For more than a year we shifted work to a virtual platform out of necessity, and as we safely return to in-person activities it would be easy to sprint as fast as possible back to “the way we did things before COVID-19”. But, what if instead of sprinting we took the time to pause and reflect? Perhaps some of our new virtual practices make child welfare better.
How the Indiana Department of Child Services used the pandemic to transform their work to help children and families.
Permanency for kids, is one of the most risky and critical decisions made in all of government and getting to the finish line is a laborious process with thousands of factors that will influence the time it takes to get there. But when we are there, our research shows we don't run through the finish line, in fact, our system has a propensity to start walking or even crawling at this phase when in fact, we should be sprinting once a permanency decision has been made.
Dedicated to "transformation" and the work we do to improve service for families, children, and clients. By Bill Bott and Lori Wolff
Child welfare has a pipe problem. Our pipes can't handle this much pressure... But there's another way, a way to relive the pressure and unleash the amazing internal motivation of our people ... and it starts with fixing the plumbing.
When the press writes about failures in the child welfare system, the tragedies are unique, but the pattern is often all too familiar. A family has been involved with the agency multiple times, signs of risk were missed, and the result is significant harm or even death. It’s hard to read about a set of [...]
Child welfare has a pipe problem. Our pipes can't handle this much pressure... But there's another way, a way to relive the pressure and unleash the amazing internal motivation of our people ... and it starts with fixing the plumbing.
As we work with child welfare agencies across the country to help tackle the capacity crisis, here's a glimpse of what we're learning.
If the work made passionate people act like Flo on the TV series “Alice,” then the work can bring them back.
Agencies’ tendency to add more rules (and thus work) every time something bad happens prevents child protection workers from doing everything they can to keep kids safe.
