Introduction
Research Questions
- What key partners did CWCC grantees engage in their collaborative work?
- What strategies did CWCC grantees propose as part of their collaborative work?
- What prior experience did grantees have with community-level collaboration?
- What evaluation designs did they use?
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”).
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.
This brief provides a high-level description of each of the 13 CWCC projects and is one of a series of products the evaluation team will produce as part of the cross-site process evaluation. This brief contains a one-page description of each project including its geographic catchment area, population of focus, key partners, prior experience with community-level collaboration, timeline, and local evaluation.
Purpose
The goal of the CWCC initiative is to fund collaborative projects that address local barriers and provide a continuum of supports to promote child and family well-being and strengthen protective factors, ultimately leading to fewer new referrals to child welfare and more families staying together. While each CWCC project shared this goal, they proposed a diverse range of strategies to achieve their desired outcomes.
This brief is one of many from the cross-site process evaluation designed to advance the evidence around collaborative approaches to preventing child abuse and neglect. It complements An Introduction to the Child Welfare Community Collaborations Grantees and Strategies by clearly describing the specific activities that grantees and their collaborative partners undertook.
Key Findings and Highlights
ACF’s CWCC initiative funded 13 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. Grantees spanned urban and rural communities throughout the continental US and Alaska and represented a mix of public agencies, non-profits, and even academic institutions. Given the CWCC initiative’s focus on strategic coordination, it’s not surprising that all grantees incorporated some systems alignment activities designed to promote community collaboration and strengthen communities’ prevention services network. All grantees also incorporated at least one community-level strategy designed to promote positive change in the community and at least one individual-level strategy designed to increase protective factors and promote well-being.
Methods
This brief uses information from grantee’s 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 to review the descriptions of their project for accuracy.
Related Publications
Tano, C., Layzer, C., Hyra, A., Cook, R., and Blocklin, M. (2021). Community Prevention of Child Maltreatment: Lessons learned and Promising Practices During the COVID-19 Pandemic. OPRE Report 2023-11, Washington, DC: Office of Research, Planning, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Cook, R., Schachtner, R., & Blocklin, M. (2023). An Introduction to the Child Welfare Community Collaborations Grantees and Strategies. OPRE Report # 2023-332, Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Layzer, C., Blocklin, M., Schachtner, R., & Cook, R. (2023). Child Welfare Community Collaborations Cross-Site Process Evaluation Design and Methods. OPRE Report # 2023-334, Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Citation
Cook, R., Cusick, J., & Schachtner, R., & Blocklin, M. (2023). Child Welfare Community Collaborations Projects at a Glance. OPRE Report # 2023-333, Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. 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