Accountability

		Email Follow these Steps to email a friend or colleague a link to this information. Accountability Year Published: 2010 http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/acloserlook/accountability/ Accountability enables funders, stakeholders, and voters to ensure agencies and their representatives fulfill their responsibilities to those they serve. Within systems serving vulnerable populations, where decisions about safety, permanency, and well-being for children and families must be made every day, accountability is essential. Within a systems of care framework, the principle of accountability extends beyond data or evaluation to focus on processes necessary to build evaluative capacity throughout the child welfare system. Accountability also emphasizes the value of communicating with and soliciting feedback from stakeholders about agency or program activities, expectations, and outcomes. This issue of A Closer Look defines accountability, discusses its role in a child welfare driven system of care, and presents challenges and strategies in implementing accountability. Step 1: Recipient email address(es) (First one is Required) To Email Address 1: To Email Address 2: To Email Address 3: To Email Address 4: To Email Address 5:   Step 2: From Email Address (Required) From Email Address:   Step 3: Verify You are Human (Required) Are you Human? True False   Step 3: Send the link Print (PDF 1439KB)  Share
Author(s)	National Technical Assistance and Evaluation Center for Systems of Care
Year Published	2010

d-link

Figure 1: Phases of Accountability

This figure depicts the three phases of accountability: Plan, Measure, Apply.
The three phases appear in boxes from left to right with arrows between pointing to the step that follows. The boxes contain the following text:
Plan: What do we want to accomplish? How will we know if we were successful?
Measure: What did we learn?
Apply: What are the implications?

Next to Apply is a fourth box containing the following questions about implications:

• For the general public?
• For oversight authorities?
• For stakeholders, line staff, collaborative partners?
• For the work of child welfare?
• For children and families?

The last two questions are highlighted and marked with an arrow labeled Improve that points back to the first box, Plan.

Back to Defining Accountability

Figure 2: Theory of Change for Systems of Care

This figure depicts the underlying assumptions of the theory of change for systems of care.
A box labeled Systems of Care Principles appears above all the boxes, and points to two boxes on the left side of Figure 2: Strategic Planning, and Collaborative Partnerships.
Those two boxes are connected to each other with arrows, and the arrows also point to a box to the right labeled System Change.
System Change then points to the next box on the right, Practice Change, which points to the next box on the right, Improved Child and Family Outcomes.

Two additional underlying assumptions appear below all the boxes.

• Infrastructure Development appears underneath the boxes: Strategic Planning, Collaborative Partnerships, System Change, and Practice Change.
• Service Delivery appears underneath the boxes: System Change, Practice Change, and Improved Child and Family Outcomes.

Back to Defining Accountability