Roadmaps to Building Child Welfare Evidence

Child welfare administrators and evaluators conduct evaluations to understand whether, how, and how well programs, policies, and initiatives work for children, youth, and families. The Child Welfare Evidence Strengthening Team (CWEST) aims to increase the number of evidence-based interventions and improve the child welfare field’s ability to build, understand, and use evidence. To support the field in conducting rigorous evaluations, CWEST has developed the Roadmaps to Building Evidence in Child Welfare series — a collection of instructional resources about conducting child welfare evaluations. The goal of the series is to give child welfare administrators and evaluators knowledge on many elements of the evaluation process.

Roadmaps to Building Evidence in Child Welfare resources include the following:

1.  (PDF)Ten Key Design Elements for Rigorous Impact Evaluations in Child Welfare: A Desk Reference for Evaluators (PDF): This report reviews 10 key design elements for researchers to consider in child welfare impact evaluations. It lays out best practices for each element to assist evaluators in producing a rigorous and effective evaluation. We also describe key similarities and differences in standards across six child welfare—relevant clearinghouses.
2. A Guide to Writing High-Quality Evaluation Reports in Child Welfare (PDF): This report guides readers through the steps required to write a rigorous evaluation report. The authors walk the reader through a checklist in writing an evaluation, and they explain the necessary details to produce an accurate final product. It also includes a checklist and a summary of clearinghouse insights that you can easily reference as you write.
3. Conducting a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) in Child Welfare: A Guide to What, Why, and How for Child Welfare Agency Staff (PDF): This brief helps child welfare administrators and staff understand more about RCTs. Readers will learn about what RCTs are, the value of conducting RCTs, the ethics of RCTs, what it takes to implement an RCT, and ways to customize an RCT to meet your needs.
4. Quasi-Experimental Designs in Child Welfare Evaluations: Opportunities for Generating Rigorous Evidence (PDF): This brief describes the features, benefits, and challenges of quasi-experimental designs (QEDs). Using examples from child welfare, it details the situations where a QED may be beneficial as an alternative to RCTs.
5. Administrative Data in Child Welfare Evaluations: Using Administrative Data to Understand Populations and Measure Outcomes (PDF): This brief highlights the value of administrative data — data already collected in child welfare administrative data systems — in evaluations. The authors detail the ways that evaluations may benefit from administrative data, and they recommend its use in understanding populations and tracking outcomes.
6. How to Develop a Theory of Change and Logic Model for Your Kinship Navigator Program (PDF): This report details the benefits of developing a theory of change and logic model for Kinship Navigator Programs (KNPs). The authors lay out the steps in writing a theory of change, creating a logic model, and testing both the theory and model through program evaluation.
7. Engagement and Persistence in Child Welfare Services: Implications for Program Effectiveness (PDF): Given the importance of participant engagement in program evaluations, this brief discusses possible solutions to engagement challenges in child welfare services. The authors focus on how programs and evaluators can seek to find and properly address barriers to program engagement.
8. Evaluating Your Capacity for Impact Evaluation: A Guide for Public Child Welfare Agencies and Service Providers (PDF): This brief covers the knowledge, skills, and resources necessary for child welfare programs to have their evaluations succeed. The full coordination of an agency — from leadership buy-in and participant engagement to analytic capacity — must be present for an evaluation to be successful.

As part of the CWEST Evidence Building Academy, the CWEST team produced a glossary of key research and evaluation terms (PDF) which lists common evaluation terms you may come across.