A Home for Every Child

Last week all 50 states, along with Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, joined A Home for Every Child, ACF's initiative to raise the ratio of licensed foster homes to children in care. As states build out their plans, this QIC-Take argues that the initiative's success depends on a factor sitting outside the headline metric: workforce stability.

Drawing on turnover studies and the broader child welfare literature, our QIC-Take connects caseworker turnover to permanency outcomes and points to specific federal levers that could help agencies treat prevention and workforce as a united strategy to strengthen the workforce. The ultimate goal of the initiative is to improve outcomes for children, but supporting caseworkers and supervisors is critical to this work because their success is critical to the kids.

The Workforce Is the Way to a Home for Every Child, considers the importance of the workforce and how analytics can support states in monitoring their initiative. It’s written by Dr. Robert Blagg, the co-PI of the QIC-WA, drawing from research, innovative data management strategies, and his extensive experience working with public child welfare agencies to build their capacity to use workforce data to achieve agency goals.

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