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Abstract In child welfare, family meeting models are an important social innovation designed to develop individualized case plans through a family-centered and collaborative approach. Effective teamwork and parent engagement are key elements of family meetings. Previous studies report mixed results about the practical impacts of family meetings, perhaps due to a failure to elucidate how the key elements of the models are associated with the intended outcomes. This study utilized administrative data that reviewed child welfare cases in a Midwestern state in the U.S. to examine interactions between teamwork and parent engagement associated with the permanency of children in out-of-home care (n = 1450). Results indicate that teamwork is positively associated with permanency. Although both mother engagement and father engagement did not show significant main effects, father engagement significantly strengthened the positive relationship between teamwork and permanency. Additionally, a significant three-way interaction between teamwork, father engagement, and mother engagement was found. This interaction suggests that the strength of the positive relationship between teamwork and permanency was dampened when both mothers and fathers engage highly in family meetings. This paper concludes with implications for informing a clear theory of change to advance and diffuse the social innovation of family meeting models. Highlights • Teamwork and parent engagement are key elements of innovative family meeting models • The positive impact of teamwork on permanency is strengthened when fathers more actively engage in family meetings. • The positive impact of teamwork is dampened when both parents engage highly in family meetings. • Family meetings may benefit from ensuring safe and democratic team processes to promote parent engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Kinship care giving has been on the rise. • Grandparents provide majority of the kinship placements. • Kinship grandparents experience unique challenges to raising their grandchildren. • Child welfare systems should ensure kinship grandparent voices are heard. • Supports and service delivery should meet kinship families' needs and ensure empowerment. This paper presents the perspectives of a small sample of eight kinship caregivers, who are grandparents raising their grandchildren in a mid-Western state. The study explored the grandparents' experiences of family empowerment in public child welfare, using semi-structured qualitative interviews. The grandparents identify the services that they find useful, including both tangible resources and relational supports. They also highlight service gaps and unfulfilled needs, as well as aspects of their experience with public child welfare that they find concerning. The authors discuss the salience of including kinship grandparents' voices in shaping the services provided for them and offer recommendations for strategies that could empower the growing population, and improve the public child welfare system so that it is more responsive to its changing environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]