Systemic challenges within child welfare have prompted many states to explore new strategies aimed at protecting children while meeting the needs of families, but doing so within the confines of shrinking budgets. Differential Response has emerged as a promising practice for low or moderate risk cases of child maltreatment. This mixed methods evaluation explored various aspects of North Carolina’s differential response system, known as the Multiple Response System (MRS), including: child safety, timeliness of response and case decision, frontloading of services, case distribution, implementation of Child and Family Teams, collaboration with community-based service providers and Shared Parenting. Utilizing Child Protective Services (CPS) administrative data, researchers found that compared to matched control counties, MRS: had a positive impact on child safety evidenced by a decline in the rates of substantiations and re-assessments; temporarily disrupted timeliness of response in pilot counties but had no effect on time to case decision; and increased the number of upfront services provided to families during assessment. Qualitative data collected through focus groups with providers and phone interviews with families provided important information on key MRS strategies, highlighting aspects that families and social workers like as well as identifying areas for improvement. This information is useful for continuous quality improvement efforts, particularly related to the development of training and technical assistance programs at the state and local level.

No abstract

North Carolina is one of a growing number of states to implement family meeting models in child welfare as a way to engage families, while simultaneously addressing complex familial needs and child safety issues. However, much is still unknown regarding how family meetings actually operate in child welfare, underscoring a clear need for further evaluation of this process. Utilizing direct observational data of Child and Family Team (CFT) meetings, collected as part of two separate evaluations of the North Carolina Division of Social Service’s Multiple Response System (MRS) and System of Care (SOC) initiatives, the purpose of the current study was to examine whether the support provided by SOC improved fidelity to the CFT model in child welfare. The observations were conducted using the Team Observation Measure consisting of 78 indicators that measure adherence to ten domains associated with high quality family team meetings (e.g., collaborative, individualized, natural supports, outcomes based, strengths-based). Findings indicate that receiving SOC support in child welfare leads to a more collaborative and individualized decision-making process with families. Meeting facilitators in SOC counties were better prepared for CFTs, and had greater ability to lead a more robust and creative brainstorming process to develop a family-driven case plan. The current study also provides a much needed description of the CFT meeting process within child welfare using a direct observational measure.