Finding ways for agencies, their partners, and key stakeholders to share knowledge, experiences, ideas, practices, and strategies is vital to organizational improvement efforts. Interagency communication also promotes the spread of good practice. The following resources illustrate the benefits of increased communication for quality improvement.
A Blueprint for Embedding Evidence-Based Practices in Child Welfare
Annie E. Casey Foundation (2018)
Presents a process for integrating evidence-based practices and evidence-based services into child welfare systems. The resource reviews assessing and selecting interventions, creating implementation teams, and the importance of data use and communication to ensure quality improvement.
Data Sharing in Child Welfare (PDF - 214 KB)
National Quality Improvement Center for Adoption and Guardianship Support and Preservation (2018)
Explores data sharing in child welfare and the importance of data sharing and communication between entities such as universities, Federal and State governments, and agencies or organizations. The resource also offers information on data use agreements and why they could be necessary.
Roadmap for Foster Care and K–12 Data Linkages
Data Quality Campaign (2017)
Reviews areas of collaboration in data usage between child welfare and education systems that can improve the lives of vulnerable children and lists key ingredients for successful data sharing.
Strengthening and Safeguarding Continuous Quality Improvement Systems: Lessons From Afterschool System Builders (PDF - 592 KB)
Shares lessons learned about the use of continuous quality improvement and presents information on defining, assessing, supporting, and safeguarding quality. On page 42 of the document, an in-depth discussion of the importance of communication and advocacy in quality improvement is presented.
Using Communications Strategies to Accelerate Quality Improvement
Bredal (2019)
Institute for Health Care Improvement
Illustrates the importance of a communication strategy to be used in conjunction with quality improvement efforts. The article reviews how to show and not just tell the story; how to use communications to support spread; and how to develop communication strategies to accelerate quality improvement and spread.