Anita P. Barbee

University of Louisville | UL · Kent School of Social Work

Family Treatment Drug Courts (FTDCs) have been implemented to assist families involved with the child welfare system due to substance use. This article describes an enhanced version of a Family Treatment Drug Court intervention which builds on the traditional FTDC model but includes adaptations that add theoretically driven components to the basic...

Staff turnover in youth residential treatment centers (RTC) has immense potential to disrupt the therapeutic environment and prompt an increase in mistrust, aggressive and anti-therapeutic behaviors, and feelings of abandonment and worthlessness among residents. The current study examined factors associated with intent to leave the workplace at an...

Child welfare jurisdictions implement practices designed to improve child outcomes. Three federally funded Child Welfare Capacity Building Centers provide technical assistance (TA) to jurisdictions to support implementation of practice improvements. The aim of this study was to understand implementation progress among jurisdictions served by the Ce...

Objective In this research, a randomized controlled trial (RCT) tested the efficacy of two teen pregnancy prevention (TPP) curricula, Reducing the Risk and Love Notes, compared with a group of adolescents in a control condition, on primary pregnancy prevention among youth at high-risk for teen pregnancy. A secondary purpose was to examine two poten...

Direct support professionals (DSPs) are essential in the continuum of care for individuals with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities. DSPs provide a wide range of support including services to ensure the safety and welfare of individuals, support in the development of independent living skills and support in community integration. Existin...

Direct support professionals (DSPs) are deemed by existing literature as vital support to persons with intellectual or developmental disabilities (IDD). They may be exposed to the traumatic experiences of people with IDD with potential psychological implications. Secondary traumatic stress (STS) has been studied among related professionals across h...

Three studies were conducted to explore the psychological determinants of COVID-deterrent behaviors. In Study 1, using data collected and analyzed both before and after the release of COVID-19 vaccines, mask-wearing, other preventative behaviors like social distancing, and vaccination intentions were positively related to assessments of the Coronav...

Family Treatment Drug Courts are multidisciplinary teams that engage child welfare families in substance use treatment and reunification court services. This quasi-experimental study evaluates the impact of engagement strategies with 36 participants. Participants experienced high levels of engagement with the court, child welfare workers, and their...

Few studies have examined romantic relationship attitudes and behaviors among ethnic or racial minority youth. The purpose of this study was to compare African American (AA) and mostly African refugee adolescents living in a U.S. city on romantic relationship attitudes and behaviors. A baseline questionnaire was given to 1448 adolescents between th...

Introduction This paper describes implementation results as part of a larger three-arm, cluster randomized controlled trial that compared two curriculum interventions to prevent teen pregnancy with a control condition. The intervention of focus is an enhanced version of Reducing the Risk to Prevent Pregnancy, STD and HIV (Kirby et al., 1991, Langle...

The staff practices and organizational processes of child welfare agencies and courts influence families’ experiences and outcomes. Capacity building services have been delivered to improve organizational performance and practices, but studies of their impact are hampered by a lack of data on specific features of services. This study describes serv...

Background Co-occurring parental substance use and child maltreatment has increased in recent years and is associated with poor child welfare outcomes. The Sobriety Treatment and Recovery Teams (START) program was developed to meet the needs of these families. Objective A randomized controlled trial was implemented to compare START to usual child...

The COVID-19 Behavioral Health Mindset inventory (CVBHM) was designed to protect consumers and workers by assessing biosafety risk through acceptance of responsibility for the protection of oneself and others, social distancing, and adhering to prevention measures. The 30-item inventory was evaluated in two surveys of 1,455 (Time 1) and 431 respond...

While institutional racism is baked into the child welfare system, this chapter focuses on the one key constituency group that can help to change the system that supports disproportionality and disparities. This chapter will focus on the child welfare workforce at all levels—director, administrators, supervisors and front line staff with suggested...

The social work profession is facing many issues with regards to the workplace. In the United States and other countries, there is either a current or pending workforce shortage. While most solutions focus on how to best recruit, educate, and graduate a large group of culturally and economically diverse students who are dedicated to social justice...

This research examined the impact of individual and relational characteristics of foster parents on permanency outcomes for children in care. Previous research has focused on child and case characteristics. The sample consisted of 233 foster parents from the public child welfare system surveyed at the end of a training. The results of the surveys s...

