Presentation Slides: Understanding Judges’ Reasonable Efforts Decisions: Results from the Reasonable Efforts Findings Study (REFS)

As an exploratory study with a small number of sites, REFS should not be used on its own to inform recommendations for all child welfare courts. Key findings include: 

• No judges in the sample found that the child welfare agency did not make reasonable efforts to prevent removal (at any point in the case) or to achieve permanency (at the first review hearing).  

• There were significant differences across the participating sites in whether judges made a finding about reasonable efforts to achieve permanency at the first review hearing (i.e., whether they made a finding or not at the first review), the likelihood that children were returned to one or both parents, and the time it took cases to achieve permanency. 

• Judges were more likely to make a finding about reasonable efforts to achieve permanency when more topics (e.g., in-home safety planning, services offered to family to reunify the family) were included in documents given to the court before the hearing.  

• Children were less likely to reunify with their parents when cases had—  

• A judicial finding about reasonable efforts to achieve permanency by the first review hearing 

• More detailed reasonable efforts to achieve permanency findings  

• A petition allegation of abandonment 

• A presenting problem of homelessness  

• Children were more likely to reunify with their parents when cases had— 

• Less detailed reasonable efforts to achieve permanency findings 

• A petition allegation of physical abuse 

The study results are limited a few important ways:  

• The study used a convenience sample of only five sites in three states, the practices observed and study results are not representative of practices or outcomes in other child welfare courts.   

• There was a lack of variability in the type of reasonable efforts findings judges made, which hindered our ability to fully answer the research questions. 

• We had an insufficient sample of cases from each judge to examine individual judge differences in reasonable efforts findings and two sites included cases from a single judge.