Nancy Claiborne

An Intervention Framework for Collaboration

This paper provides an intervention framework for collaboration to improve services. When collaboration is an intervention, its development and effectiveness depend on intervention logic. Intervention logic requires a precise conceptualization of collaboration. This conceptualization emphasizes its vital and unique components. It includes a developmental progression in which collaboration is contrasted with companion concepts. It also includes progress benchmarks, outcome measures, and logic models. These models depict relations among the benchmarks and outcomes, and they identify the mediating and moderating variables that account for collaborations development and effectiveness. These models are designed to improve planning, evaluation, and their relations. This intervention framework for collaboration contrasts sharply with other conceptualizations and strategies. Although its aim is to unify and improve collaboration policy and practice, its inherent selectivity is an obvious limitation.

Predicting Turnover: Validating the Intent to Leave Child Welfare Scale.

A number of proxies have been used in child welfare workforce research to represent actual turnover; however, there have been no psychometric studies to validate a scale specifically designed for this purpose. The Intent to Leave Child Welfare Scale is a proxy for actual turnover that measures workers’ intention to leave. This scale was validated in the current study by a CFA. The resulting factors were compared to actual turnover. Nearly two in three workers who indicated that they had considered looking for a job in the past year actually left their agencies (60.0%). A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to determine the validity of the Intent to Leave Child Welfare Scale. The best fitting model consisted of three factors with acceptable fit statistics (X 2 = 28.6, p = 0.04; RMSEA = 0.05, 90% RMSEA CI = 0.01-0.08; CFI = 0.99; TLI = 0.98). Identified latent factors included “thinking,” which included observed variables related to workers thinking about leaving their current jobs; “looking,” which included observed variables related to workers searching for a new job; and “acting,” which included observed variables related to workers actually taking physical steps to seek a new job. Once a good fitting model was identified, binary logistic regression was conducted to determine odds ratios to predict who actually left their agencies. Each of the identified latent factors was significantly predictive of actual leaving (thinking: OR = 1.24, p = 0.00; looking: OR = 1.25, p = 0.00; acting: OR = 1.28, p = 0.01).

Child Welfare Design Teams: An Intervention to Improve Workforce Retention and Facilitate Organizational Development

Workforce turnover in public child welfare is a national problem. Individual, supervisory, and organizational factors, individually and in combination, account for some of the turnover. Complex, comprehensive interventions are needed to address these several factors and their interactions. A research and development team is field testing one such intervention. The three-component intervention encompasses management consultations, capacity building for supervisors, and a cross-role, intra-agency design team (DT). DTs consist of representative workers from pilot child welfare systems. A social worker from outside the agency facilitates team problem solving focused on retention of workers. DT problem solving combines action research and learning. DTs and their facilitators rely on specially designed tools, protocols, and social work research as they address retention-related priorities. Intervention research findings as well as successful examples of retention-related problem solving indicate the DT interventions potential contributions to social work education, research, and practice.

Deriving Theories of Change from Successful Community Development Partnerships for Youths: Implications for School Improvement

Community development partnerships for youths offer valuable resources for school improvement. Unfortunately, these resources may not be tapped because school leaders have not been prepared to understand these partnerships. The evaluative research reported partnership‐related understanding, aiming to prepare leaders to contribute to, and benefit from, partnerships. This research employed case study methodology to derive theories of change from five successful youth development partnerships. These partnerships’ theories of change provide action‐oriented knowledge for scale‐up in other school communities. Among this research’s other contributions are partnership commonalities, indicators of uniqueness, and partnership classifications. Differences between adult‐led and youth‐led partnerships are especially salient. Expanded improvement planning may incorporate youth leadership and capitalize on resources provided by partnerships.

How Can Social Workers Improve Outcomes and Costs in Disease Management

Disease management relies on a team approach to chronic diseases for which good treatment regimens are known and national data are available. Limitations of and opportunities for disease management programs are explored and a case is presented that the inclusion of social work can enhance the performance, outcomes, and cost-benefits of disease management teams. Social workers can attend to depression, other mental health issues, resources, family support, and communication, when other team members may be less able to do so. Social workers are particularly well suited to help patients have voice in their treatment, and to participate actively as decision makers in their own care. Preliminary data show that inclusion of social workers in disease management programs enhances patient outcomes and cost benefits.

