Introduction
This brief describes how participants in a Breakthrough Series Collaborative (BSC) used a guiding framework called a Collaborative Change Framework to build practices and structures to improve engagement of fathers and paternal relatives in the child welfare system. It provides the context for using a Collaborative Change Framework and shares how the framework informed a multifaceted approach to engaging fathers and paternal relatives. The brief details how the BSC improvement team members drew a connection between efforts to promote racial justice and work to engage fathers and paternal relatives. It also features video examples of strategies improvement teams tested within the domains of the Collaborative Change Framework to improve programming and practice and thereby promote racial justice for men of color in the child welfare system.
Purpose
The purposes of this brief are to (1) share a framework for engaging fathers and paternal relatives in child welfare and (2) highlight strategies the teams tested within the five domains of the Collaborative Change Framework. The framework helped create a shared language and motivated teams to challenge existing structures to engage fathers and paternal relatives more effectively and promote racial justice. Other child welfare agencies can use this Collaborative Change Framework to consider how to improve their engagement of fathers and paternal relatives and promote racial justice.
Key Findings and Highlights
The five key domains of the change framework guided the teams as they worked to (1) support community, system, and agency environments that value and respect all fathers and paternal relatives, (2) achieve racial justice for men of color in the child welfare system, (3) identify and locate fathers and paternal relatives from the first point of contact with the family, (4) assess and address the strengths and needs of—and barriers for—fathers and paternal relatives, and (5) continuously involve fathers and paternal relatives throughout the lives of their children. Teams tested strategies in each of these five domains, which ultimately helped lead to greater organizational changes.
Methods
Before the BSC started, child welfare and fatherhood experts participated in a full-day process to develop a Collaborative Change Framework to guide the BSC’s work. Teams then tested strategies in the five BSC domains over the course of the 18-month BSC. At the end of the BSC, team members revised the Collaborative Change Framework based on what they learned from the BSC and their understanding of how best to engage fathers and paternal relatives and promote racial justice for men of color in the child welfare system. The project team also collected video recordings of team members describing strategies they tested as part of the BSC.
Citation
Spielfogel, Jill, Candice Talkington, Jen Agosti, Amelia Forman, Roseana Bess, and Matthew Stagner (2023). Using a change framework to design systems that effectively engage fathers and paternal relatives and promote racial justice. OPRE Report #2023-105, Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Glossary
- BSC:
- Breakthrough Series Collaborative (BSC). The BSC is a continuous learning collaborative methodology used to test and spread promising practices to help organizations improve in a focused topic area. It has five key elements: (1) a Collaborative Change Framework; (2) inclusive multi-level teams; (3) a shared learning environment; (4) expert faculty coaches; and (5) a Model for Improvement. Each plays a critical role and works with the other elements in interrelated ways. Each BSC has a topic area of focus. Improvement teams continuously identify, collect, and review data on the topic to gauge their organization’s progress toward specific outcomes.
- CCF:
- Collaborative Change Framework (CCF). The change framework is used to guide the work of the improvement teams and create a common language for BSC participants. For the Fathers and Continuous Learning in Child Welfare project, it comprised five domains that collectively depict a child welfare agency that optimally engages fathers and paternal relatives. Each domain is broken down into goals, and then into strategies (also called change concepts) that improvement teams can test.
- Faculty coaches:
- Faculty coaches. Faculty coaches share their expertise with improvement teams and facilitate shared learning across teams. For FCL, ACF and the Mathematica/Denver University team selected a group of six experts to support improvement teams and provide practice expertise related to the five domains of the Collaborative Change Framework. Faculty Coaches led affinity group calls and contributed to learning sessions and the content of all-team calls. Faculty Coaches were selected to ensure that diverse perspectives and identities were represented.
- FCL:
- Fathers and Continuous Learning in Child Welfare (FCL). The FCL project is designed to test the use of the Breakthrough Series Collaborative methodology. For this project, the methodology was used to improve placement stability and permanency outcomes by strengthening the engagement of fathers and paternal relatives with children involved in child welfare, and to add to the evidence base on engagement strategies for fathers and paternal relatives. FCL is funded by the Office of Family Assistance and directed by the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation in partnership with the Children’s Bureau, all within the Administration for Children and Families in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
- Improvement team:
- Improvement team. A group of 7 to 14 people were selected by each site to lead the BSC work at each agency. For FCL, improvement teams included a mix of administrators, managers, supervisors, child welfare caseworkers, community partners, and fathers and paternal relatives, although the composition of the teams varied from one site to another.
- Sites:
- Sites. Five sites participated in FCL, representing five state or county public child welfare agencies. There were a total of six improvement teams.