No Place Like Home

No Place Like Home is a 3-year project of national significance funded by a Family Connections grant from the Children's Bureau of the Administration for Children and Families, U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, running from October 2011 through September 2014. This project strategically combines the assets of the American Humane Association (AHA), Casey Family Programs (CFP) and three innovative child welfare agencies with mature family group decision making (FGDM) programs to test the effectiveness of FGDM in safely preventing children from entering or re-entering foster care when they are receiving in-home services. The project sites—Larimer County Department of Human Services (LDHS), Colorado; South Dakota Department of Social Services (SDDSS); and Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (TDFPS)—have over two decades of collective experience in delivering FGDM to children and families who come to the attention of child welfare.

No Place Like Home will address existing knowledge gaps in FGDM research around children and families receiving in-home services through a comprehensive evaluation design of FGDM implementation, processes, and outcomes (all tied to costs). Key features of the outcome evaluation are a random control trial (RCT) in Texas, an intent-to-treat design with randomly assigned controls in South Dakota, and a propensity score matching design for Larimer County, Colorado. In other words, all three sites will feature rigorous longitudinal and experimental or quasi-experimental designs addressing FGDM process, outcomes and cost effectiveness. In addition, given the over-representation of Latinos, African Americans and American Indians that exist in this project's targeted geographic areas, this project can provide guidance and evidence about the effectiveness of FGDM in supporting culturally diverse populations.

Additional features of the No Place Like Home project include individualized advanced training, technical assistance and coaching of the sites' staff and community; peer networking; and a highly tactical and extensive dissemination component that will reach thousands. At the conclusion of the project, ground-breaking knowledge will be gleaned and shared so that it can be used to improve child welfare practices and policies at local, state, and national levels.

Upcoming Events, Presentations and Webinars

Coming soon...

Research on FGDM and Family Engagement in Child Welfare

Annotated Bibliography

No Place Like Home Research Questions

Process Evaluation Questions:

What does the FGDM practice framework and landscape look like? What are the characteristics of families participating in FGDM? What does the meeting preparation process look like? Is there fidelity to the FGDM model? What does the post-meeting process look like?

Outcome Evaluation Questions:

Are children in families in the focus population who experience FGDM interventions less likely to experience placement compared to children in the control group? If children are placed out of home, are they more likely to be placed with relatives compared to the control group? Are families in the population who experience FGDM interventions as likely as families in the control group to experience child maltreatment re-reports or re-reports with substantiation? Are families who experience FGDM processes more satisfied with their experiences with child welfare compared to children in the control group? For all of the outcomes identified above (placement, relative placement, reporting, and satisfaction) are families less likely to have disparate experiences based on race or ethnicity compared to families in the control group?

Instrumentation: Coming soon...

Contact information:

Please contact Heather Allan, Project Coordinator for No Place Like Home at fgdm@americanhumane.org

Resources:

National Resource Center for Permanency and Family Connections
Other Family Connection grantees