Child Welfare Community Collaborations Cohort 1 Grantee Profiles

Publication Date: May 17, 2024

Introduction

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The Child Welfare Community Collaborations (CWCC) initiative is designed to mobilize communities to develop and evaluate multi-system collaboratives that address local barriers and provide a continuum of services to prevent child abuse and neglect. The initiative is funded by the Children’s Bureau (CB) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families (ACF). In 2018 and 2019, CB awarded 5-year cooperative agreements to a total of 13 states, non-profit organizations, and Native American tribal organizations (referred to here as “grantees”). The first cohort of four grantees received CWCC funds in 2018 and the second cohort of nine grantees received CWCC funds in 2019.      

To advance the evidence around collaborative approaches to preventing child abuse and neglect, the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation within ACF, in collaboration with CB, contracted with Abt Associates and its partner Child Trends to conduct the Building Capacity to Evaluate Child Welfare Community Collaborations project. The project includes:

  • evaluation-related technical assistance (TA) to support grantees and local evaluators and their capacity to conduct their required project-specific evaluations and 
  • a cross-site process evaluation of the CWCC grants to better understand how communities came together to develop and implement their CWCC approaches.

These grantee profiles summarize each of the four CWCC Cohort 1 grantee projects and are included in a series of products the evaluation team will produce as part of the cross-site process evaluation. Each grantee profile includes an overview of the project and descriptions of the project’s community and organizational context, key partners and collaborative efforts, implementation strategies, use of data and evaluation, plans for sustainability, and lessons learned. You can view the profile for each of the Cohort 1 grantee projects at the links below:

Purpose

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These grantee profiles are one of many products from the cross-site process evaluation designed to advance the evidence around collaborative approaches to preventing child abuse and neglect. They complement the Child Welfare Community Collaborations Projects at a Glance brief by providing more in-depth descriptions of the specific activities that each Cohort 1 grantee and their collaborative partners undertook, along with facilitators, barriers, and lessons learned.

Key Findings and Highlights

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ACF’s CWCC initiative funded collaborative efforts across the United States to prevent child maltreatment and reduce community-level rates of child abuse, neglect, and out-of-home placements. While grantees shared a common goal, they were diverse geographically, organizationally, and in the specific strategies they undertook. Cohort 1 included the following four grantee projects:

Each grantee’s project employed a variety of prevention-oriented strategies such as:

  • Cafés: Structured discussions and group listening sessions among parents/community members to build relationships and confidence in parenting. 
  • Family coaching/navigation: Participant-driven, individualized support to families, including referrals to outside services and provision of concrete supports.
  • Parent education and training: Classes offered to parents to help develop their parenting skills. Classes are generally evidence-based and offered in a group setting.
  • Resource centers: Physical spaces where families can go to receive services and interact with other families and that may serve as a community hub for grantee and partner activities.
  • Staff and provider training: Trainings or workshops designed to increase service provider capacity and knowledge around community prevention of child maltreatment.
  • Meaningful engagement of families: Efforts to include parents and community members in the design and delivery of prevention strategies and programming.
  • Community outreach and public awareness: Broad-based communication initiatives to increase awareness of grantee/community services and normalize seeking help.
  • Systems alignment strategies: Efforts to collaborate with system partners to strengthen the prevention services network (e.g., data sharing and continuous quality improvement).
  • Equity-promoting strategies: Efforts supported by supplemental CWCC equity funding designed to explicitly address racial disparities and promote equity.

The grantee profiles explore which strategies each grantee implemented and how, as well as grantee-specific facilitators, barriers, and lessons learned. 

Methods

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These grantee profiles use qualitative data collected from (1) annual site visits with in-depth interviews with CWCC project leadership, key partners and staff, as well as (2) information from grantee documents such as applications, semi-annual progress reports, and summaries of each grantee created by the evaluation TA team to describe the strategies that CWCC grantees included in their initial approaches. The evaluation team also asked CWCC project directors and the Cook Inlet Tribal Council Compliance Officer to review their grantee profile for accuracy.

Citation

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Layzer, C., Glenn, M., & Schachtner, R. (2024). Cook Inlet Tribal Council, Inc. Child Welfare Community Collaborations Grantee Profile. OPRE Report 2024-084, Washington, DC: Office of Research, Planning, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, US Department of Health and Human Services.  

Layzer, C., Glenn, M., & Schachtner, R. (2024). El Paso Center for Children’s Child Welfare Community Collaborations Grantee Profile. OPRE Report 2024-087, Washington, DC: Office of Research, Planning, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, US Department of Health and Human Services.  

Flannigan, A., Glenn, M., Cusick, J., Layzer, C., & Schachtner, R. (2024). Nebraska Children and Families Foundation Child Welfare Community Collaborations Grantee Profile. OPRE Report 2024-086, Washington, DC: Office of Research, Planning, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, US Department of Health and Human Services.  

Rushovich, B., Layzer, C., Glenn, M., & Schachtner, R. (2024). New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services Child Welfare Community Collaborations Grantee Profile. OPRE Report 2024-085, Washington, DC: Office of Research, Planning, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, US Department of Health and Human Services.  

Glossary

ACF:
Administration for Children and Families
CWCC:
Child Welfare Community Collaborations
OPRE:
Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation
TA:
Technical Assistance