1. Managing child welfare agencies: What do we know about what works?
- Author
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Wells, Rebecca
- Subjects
Child welfare ,Company business management ,Sociology and social work - Abstract
To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2005.11.009 Byline: Rebecca Wells Keywords: Child welfare services; Management; Organizational Abstract: Child welfare agency caseworkers play a pivotal role in ensuring these children's safety and well-being, conducting initial investigations, making placement decisions and service referrals, and monitoring children's situations while cases are active. At this point, the empirical literature provides little guidance about how child welfare agency managers can best support caseworkers in these challenging functions. This article draws on available empirical literature to describe how agency management may affect children's experiences in the child welfare system and their resultant outcomes. The author notes what we may currently conclude from available literature as well as what knowledge gaps remain to be addressed. At this point the most robust evidence basis for agency management relates to human resource practices, but even these findings derive mostly from other settings and need to be tested directly in child welfare contexts. There is virtually no empirical evidence about how child welfare agency management affects children's outcomes over time. Author Affiliation: Department of Health Policy and Administration, School of Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, McGavran-Greenberg Hall, CB# 7411 Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7411, United States Article History: Received 22 July 2005; Revised 18 September 2005; Accepted 10 November 2005
- Published
- 2006