Are you meeting CFSR requirements for Father Involvement?

All states are required to participate in the federal Child and Family Services Review (CFSR) that measures outcomes in child welfare agencies.

While there is no specific measure for father involvement, there are several proxies under a Child Well-Being Outcome that include:

• the worker's assessment of parental needs,
• the family's involvement in case planning, and
• the worker's visits with children and with parents.

State child welfare agencies performed poorly on these measures in the first round of the CFSRs; even when the performance was rated as a "strength" it was applicable to mothers, not fathers.

The second round of the CFSRs is currently underway, and reviews completed to date indicate that states are doing even worse than the first round in the area of father involvement.


What can be done to help states improve their practice and outcomes?

The National Family Preservation Network (NPFN) has developed a guide to assist child welfare agencies on father involvement.

Here are some of the recommendations:

Assessment
Conduct an organizational self-assessment to determine what your agency is currently doing and then develop a plan of action

Motivation and Training
A focus and training on father involvement have been linked to workers increasing efforts to identify and locate fathers and involve them in case planning.

Engaging Fathers
By keeping the benefits of father involvement in a child's life uppermost in mind, the worker can develop a friendly, non-judgmental approach to engaging the father and also enlist the mother's (and other kin) assistance in helping the father connect to the child.

Reinforcement and Instilling Cultural Change
Involving fathers is not a one-time event. It requires integration into agency policy through ongoing training, evaluation, collaboration with other agencies serving fathers, and supervisory and administrative support.

Will this improve practice and compliance with CFSR?

Perhaps you're wondering how you can know if this investment of time and resources will actually result in improved practice and improved compliance with CFSR requirements.

Here's an example of one agency that took the risk:
The state of Kansas is one of the few states that received a rating of strength on areas reflecting father involvement in the first round of the CFSR. However, Kansas did not fare as well in the second round of the CFSR and included father engagement in their Performance Improvement Plan (PIP).

One state-contracted provider in Kansas, DCCCA, decided to pursue quality improvement in the area of father involvement. DCCCA's goal was to improve performance on child welfare agency on-site case audits (100 per quarter) of five key items measured in quarterly case reviews--

1. Initial comprehensive assessment of the father's needs;
2. Provision of appropriate services to the father to address identified needs;
3. Active involvement by the father in the case planning process;
4. Quality of the visits between the caseworker and the father; and
5. Frequency of the visits between the caseworker and the father.

Within 15 months (based on 2009–2010 data) DCCCA workers raised their performance levels on the 5 indicators by an average of 33%.

It is possible to improve father involvement practice and meet CFSR standards!

The secret to sustaining father involvement is to integrate it into an agency's core components, into what you do every day.

To read the full guide on meeting CFSR requirements for father involvement, visit:
http://nfpn.org/father-involvement1/meeting-cfsr-standards-report.html