Crystal Collins-Camargo

• MSW PhD
• Professor at University of Louisville

Research has demonstrated children in out-of-home care have experienced trauma and a significant proportion are in need of behavioral health services (e.g. Casaneuva et al., NSCAW II baseline report: Child well-being, US Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, DC, 2011). Accessing services requires interagency coordination between chil...

Engaging families in the behavioral health assessment process for child welfare-involved youth is a best practice standard in obtaining vital information about the context affecting their safety, permanency, and wellbeing. As family functioning plays a role in successful reunification for youth out-of-home care (OOHC), family engagement may also in...

This paper studies the performance outlook of private child welfare agencies (PCWAs) from a complexity theory lens. We argue that even though these agencies play a key role in delivering safety net services for families, while navigating dynamic environments, there is little empirical evidence identifying concrete complexity factors (i.e., inter-de...

There is much discussion in the literature regarding the role public child welfare has played in disproportionately intervening with children and families of color, and debate regarding how this has impacted their wellbeing and the role systemic racism has played. The voice of individuals serving as regional and state-level administrators of public...

The use of standardized assessment in evidence-based practice (EBP) is critical in identifying empirically supported interventions (ESIs); however, the subject has received minimal attention in the literature. In a sample of child welfare involved youth, this study sought to determine whether there was a relationship between dimensions of trauma ex...

Background: Although the child welfare field has initiated efforts to use standardized screening for trauma and behavioral health needs, research has rarely examined whether these screenings have influenced permanency outcomes. Objective: Using data from three states' federal demonstration projects, we examined whether receipt of trauma and beha...

According to SAMHSA (2014), 1 of the 10 domains of a trauma-informed approach to child welfare relates to universal screening; however, costs of installation and implementation models are often unclear. This paper provides administrators of human service organizations with a fiscal example of the estimated cost of implementing screening with childr...

Children entering custody within the child welfare system have been found to have high levels of trauma and significant behavioral health needs. In this paper, authors demonstrate how a structured functional well-being assessment can be used with the custody population to promote an understanding of behavioral health needs, inform case planning, an...

It has long been recognized that youth entering out-of-home care have traumatic experiences and their associated effects on emotional and behavioral wellbeing may be unrecognized, overlooked, or untreated. An assessment to identify youth needs is vital as an initial step to youth in out-of-home care receiving needed treatment. Standardized assessme...

Child maltreatment impacts society on multiple levels, and consistent turnover in the child welfare workforce creates financial challenges and problems associated with service delivery. This study explores the qualitative survey findings from a statewide sample of child welfare administrators in one state (n = 86). When asked to provide suggestions...

Treatment decision making has been influenced by the evidence-based practice movement, which encourages practitioners to make decisions based upon current research evidence, practice wisdom and ethics, and client values or preferences. This article offers a review of the treatment decision-making literature to identify decision-making drivers based...

Children who enter out-of-home care are at risk for trauma and behavioral problems, however the child welfare and behavioral health systems do not effectively communicate to provide evidenced-based treatment. This case study describes the implementation of [name blinded for peer review] to address these concerns. The project was driven by shared re...

Private child and family serving agencies operate within a turbulent environment characterized by changing client needs, interorganizational competition, resource scarcity, and demand for accountability. Qualitative data regarding external pressures experienced by private agencies across six states, and managerial strategies to address them, were c...

Strong ties with and dependence on public agencies for service contracts can influence private human service organizations’ operations. Using data from the National Survey of Private Child and Family Serving Agencies (NSPCFSA), this study assesses the degree to which private child welfare organizations report fiscal and relational embeddedness with...

The child welfare (CW) system must adopt a trauma-centered focus. Children served typically have experienced some form of trauma, and involvement with the system is, itself, traumatizing for children and their families. Frontline workers and supervisors also are influenced by their exposure to that trauma and work-related challenges. There is a nee...

