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Biomedical subjects

P J Pecora

Publications and source records attributed to P J Pecora.

6 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1997

Measuring outcomes in the changing environment of child welfare services.

Child welfare service organizations are undergoing profound changes with the advent of managed care. Expensive development of new infrastructures is required, including information systems to track services and outcomes. The authors examine key considerations in designing an outcomes measurement program for child welfare agencies and challenges for implementation. In addition, they review national initiatives to determine best practices for outcomes measurement of children's services, and how these initiatives can help guide others' efforts.

Child Health Services↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Improving the quality of child welfare services: needs assessment for staff training.

Competency-based needs assessment surveys can be useful in assessing worker training needs in child welfare. Worker and supervisor surveys, consisting largely of task-based ability statements, constitute the core of this approach. Additional information can also be obtained from supervisors and allied professionals. Data from a study of 276 frontline child welfare workers in Alaska and Oregon are used to illustrate the utility of this approach.

Alaska↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Evaluating child protective services training: the participant action plan approach.

As part of protective services training, participants developed action plans-lists of practice behaviors or organizational changes they planned to carry out as a result of the training. A three-month follow-up indicated that a number of action items were successfully implemented, particularly in the areas of risk assessment and therapeutic interventions.

Child↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Risk assessment as a practice method in child protective services.

This article offers an overview of the development of risk assessment and its purpose and goals, a summary of research on risk assessment to date, and suggestions regarding future research. This overview indicates that the use of risk assessment is a widespread phenomenon, with differing goals and purposes. Research on risk assessment confirms the lack of conceptual clarity and the difficulty of incorporating it into a child protective services system that emphasizes findings of abuse and/or neglect as the key to continuing involvement in the system.

Child↗
PubMedDate not supplied

In-home family-focused reunification: an experimental study.

Intensive, in-home family-based services were employed in reunifying families separated by the placement of a child in out-of-home care. After a 90-day service period, 93% of the 57 families randomly assigned to receive the intensive treatment were reunited-compared to 28% of the 53 families in a control group who received routine out-of-home care services. Follow-up data were collected six and 12 months after the end of treatment. Estimates of outcomes suggest that the experimental treatment had a substantial impact on families and that treatment effects endured for upwards of 12 months following cessation of direct intervention services.

Adolescent↗