How child welfare inter-agency cooperation may reduce youth HIV risk behaviors

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Child welfare agencies rely on other organizations to provide the majority of services at-risk youth and parents need. Therefore, those agencies with greater depth and breadth of interorganizational relationships may connect youth and parents more effectively to substance abuse, mental health, educational, and other health and social services. In turn, more comprehensive services may support youth in avoiding or reducing risky behaviors. There is currently substantial emphasis in child welfare policy on improving interorganizational relationships to serve at-risk youth better. However, there is virtually no empirical basis for child welfare agencies' management of such ties. The proposed study will help address this gap, exploring "Under what conditions do child welfare agency relationships with other organizations help the youth they serve reduce risky behaviors?" The investigators will focus on substance use and sexual behavior as outcomes because of their impact on youth well-being, including impaired social and academic functioning, pregnancy, and sexually transmitted diseases, notably HIV-AIDS. Using data from a national study of children who have had contact with the child welfare system, the investigators will address four specific aims: (1) Identify how relationships between child welfare agencies and substance abuse treatment facilities, mental health service providers, and schools affect the comprehensiveness of services youth and parents receive; (2) Identify how local service availability affects associations between interorganizational relationships and service comprehensiveness; (3) Identify how child welfare caseworkers' attributes (e.g., education, experience) and their perceived work climates (e.g., work load, supervisor support) affect the impact of interorganizational relationships on service comprehensiveness; and (4) Identify how service comprehensiveness affects risky behaviors in youth over time. The National Survey of Child and Adolescent Weil-Being (NSCAW) is the source of data for the proposed study. NSCAW data are uniquely suited to these analyses because they include information about agencies' interorganizational relationships and caseworkers' attributes and perceived work climates as well as the services received by individual youth and their parents and youth behavioral outcomes over 3 points in time. Like all organizational strategies, interorganizational relationships take time and money. By investigating the conditions under which specific types of inter-agency ties benefit at-risk youth, this study will improve understanding of one important aspect of child welfare services. These findings will inform managers of related health and social services.yield actionable guidance to child welfare agency managers and policy makers in allocating scarce resources.