The year 2016 marked the 20th anniversary of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) amendments (P.L. 104-235) that mandated Citizen Review Panels (CRPs). CRPs are citizen volunteer groups authorized by United States (U.S.) federal law to examine policies and procedures of state child welfare agencies. Despite the potential of CRPs to...

In response to demands of funders and interorganizational competition, nonprofit human service organizations have invested in performance measurement to demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of internal operations. Literature suggests that frontline workers’ involvement in performance measurement is critical in supporting organizational effo...

Trauma and behavioral health problems among children in foster care are significant and prevalent, affecting their well-being and permanency. Despite the wide scope and magnitude of social and emotional problems among youth in out-of-home care, few child welfare systems have an integrated service response into their routine procedures and practices...

Child Welfare Citizen Review Panels (CRPs) are groups of citizen volunteers authorized by Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA; P.L. 104-235) to examine practices of public child welfare agencies. Increasingly, state CRP groups are engaging in university-community partnerships to assist in meeting CAPTA mandates. Despite this trend, ther...

Background Challenges to evidence use are well documented. Less well understood are the formal supports—e.g., technical infrastructure, inter-organizational relationships—organizations may put in place to help overcome these challenges. This study will identify supports for evidence use currently used by private child and family serving agencies de...

Frontline and managerial child welfare practice occurs within the context of a "partnership" among public agencies that have statutory mandate for child protection and related services and private agencies that provide an array of services to children and families through contractual or informal means. Empirical literature has begun to develop arou...

While private human service organizations face institutional pressures to collaborate, market-based pressures also generate competition, giving rise to complex interorganizational relationships. The current study draws on institutional and resource dependence theories to examine institutional and market-based environmental pressures on the intensit...

This article describes a court improvement initiative designed to promote uniformity and improved court practice with the ultimate goal of the improvement of outcomes for children and families. The article focuses on the results of interviews and focus groups conducted as part of the evaluation of this initiative. Twelve jurisdictions were purposiv...

Foster care is an integral component of the child welfare system. However, little is known about factors germane to conceptualizing successful foster care. This study utilized Concept Mapping (CM) to delineate a conceptual domain for what success in foster care means from the perspective of those most impacted: foster youth. CM couples multi-dimens...

This article describes a Supreme Court of Kentucky court improvement initiative designed to promote uniformity and improved court practice with an ultimate goal of the improvement of outcomes for children and families through implementation of Family Court Rules of Procedure and Practice. Twelve jurisdictions were purposely selected to exhibit a ra...

While private human service organizations face institutional pressures to collaborate, market-based pressures also generate competition, giving rise to complex interorganizational dynamics. Collaboration among competitors, or “co-opetition,” is common among private human service organizations but has not been examined in public administration. The...

Staff and resource parents in the public child welfare agency and private child care facilities were invited to participate in research in one state to examine the barriers surrounding resource parent recruitment, training and selection, and strategies for achieving more timely permanency. Issues identified included the need for a shared vision amo...

The use of data and evidence to inform practice in child welfare is the subject of increased discussion in the literature as well as in agencies striving to achieve child safety, permanency, and well-being. Survey data was collected from workers and supervisors in private agencies providing out-of-home care case management and residential treatment...

Although child welfare practice at the frontline, organizational, and systemic levels is predicated on responsiveness to children and families, research has not determined why some child welfare agencies are more responsive to consumers than others. This study examines the influence of children and families on agency operations (“consumer-centricit...

The national studies represented in this symposium provide the field with greater understanding of the nature of the private sector’s role in child welfare and the complex interrelationships among organizational characteristics, inter-organizational dynamics, and external influences. Research findings from symposium papers are examined through the...

US public child welfare agencies have faced increasing pressure in the first decade of this century to demonstrate efficiency and accountability, even as the Great Recession increased pressures on millions of families and undermined human service funding. This paper reports on analyses of the two cohorts of local public child welfare agencies from...

