How Child Welfare Agency Management Affects Children's Outcomes

描述(申请人提供)：这个K01奖项将使组织学者能够研究儿童福利机构的管理如何影响服务过程和儿童的结果。丽贝卡·威尔斯博士研究了卫生保健安全网内部和组织间的动态。在K01的资助下，她将与儿童心理健康服务研究员E.Michael Foster博士和为弱势儿童提供人类服务的领先学者Mark Courtney博士密切合作。福斯特和考特尼博士以及其他方法和内容专家将协助威尔斯博士进行三项研究，研究儿童福利机构的内部管理以及与其他机构的关系如何影响社会工作者为家庭服务的方式、所接受服务的全面性以及随着时间的推移儿童的心理健康和其他结果。基于儿童福利服务的多层次概念模型，本研究提出了三个主要问题：(1)儿童福利机构的管理是否强调衡量和责任、人力资源、变革管理以及与其他机构的联系是否会影响儿童的结果？(2)案例管理或服务综合性是否在机构管理和儿童结果之间起中介作用？(3)服务的可用性是否缓和了与其他机构的联系和结果之间的联系？研究1将使用全国儿童和青少年幸福感调查的数据。研究2将是一个比较案例研究，探索研究1中的问题并为研究3开发调查。研究3将需要分析主要的调查数据和以前从高危儿童收集的结果数据。这3项研究的结果将使Wells博士能够培养多层次的建模、定性和调查设计能力，以及对儿童福利和心理健康服务的基本熟悉，以开发管理决策如何影响儿童结果的现实模型。这项研究的培训包括各种课程，以及与福斯特和考特尼博士以及其他国家专家就先进的经验方法、儿童健康、儿童福利和心理健康服务，包括负责任地进行涉及人类受试者的研究进行的系统咨询。拟议的研究将通过指出儿童福利机构管理的某些方面如何影响儿童的结果来改善公共健康。随后的研究将考察儿童福利和心理健康机构如何共同影响儿童。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This K01 award will enable an organizational scholar to examine how child welfare agency management affects service processes and children's outcomes. Dr. Rebecca Wells has examined intra- and inter- organizational dynamics within the health care safety net. With K01 funding, she will work closely with Dr. E. Michael Foster, a children's mental health services researcher, and Dr. Mark Courtney, a leading scholar in human services for vulnerable children. Drs. Foster and Courtney as well as other methodological and content experts will assist Dr. Wells in 3 studies of how child welfare agency internal management and relationships with other agencies affect the ways caseworkers serve families, the comprehensiveness of services received, and children's mental health and other outcomes over time. Based on a multilevel conceptual model of child welfare services, 3 major questions motivate this proposal: (1) Do child welfare agency management emphases on measurement and accountability, human resources, change management, and ties to other agencies affect children's outcomes? (2) Does case management or service comprehensiveness mediate associations between agency management and children's outcomes? (3) Does service availability moderate associations between ties to other agencies and outcomes? Study 1 will use data from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being. Study 2 will be a comparative case study that explores questions from study 1 and develop surveys for study 3. Study 3 will entail analyzing primary survey data and previously collected outcomes data from at-risk children. Findings from these 3 studies will enable Dr. Wells to develop the multilevel modeling, qualitative, and survey design competencies as well as substantive familiarity with child welfare and mental health services necessary to develop realistic models of how management decisions affect children's outcomes. Training for this research involves a variety of courses and systematic consultation with Drs. Foster and Courtney as well as other national experts on advanced empirical methods, children's health, and child welfare and mental health services, including the responsible conduct of research involving human subjects. The proposed research will improve public health by indicating how some aspects of child welfare agency management affect children's outcomes. Subsequent research will examine how child welfare and mental health agencies collectively affect children.