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

Demonstration Sites, References, and Additional Resources

Improving Child Welfare Outcomes Through Systems of Care Demonstration Sites

California - Partnering4Permanency - Valerie Earley, Project Director, vearley@ehsd.cccounty.us

Colorado - Jefferson County System of Care - Susan Franklin, Project Director, SFrankli@jeffco.us

Kansas - Family Centered Systems of Care - Beth Evans, Project Director, bethevans@srs.ks.gov

Nevada - Caring Communities Project - Tom Morton, Project Director, MortonTD@co.clark.nv.us

New York - The CRADLE in Bedford Stuyvesant: A Systems of Care Initiative - Nigel Nathaniel, Project Director, Nigel.Nathaniel@dfa.state.ny.us

North Carolina - Improving Child Welfare Outcomes Through Systems of Care - Eric Zechman, Project Director, ericzechman@ncmail.net

North Dakota - Medicine Moon Initiative: Improving Tribal Child Welfare Outcomes Through Systems of Care - Deb Painte, Project Director, debp@nativeinstitute.org

Oregon - Improving Permanency Outcomes Project - Patrick Melius, Project Director, Patrick.J.Melius@state.or.us

Pennsylvania - Locally Organized Systems of Care - Andrea Richardson, Project Director, anr63@pitt.edu

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References

Bass, S., Shields, M. K., & Behrman, R. E. (2004, Winter). Children, families, and foster care: Analysis and recommendations. The Future of Children, 14(1), 4-29.

Bazemore, G. (2006). Performance measures: Measuring what really matters in juvenile justice. Alexandria, VA: American Prosecutors Research Institute.

Behn, R. (2001). Rethinking democratic accountability. Washington, DC: Brookings Institute.

Blome, W., & Steib, S. (2007). An examination of oversight and review in the child welfare system: The many watch the few serve many. Journal of Public Child Welfare, 1(3), 3-26.

Center for the Study of Social Policy. (2003). Improving the performance and outcomes of child welfare: The real opportunity of the Child and Family Services Reviews through state Program Improvement Plans (PIP). Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved August 14, 2009, from http://www.cssp.org/uploadFiles/2515_CSSP_FINAL.pdf

Child Welfare Information Gateway. Guiding principles of systems of care. Retrieved August 14, 2009, from http://www.childwelfare.gov/management/reform/soc/history/accountability

Children's Bureau. Child and Family Services Reviews fact sheet. Retrieved January 24, 2009, from http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/resource/cfsr-fact-sheets

Koppell, J. G. S. (2005). Pathologies of accountability: ICANN and the challenge of "multiple accountabilities disorder." Public Administration Review, 65(1), 94-108.

Langley, G., Nolan, K. M., Nolan, T. W., Norman, C. L., & Provost, L. P. (1996). The improvement guide: A practical approach to enhancing organizational performance. San Francisco: Josey-Bass.

Mears, D., & Butts, J. (2008). Using performance monitoring to improve the accountability, operations, and effectiveness of juvenile justice. Criminal Justice Policy Review, 19(3), 264-284.

North Dakota Department of Human Services. (2009). FFY 2007 children and family services statistical bulletin. Retrieved April 24, 2009, from http://www.nd.gov/dhs/info/pubs/docs/cfs/cfs-statistical-bulletin-ffy-2007.pdf (PDF - 389 KB).

Rossi, P. H., Lipsey, M. W., & Freeman, H. (2004). Evaluation: A systematic approach (7th ed.), Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Sahonchik, K., Frizsell, B., & O'Brien, M. (2005). Systemic issues in child welfare: Strategic planning for child welfare agencies. Child Welfare for the Twentieth Century. (pp. 719-727). Retrieved January 24, 2009, from SocINDEX with Full Text database.

Schorr, L. (2006, October). Common purpose: Sharing responsibility for child and family outcomes. New York, NY: National Center for Children in Poverty, Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health. Retrieved June 11, 2009, from http://www.nccp.org/publications/pdf/text_671.pdf (PDF - 170 KB)

U.S. Government Accountability Office. (2003). States face challenges in developing information systems and reporting reliable child welfare data. Retrieved January 20, 2009, from http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-267T (PDF - 229 KB)

Woodbridge, M., & Huang, L. (2000). Using evaluation data to manage, improve, market, and sustain children's services. Systems of Care: Promising Practices in Children's Mental Health, 2000 Series, Volume II. Washington, DC: Center for Effective Collaboration and Practice, American Institutes for Research. Retrieved August 14, 2009, from http://cecp.air.org/promisingpractices/2000monographs/vol2.pdf (PDF - 343 KB)

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Additional Resources

The following online resources offer valuable information for child welfare practitioners, administrators, and community partners and feature ready-to-use tools and examples from the field.

Free Management Library
http://managementhelp.org

United Way: Resources on outcomes
http://www.unitedway.org/outcomes/

Child Welfare Information Gateway: Logic Model Builder
http://toolkit.childwelfare.gov/toolkit/

University of Wisconsin: Program development and evaluation resources
http://www.uwex.edu/ces/pdande/evaluation/evallogicbiblio.html

Harvard Family Research Project: Evaluation exchange
http://www.hfrp.org/evaluation/the-evaluation-exchange

Tools for self-evaluation in child welfare, compiled by Dr. Lynn Usher, University of North Carolina
http://www.unc.edu/~lynnu/setool.htm

The National Technical Assistance and Evaluation Center for Systems of Care is funded by the Children's Bureau, under contract with ICF International. The Center assists and supports grantees funded through the Improving Child Welfare Outcomes Through Systems of Care demonstration initiative by providing training and technical assistance and a national evaluation of the demonstration initiative. Contact: Aracelis Gray, NTAC Project Director, 9300 Lee Hwy, Fairfax, VA 22031, 703-225-2290, agray@icfi.com.

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