In all states, public and private child welfare agencies partner in an effort to deliver effective and accountable services to children and families (Collins-Camargo, Ensign, & Flaherty, 2008). While anecdotal information suggests that managers in competitive markets have incentives to carefully select and implement performance management strategie...

This paper argues for a conceptual reorientation to research and practice that emphasizes the prominence of institutional and organizational factors in the lives of those who are involved in child welfare systems. Current child welfare reform efforts are premised on the idea that agencies—their structures, management, and internal approaches to org...

Differences in how services are organized and delivered can contribute significantly to variation in outcomes experienced by children and families. However, few comparative studies identify the strengths and limitations of alternative delivery system configurations. The current study provides the first empirical typology of private agencies involve...

Human service agencies are encouraged to collaborate with other public and private agencies in providing services to children and families. However, they also often compete with these same partners for funding, qualified staff, and clientele. Although little is known about complex interagency dynamics of competition and collaboration in the child-s...

Dramatic growth in health and human service contracting over the past two decades has increased the need for managerial competency in the development and sustainment of effective cross-sector partnerships. Although the quality of relations between partnering agencies can affect client outcomes, few macro-level interventions for strengthening cross-...

Little is known about effective strategic planning for public and private child welfare agencies working together to serve families. During a professionally facilitated, strategic planning event, public and private child welfare administrators from five states explored partnership challenges and strengths with a goal of improving collaborative inte...

Background This paper presents results from a systematic review that identified, summarized, and critiqued quantitative measures of interorganizational collaboration (IOC) among children’s service agencies, as a step toward informing research on public-private partnerships in child welfare. Given the joint role of public and private agencies in c...

Background and Purpose: This paper examines two research questions concerning interorganizational competition (IOC): (1) What level of IOC (for public funding, private funding, staff, and clientele) is perceived to exist among private child welfare agencies?; and (2) What factors related to agencies’ demographic characteristics, community contexts...

Background and Purpose: Over the last decade, traditional resource-based views of the organization have expanded to include a relational perspective that suggests organizational strategy and performance are not simply market-given or internally-driven but affected by the networks of relationships in which agencies are embedded (Gulati, Nohria, &...

The centennial of the founding of the Children's Bureau is an appropriate time to examine the involvement of private agencies in child welfare service provision. While placing the role of the private sector in a historical context, this article reviews current trends in child welfare practice at the system and organizational levels: namely, the con...

Juvenile delinquency with co-occurring substance abuse and mental health disorders has become an increasing problem within the United States. In part this can be attributed to the excessive number of delinquent youth entering the juvenile justice system with untreated substance abuse and/or mental health disorders. In an effort to combat this probl...

This article describes qualitative findings regarding lessons learned from research and demonstration projects in four states focused on the implementation of clinical supervision within their public child welfare agencies. This was part of a larger mixed methods study of the effectiveness of these new clinical supervision models on practice, organ...

The child welfare system operates as a joint endeavor of the public and private sectors, while in each state the roles of the sectors and the functioning of their relationship varies across a continuum. The system and the sectors operating within it face both facilitators and challenges as they face a future of serving children and families. In thi...

Services for children and youth in foster care are often contracted by public agencies to private social service entities. One way to encourage quality services and promote improved outcomes for children is to implement performance-based contracts (PBCs) within this public–private partnership, and then use data through quality assurance systems to...

Public child welfare agencies are under pressure to improve organizational, practice and client outcomes. Related to all of these outcomes is the retention of staff. Employee intent to remain employed may be used as a proxy for actual retention. In this study public child welfare staff in one Midwestern state were surveyed using the Survey of Organ...

State and local child welfare agencies are engaged in multiple efforts to enact systems change to improve outcomes, particularly in regard to achievement of child permanency. The Child and Family Services Review process, conducted by the Administration Children and Families, requires states to implement program improvement plans designed to improve...

