Bringing fidelity monitoring to child welfare: lessons learned from the CORE Teen resource parent training

ABSTRACT

While a variety of disciplines regularly use fidelity monitoring in order to understand a program’s efficacy, few examples of fidelity monitoring exist within the field of child welfare. This study provides an example of a fidelity-monitoring measure used the Critical Ongoing Resource Family Education (CORE) Teen, a training program for prospective and current resource parents of teenagers. The fidelity-monitoring tool provided valuable insights into the strengths and weaknesses of the training program as well as possible explanations for changes (and lack thereof) in participants’ competency levels. While the lack of diverse trainers limits the generalizability of the findings, this tool provides a promising start to fidelity monitoring in the child welfare field.

KEYWORDS:

• Foster parent training
• Child welfare
• Foster parent
• Fidelity Monitoring

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the U.S. Children’s Bureau [90CO1132].

Notes on contributors

Lori A. Vanderwill

Lori A. Vanderwill is a research scientist at the University of Washington, Seattle. Dr. Vanderwill’s area of expertise includes trauma-informed practices for children and youth across systems. She is particularly interested in expanding evidence for interventions that target caregivers’ and teachers’ ability to care for children and youth who are impacted by trauma. Other research interests include social and emotional learning, youth and adolescent mental health, child-wellbeing, and foster and adoptive outcomes. Dr. Vanderwill is also a Limited Licensed Master’s Social Worker in the State of Michigan.

Angelique Day

Angelique Day is an associate professor at the University of Washington and a faculty affiliate of Partners for Our Children, a child welfare research a policy think tank housed in the UW School of Social Work. Dr. Day’s area of scholarly expertise spans from analyzing the impact of policy decisions to developing and testing interventions for children and youth with or at risk of child welfare system involvement. She is particularly interested in expanding the evidence base for interventions designed to support the education well-being of youth transitioning from foster care to adulthood.

Alanna Feltner Williams

Alanna Feltner Williams is a graduate student at the University of Washington and will be earning her Master's in Public Administration and Master's in Social Work this spring. She is interested in studying the causes of and solutions to inequality in our society. Feltner has pursued this interest through research experiences in a variety of disciplines, which include cognitive psychology, educational psychology, child welfare, economic development, and housing policy. She has spent several years researching and teaching abroad as well, including as a Fulbright ETA recipient to Mexico in 2014. 

Sue Cohick

Sue Cohick MSW, LSW, is currently employed by Spaulding for Children, serving as the Project Director for a 3-year grant from the Children's Bureau focused on creating a curriculum for families who support older youth from the child welfare system.  Ms. Cohick has over 30 years of experience in the human services field, working mostly in leadership positions.  She has also served as Adjunct Faculty for two higher education institutions and as a trainer for multiple organizations to ensure best practice delivery of services.

Kris Henneman

Kris Henneman, MSW, has worked to support families and communities for over 34 years, including experience in mental health and child welfare. He has been the Project Director on seven federal grants (state and nationally focused). He has provided training and technical assistance for the National Resource Center for Adoption and has been involved in developing national curriculums for child welfare professionals, foster/adoptive families and health care professional. Kris has facilitated numerous organizational strategic planning processes designed to improve organizational outcomes. Most recently, he has developed numerous online courses and national surveys.