The purpose of this study was to explore the intergenerational transmission of intimate partner violence and the potential impact of a relationship education program on this process. Qualitative data regarding the perception of domestic violence experienced in the family of origin were collected through in-depth interviews. The effects of domestic...

The purpose was to examine gender differences in the effectiveness of the Within My Reach healthy relationships education program that is an alternative approach to violence prevention. The program was provided to 850 adults in a community-based setting. Baseline, immediate post and six-month follow-up data were collected. There were similar levels...

Objective: To understand how family members view the ways EMS and other first responders interact with distressed family members during an intervention involving a recent or impending pediatric death. Methods: In depth interviews with 11 grieving parents of young children and survey results from four additional grieving parents of adult children we...

The purpose of the study is to examine the impact of a statewide intervention (BSW level Title IV-E Program) on both the workers’ intent to leave the job and their actual exit from a state administered public child welfare agency. Employees completed an extensive survey including scales assessing individual, team, and organizational variables that...

Sometimes children die from maltreatment. However, when first responders enter a scene to save the life of a dying child, the cause of the health problem cannot be immediately determined. EMS professionals are taught to enact the medically appropriate protocols in a family centered way. This study examines five case studies of infant deaths. When t...

This special issue of Training and Development in Human Services Supporting Change in Child Welfare: An Evaluation of Training and Technical Assistance primarily focuses on findings from a series of studies conducted as part of a cross-site evaluation of National Resource Centers and Implementation Centers funded by the Children’s Bureau from 2008-...

Richards, T., Barbee, A., & DeSantis, JP. 2017. Evaluation Brief: How Can Child Welfare Organizational Capacity Be Measured? Developed for the Children's Bureau, ACYF, ACF. Arlington, VA. https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/cb/how_can_cw_org_capacity-measured.pdf

This special issue of Training and Development in Human Services Supporting Change in Child Welfare: An Evaluation of Training and Technical Assistance primarily focuses on findings from a series of studies conducted as part of a cross-site evaluation of National Resource Centers and Implementation Centers funded by the Children’s Bureau from 2008-...

Introduction: Each year, 16,000 children suffer cardiopulmonary arrest, and in one urban study, 2% of pediatric EMS calls were attributed to pediatric arrests. This indicates a need for enhanced educational options for prehospital providers that address how to communicate to families in these difficult situations. In response, our team developed a...

Objectives: To test the efficacy of Reducing the Risk (RTR) and Love Notes (LN) on reducing risky sexual behavior among youths yet to experience or cause a pregnancy. Methods: The four dependent variables were ever had sex, condom use, birth control use, and number of sexual partners at 3- and 6-month follow-up in a 3-arm cluster randomized cont...

Objective: To understand effective ways for EMS providers to interact with distressed family members during a field intervention involving a recent or impending out-of-hospital (OOH) pediatric death. Methods: Eight focus groups with 98 EMS providers were conducted in urban and rural settings between November 2013 and March 2014. Sixty-eight prov...

To understand the ways that EMS providers cope with pediatric death in an out-of-hospital setting, eight focus groups were conducted with 98 urban, rural and suburban EMS providers. Sixty-eight of the participants also completed a short questionnaire about a specific event. In both the focus groups and questionnaire, participants were asked how the...

This report presents findings from an evaluation of the services delivered by 15 training and technical assistance (T/TA) centers funded by the Children’s Bureau, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Over 5 years, these centers assisted child welfare agencies (from 50 States, the District of Columb...

Social work education has been greatly affected by ongoing technological advances in society at large and in the academy. Options for instructional delivery have been broadened tremendously. The University of Louisville is the first in Kentucky to put its master's of social work degree fully online, with a first cohort admitted in 2012. The purpose...

To ensure that Reducing the Risk, a successful teen pregnancy prevention education curriculum, remains relevant for today's youth, covers all information youth need to know in order to make better choices, and is delivered in a standardized way, adaptations were made and enhancements were added. This article describes results of a pilot execution o...

While a number of studies have shown the efficacy of the solution-based casework (SBC) practice model for child welfare (e.g., Antle, Christensen, van Zyl, & Barbee, 20128. Antle, B. F., Christensen, D. N., van Zyl, M. A. & Barbee, A. P. (2012). The impact of the Solution Based Casework (SBC) practice model on federal outcomes in public child welfa...

This study explored the associations between leader adherence to a relationship education program, participant satisfaction, and participant outcomes (n = 559 participants). Participants were assessed pre, post, and at 6-month follow-up. Participants’ satisfaction ratings were positively associated with outcomes. Although adherence ratings were gen...

