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Birds of a Feather

Human Services Evaluation

Session: Birds of a Feather

35 - Minding the Gap in Foster Care: Using data-informed needs assessment to drive collective impact outcomes

Stream: Health and Wellness

Friday, October 25, 2024
12:45 PM - 1:15 PM PST
Location: Exhibit Hall A
Birds of a Feather
Abstract Information: The Strategic Foster Placement Needs Assessment and Results Tool - or Gap Analysis, as we call it - is an analysis of the characteristics and needs of children in foster care and the characteristics of available homes in order to identify and act on present and future gaps in meeting kids’ needs more equitably and effectively. It looks at multiple categories of an ideal placement setting for children and evaluates whether current and historic placements reflect those ideal scenarios. The tool can be used to predict future needs, problem-solve current policy and practice, and set program goals for community organizations adjacent to child welfare programming. This tool is provided as a service to state governments and partnerships. At the same time, it focuses on the recruitment efforts of our non-profit organization. In terms of our own efforts, we developed a subsequent evaluation tool to measure our results against the identified gaps to measure program effectiveness.