Introduction
Research Questions
- What are the promising approaches and challenges in identifying, establishing, and maintaining new and existing partnerships?
- How are grant implementation activities structured and operationalized, within and across CWCC grantees?
- What factors promote or impede implementation of the child welfare community collaborations, within and across CWCC grantees?
- How are data being linked and used within and across agencies to: (1) identify families in need of child abuse and neglect prevention services; (2) identify the specific needs of families; (3) make informed decisions about service provision; (4) inform continuous quality improvement; and (5) track outcomes?
- To what extent are CWCC grantees planning to sustain activities beyond the current grant, and what factors do they believe will help or hinder these efforts?
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 Global 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 an executive summary of the key findings and lessons learned from the cross-site process evaluation. It is one of a series of products the evaluation team produced as part of the evaluation and contains links to all of the other briefs developed as a part of the evaluation. This brief provides an overview of the CWCC initiative, summarizes key findings for each research question and for the evaluation overall, and shares lessons learned that could inform similar prevention efforts in the future.
Note. This brief was modified in February 2025 to comply with Executive Order 14151, removing a research question related to supplemental grant funding.
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 wide range of strategies to achieve their desired outcomes.
This brief summarizes the key findings and lessons learned for each of the research questions and for the cross-site evaluation overall. 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.
Key Findings and Highlights
ACF’s CWCC initiative funded collaborative efforts across the United States to prevent child maltreatment and reduce community-level rates of child abuse, neglect, and out-of-home placements.
Overall, findings from the evaluation suggest that CWCC projects:
Engaged a wide range of partners including community-serving organizations, individuals with relevant experience (e.g., experience with child welfare services), public agencies, philanthropy and businesses, and educational partners.
Integrated multi-level strategies to support individuals, communities, and systems.
Used data to support project implementation and evaluation efforts designed to contribute to the evidence base for primary prevention efforts.
Planned to sustain the strategies implemented, with interviewees planning to sustain 99% of the strategies they implemented in some capacity.
Six key lessons emerged from the evaluation, with interviewees emphasizing the need to:
Build trusting relationships with partnering organizations, families served, and community members.
Ensure that collaborating organizations have dedicated resources to support their participation in the project.
Use data to drive decision-making (including partner selection and implementation), and build the case for sustainability.
Engage individuals with relevant experience (especially experience with the child welfare system) in the design (e.g., partner selection), implementation, and evaluation of strategies and value them as equal partners.
Establish clear communication and coordination between collaborating organizations.
Be flexible and tailor services to the specific needs of families.
Methods
This brief uses qualitative and quantitative data collected during all four waves of the cross-site process evaluation. These data include (1) site visits with a total of 405 semi-structured interviews with CWCC project leadership, key partners, and staff, (2) a collaborative survey administered to grantees and partners (1,720 completed surveys in total), and (3) information from grantee documents such as original grant applications, semi-annual progress reports, and grantee profiles.
Citation
Schachtner, R., McKlindon, A. & Blocklin, M. (2024). Executive Summary for the Child Welfare Community Collaborations Cross-site Process Evaluation. OPRE Report 2024-361, Washington, DC: Office of Research, Planning, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, US Department of Health and Human Services.
Related Publications
McKlindon, A., Schachtner, R., Flannigan, A. (2024). Approaches to Partnership in the Child Welfare Community Collaborations Initiative. OPRE Report 2024-103, Washington, DC: Office of Research, Planning, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, US Department of Health and Human Services.
Layzer, C., Schachtner, R., & Blocklin, M. (2024). Implementation of the Child Welfare Community Collaborations Projects. OPRE Report 2024-255, Washington, DC: Office of Research, Planning, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, US Department of Health and Human Services.
Schachtner, R., McBride, C., Glenn, M., Blocklin, M., Layzer, C. (2024). Data Use in the Child Welfare Community Collaborations Initiative. OPRE Report 2024-354, Washington, DC: Office of Research, Planning, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, US Department of Health and Human Services.
Flannigan, A., Schachtner, R., & Blocklin, M. (2024). Approaches to Sustainability in the Child Welfare Community Collaborations Initiative. OPRE Report 2024-319, Washington, DC: Office of Research, Planning, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, US 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