This study was designed to explore how organizational life in university-affiliated graduate social work education programs in the United States is affected by the stress of heightened caregiving roles. Analysis of data from 69 schools demonstrated deleterious effects of caregiving stress on organizational effectiveness, including missed obligation...

There have been great strides in attending to skill-based training and transfer of learning over the past 15 years in the field of child welfare. We know that classroom training builds a foundation that must be reinforced in the field in order to be practiced in day-to-day work with clients. When skills are reinforced through additional practice ex...

Relationship education programs have been shown as an effective way to increase relationship functioning. There is less known about how process factors, such as alliance with the leader or group dynamics, affect outcomes in these interventions. We examined group cohesion and alliance with the leader in a relationship education program tailored for...

A federal grant was awarded to provide the Within My Reach healthy relationships curriculum to low-income, at-risk individuals involved with various social service agencies. The effectiveness of this curriculum was evaluated for 202 participants through measures of training and relationship outcomes pre-, immediately post- and 6 months posttraining...

This experiment examined how reactions to HIV disclosure by a male stimulus person are influenced by the discloser's HIV status and sexual orientation as well as the disclosure recipient's gender. Participants (152 male and female college students) disclosed more intimately about themselves (revealing highly personal facts and personal feelings) wh...

This special issue of the journal Training and Development in Human Services provides examples of transfer of learning research, frameworks and educational approaches.

Volume 7 of NSDTA journal Training and Development in Human Services

Background: According to the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS), 50% of Kentucky high school students have ever participated in sexual intercourse, 37% report currently being sexually active, and 14% have reported having sexual intercourse with four or more sexual partners (CDC, 2007). Furthermore, 41% of sexually active students repor...

This paper examines the types of challenges social work students face and how practicum performance is impacted by them. Secondary data related to 125 social work students in a course in human behavior in the social environment were analyzed. More than one-fourth of students reported a parent with mental health and substance abuse problems. Student...

One focus of the Children's Bureau over the past 25–30 years has been the provision of funds for social work students at the BSW and MSW levels to specialize in child welfare. Universities have been taking advantage of Title IV-E funds to prepare social work students for public child welfare work. To assess current practices, a survey was sent to a...

To test the effects of the Solution-Based Casework practice model on federal outcomes of safety, permanency and well-being. The Solution-Based Casework model combines family development theory, solution-focused skills and relapse prevention for the casework process in child protection. 4,559 public child welfare cases were reviewed through a CQI ca...

This research evaluated the impact of the Within My Reach healthy relationship education program on intimate partner violence for 419 high-risk adults in an urban area. Key outcomes such as relationship knowledge, communication/conflict resolution skills, relationship quality, and physical and emotional abuse were evaluated through survey research...

This study sought to examine the impact of housing child welfare ongoing teams in the community, near client neighborhoods, and in a setting that also co-locates other service providers that serve the same clients. The focus was the impact of location and service integration on perceptions of worker stress and actual worker turnover. Thirty four wo...

This chapter provides examples of how professional development and training programs are supporting initiatives to address disproportionality and disparity in service delivery and outcomes. Delineating and articulating cultural competencies, attempting to infuse cultural competence into all training, training on content specific to disproportionali...

In recent years, several states have been developing or adopting casework practice models in an effort to shape the thinking and behavior of front line child welfare workers with a commitment to improving the safety, permanency and well-being outcomes of vulnerable children in their care (Antle, Christensen, Barbee & Martin, 2008; Christensen, Toda...

A federal grant was awarded to provide the Love U2 healthy relationship curriculum to low-income, high-risk youth. This research sought to examine the relative effectiveness of a brief intervention with this curriculum compared to the much more intensive relationship education programs that have been previously provided to high-risk youth. Data wer...

Based on a model of interactive coping activation, we review the impact of gender in the giving and receiving of emotion- and problem-focused social support. The research suggests that the female role (emphasizing nurturance and emotional expressiveness) makes it easier for women to activate social support from close relations as well as to provide...

Although home visiting programs effectively address risks of maltreatment related to the mother and infant through providing services such as medical care, education/vocational support, and training on positive infant parenting practices, little programmatic attention has been paid to couple relationships, father involvement, and parenting interact...

