency staff in each site. 

Data sources and data collection methods. The project team requested and reviewed documents related to the data practices and tailored semi-structured interview protocols to guide the site visit data collection. The primary data sources for each case study include information from the jurisdiction selection process, jurisdiction-specific documents, notes from interviews, focus group discussions, and observations. 

Data analysis and case study findings. The project team developed a codebook and conducted qualitative analysis by coding the data sources using NVivo software. They exported codes and used them to identify key findings. 

Lewis, G., Spielfogel, J., Miller, M. Weigensberg, E., & Bess, R. (2024). Case Study for the Child Welfare Study to Enhance Equity with Data (CW-SEED): New York Office of Children and Family Services, OPRE Report #. Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.