Although social service privatization and performance contracting have increased over recent decades, there is a dearth of information concerning how public and private social service administrators manage performance contracts and develop collaborative relationships that promote desired client outcomes. The Quality Improvement Center on the Privat...

Previous research pertaining to the citizen review panel (CRP) initiative indicates that discrepancies exist between panel member and state agency liaison perceptions of CRP effectiveness in fulfilling the CAPTA CRP mandate. This study explores the impressions of both CRP members and liaisons involving barriers to effective CRP–state child welfare...

Despite the emphasis on evidence-based practice in the literature, little is known about the extent to which child welfare workers routinely use data to assess the effectiveness of their practice, or consider an array of evidence informed practices such as peer record review, supervisory sessions or program evaluation as useful in improving their p...

Expansion of the child welfare evidence base is a major challenge. The field must establish how organizational systems and practice techniques yield outcomes for children and families. Needed research must be grounded in practice and must engage practitioners and administrators via participatory evaluation. The extent to which successful practices...

This article describes qualitative findings from a mixed method study of the impact of implementing clinical supervision in four public child welfare agencies. Particular emphasis is on the development of learning organizational cultures, promotion of self-reflective and evidence-informed practice, and outcomes-focused approaches to working with fa...

The professional literature has not documented the relationship between effective supervision, an organizational culture promoting evidence-based practice, and self-efficacy in child welfare practice. Secondary analysis of survey data from one public child welfare agency was conducted to examine the relationship between these constructs. Results su...

In order to promote timely permanency for children in out-of-home care, citizen foster care review programs employ volunteers to monitor progress for children in the child welfare system. In addition to case file reviews, Kentucky implemented an Interested Party Review system in which foster care review board members meet with family members and ch...

Citizens are increasingly being called upon to participate in public child welfare programs. This participation—through such federally mandated programs as Foster Care Review Boards, Court Appointed Special Advocates, and Citizen Review Panels—can potentially promote authentic community involvement or leave angry agencies and panel members in its w...

Background and Purpose: Both the known negative impacts of foster care drift on children and the increasing cost of foster care placement have long been public concerns. Since the enactments of the 1980 Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act and the 1997 Adoption and Safe Families Act, states have been required to review the status of each child...

The professional literature has described the critical role child welfare supervisors play in the recruitment and retention (R&R) of a competent workforce and in practice enhancement to produce positive outcomes for children and families. Building on findings from a federally funded demonstration project related to implementation of clinical superv...

A collaborative project between a state child welfare agency and a master of social work program was developed for the purpose of providing clinical supervision for master of social work employees in public child welfare. The integrative supervision model (ISM) was implemented in the pilot project, and initial efforts were begun to test the effecti...

BackgroundPrivate agencies have a long history of providing child welfare services in the U.S. Recent attempts to improve efficiency, service quality and innovation have prompted some jurisdictions to expand privatization of these services to a broader segment of the service array. Lessons learned by public agency administrators, private providers...

State child welfare systems in recent years have been increasingly compelled to include citizen stakeholders in public policy evaluation. A key mechanism for increased citizen involvement has been the development of citizen review panels (CRPs) in the area of child protective services. Citizen review panels are groups of citizen volunteers who are...

Quality improvement centers were created by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Children's Bureau beginning in 2001 to promote knowledge development through an innovative approach to applied collaborative research in child welfare. The National Quality Improvement Center on the Privatization of Child Welfare Services was funded to ass...

The available social work literature provides few references to a direct supervisor acting as a mentor to staff. This study, based on interviews with 39 career managers in a public child welfare agency, found that a large number of the managers had served as mentors and been protégés during their careers. Surprisingly, the study found that 92% (N =...

Professional Development: The International Journal of Continuing Social Work Education is a refereed journal concerned with publishing scholarly and relevant articles on continuing education, professional development, and training in the field of social welfare. The aims of the journal are to advance the science of professional development and con...