Research to Practice

Healthy Families America (HFA) has created standards for a Child Welfare Protocol (CWP) augmentation, which provides additional guidance and support for home visitors serving higher-risk families referred into HFNY through the child welfare system (whether prevention services, foster care, or child protective services). Notably, CWP families do not need to have an active CPS/child welfare case, only a referral from part of the child welfare system. Families enrolled under the CWP augmentation are eligible if they are referred in from child welfare services, regardless of other risk factors, up until the TC is 24 months of age. Home visitors working with CWP families receive additional training support, such as training in Motivational Interviewing, and additional support in using reflective supervision. Importantly, despite child welfare involvement, program participation must remain voluntary.

HFNY has planned to implement CWP in multiple phases. In Phase 1, 17 new HFNY programs incorporated CWP from the beginning. In Phase 2, eight established programs started to accept CWP families; these sites are known as expansion programs. In Phase 3, 14 additional expansion programs incorporated CWP into their updated Healthy Families contract. An additional two programs were added in Phase 3.5. See Table 1 for a list of Phase 1, 2, 3, and 3.5 programs. Eventually, all HFNY programs are expected to have a collaboration agreement with their local departments of social service (LDSSs) and accept CWP families. The ongoing evaluation of CWP implementation is focused on understanding the implementation and outcomes for families enrolled under the new child welfare protocol.

Read the two pager summarizing the results of the evaluation of the Child Welfare Protocol (CWP) implementation in Year 2.