Societal Factors Impacting Child Welfare Validating the Perceptions of Child Welfare Scale

Objective: This research examines the psychometric properties of the Perceptions of Child Welfare Scale (PCWS). This instrument is designed to assess child welfare workers’ understanding of how society views their role and their work. Methods: Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was utilized to analyze data on 538 child welfare workers. Results: The final model consisted of three latent variables with 14 indicators related to stigma, value, and respect (χ2 = 362.33, p = .00; root mean square error of approximation [RMSEA] = .09; 90% confidence interval [CI]: [.08, .09]; comparative fit index [CFI] = .96; Tucker–Lewis Index [TLI] = .95). Discussion: The way in which workers believe others view their work suggests an increasingly complex prototype for understanding workforce issues. Those wishing to examine societal factors related to child welfare workforce issues could use this validated instrument.

Organizational Climate Factors of Successful and Not Successful Implementations of Workforce Innovations in Voluntary Child Welfare Agencies

This study advances research on implementing innovations in child welfare organizations, confirming the association between a positive organizational climate and successful change initiative implementation. Administrators and child welfare workers from six agencies were surveyed using independent samples t-and OLS regressions. The organizational climate dimensions found significant were organization, job and role, indicating the three agencies that fully implemented a change initiative enjoyed a more positive organizational climate. The organization dimension was also significant for administrators, indicating a more positive climate perception than workers. Supervisor dimension was not significant, indicating no association whether or not the change initiative was implemented.

Targeting evaluations of youth development-oriented community partnerships.

Community-based partnerships (CBPs) focused on youth development (YD) have the potential to improve public health outcomes. These partnerships also present opportunities for the design and implementation of innovative, community-level change strategies, which ultimately may result in new capacities for positive YD. Evaluation-driven learning and improvement frameworks facilitate the achievement of these partnership-related benefits. Partnerships are complex because they embody multiple levels of intervention (eg, youth-serving programs, youth participation as partners or evaluators, network development for collaborative projects and resource sharing, YD-oriented organizational or community policy change). This inherent complexity transfers to evaluations of CBPs. This article provides resources for meeting evaluation-related challenges. It includes a framework for articulating relevant evaluation questions for YD-oriented CBPs, a summary of relevant types of evaluation studies, and practical solutions to common evaluation problems using targeted evaluation studies. Concrete examples of relevant, small-scale evaluation studies are provided throughout.

Climate Change in Private Child Welfare Organizations

Agency-based design teams effectively address workforce issues in public child welfare agencies. This article presents findings from an adaptation of a design team intervention for private child welfare agencies. A longitudinal mixed-methodology design measures effects of the intervention and conditions of implementation. Pre–post surveys of workers (n = 137) and a comparison group (n = 153) measure climate, job satisfaction, perceptions of child welfare, and intent to leave. Statistically significant increases of 0.37 points on dimensions of organizational justice and support (justice: p = 0.01; support: p = 0.03) parallel the team’s perceived effect of their work—that it will make the organization more fair and accountable.

Validating the Psychological Climate Scale in Voluntary Child Welfare

Objective: Organizational climate has emerged as an important factor in understanding and addressing the complexities of providing services in child welfare. This research examines the psychometric properties of each of the dimensions of Parker and colleagues’ Psychological Climate Survey in a sample of voluntary child welfare workers. Methods: Confirmatory factor analysis was utilized to analyze data on 640 child welfare workers providing services directly to children and families. Results: Strong models were developed for each dimension. Each validated model was more parsimonious than in the original instrument but supported the theoretical underpinnings of each. Discussion and Applications to Social Work: Psychological climate in voluntary child welfare agencies can be assessed along each of four dimensions identified by Parker and colleagues: job, role, organization, and supervision. Those wishing to examine psychological climate in voluntary child welfare settings should consider using the models identified in the current research.