The purpose of the current research is to address a gap in the literature related to attitudes and other training outcomes through an evaluation of a healthy marriage/couple relationship training for public child welfare workers. Given the sensitivity of this topic and numerous barriers to trainee acceptance of the material, this training provided...

This purpose of this research was to evaluate the mandatory reporting law for domestic violence victims in the state of Kentucky through the qualitative interview of 24 female victims of domestic violence. Victims were generally supportive of the law and felt that professionals should be required to report domestic abuse. They did not feel that the...

The purpose of this research was to evaluate the effectiveness of the Solution-Based Casework model of child welfare practice to prevent recidivism of child maltreatment for families involved with the public child welfare system. Previous research has focused primarily on casework, child, and family characteristics associated with maltreatment reci...

This research evaluated the effectiveness of the Public Child Welfare Certification Program, a specialized child welfare program delivered in bachelor of social work (BSW) curricula across the state of Kentucky. This evaluation gathered data for 10 years on satisfaction with the program, preparation for work in the state's child welfare agency, com...

In Western societies in the first decade of the 21st century, a majority of adults spend nearly half of their waking hours working as paid employees in private or public organizations. From the moment that an individual applies for a job to the moment that the person moves on to another opportunity, is terminated from the position, or retires, ther...

The purpose of this research was to examine the impact of innovative training for public welfare workers on training outcomes, as well as the individual and organizational mediators of these outcomes. This study surveyed 623 public welfare workers on training satisfaction, knowledge, transfer, individual variables such as personality and learning r...

Although the child welfare system has historically provided "independent living* services, youth aging out of foster care are at increased risk of negative outcomes such as poverty, substance abuse, and homelessness. This manuscript builds upon the recent shift to "interdependent living" approaches by describing skills for various stages of relatio...

Concerns persist about the overrepresentation and differential treatment of children and families of color within the child welfare system. Although many researchers and practitioners have considered ways to combat these problems, there continues to be a shortage of empirical support for proposed interventions. This article describes the evaluation...

A major concern in the field of child welfare continues to be the high rate of employee turnover. The purpose of this research was to examine a variety of individual and organizational factors that differentiate leavers from the stayers in child welfare using a prospective design and data from the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services (CH...

Child welfare supervisors need and deserve a book oriented to the reality of their work. Supervision in Child Welfare connects the theoretical and practical to provide readers with the most relevant and sound approaches to supervision. While the availability of professional training programs in the states for supervisors has grown exponentially ove...

Approximately 20,000 youth age out of foster care in the U.S. each year. At the moment they leave care, these youth take on the mantle of adulthood, which is often associated with reduced or terminated assistance from their families, communities, and government. The provision of appropriate services for and outcomes of youth aging out of the foster...

The purpose of this research was to compare the impact of different training methods on training transfer. Child welfare workers were assigned to one of three groups: classroom training only, classroom training plus reinforcement, and no training. The effect of these different training approaches on the transfer of assessment and case planning skil...

Graduates of specialized BSW child welfare education programs are more likely to be retained after two years of service in the agency, but many leave at the four year mark. Two studies explored possible reasons for departure at this time. The first study found that graduates of specialized child welfare programs were significantly more likely to en...

The purpose of this research was to evaluate the effectiveness of the Solution-Based Casework (SBC) model for child welfare practice. Method: Two case review studies were conducted. The first study compared 48 cases from two worker groups differing in degree of training and implementation of the SBC model. The second study compared the outcomes of...

The purpose of this research was to develop and test a comprehensive theoretical model for child welfare training evaluation. Drawing upon the theoretical work in training evaluation as well as empirical research in child welfare, this study proposed a model of training evaluation that included individual and organizational predictors of outcomes;...

Research Findings: Previous research has documented conflicting results on the relationship between program quality and the percentage of children receiving subsidized child care (subsidy density) in early childhood centers. This research examined the relationship between subsidy density and the quality of infant and preschool classrooms in child c...

This study examined the comorbidity of child neglect and domestic violence (DV) in a sample of public child welfare cases. All cases investigated for child neglect in 1999 (N = 2,350 families) from a single county in Kentucky were included in the analysis. Findings indicate that DV was comorbid in approximately 29% of the cases and, although cases...

Across three experiments college students were given refutational messages or other treatments encouraging signing drivers' licenses to donate bodily organs in case of accidental death. An attitudinal measure (willingness to sign) predicted observed signing behavior, but relatively weakly. A measure of behavioral expectation to sign or not to sign...