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New Jersey Department of Children and Families Evidence Based Practices

Area(s) of Work: Child Welfare

The New Jersey Department of Children and Families’ (DCF) overarching goal is to increase access and appropriate utilization of trauma informed evidence-based programming for the purpose of improving outcomes for children and families. DCF is committed to integrating evidence-based practices into our service array and recognizes the important role they can play in improving outcomes for children and families and supporting the systems improvement goals outlined in DCF’s Strategic Plan. The Department seeks to leverage this funding opportunity to gain technical assistance and support to develop a blueprint for how DCF and our provider partners will approach successful integration of evidence-based practices into the service array.

In collaboration with the National Implementation Research Network (NIRN), DCF will utilize a two-tiered process for gathering information from systems' stakeholders and a sample of provider agencies using EB/EI programs. At the systems level, DCF and NIRN will engage a diverse cadre of internal and external stakeholders to achieve buy-in for the blueprint and vet the specific structures and processes captured in the blueprint’s first phase. Vetting and consensus building with stakeholders will take place through a series of team-based structured facilitated discussions at the beginning of the process and again after a draft blueprint has been developed. As part of this process, DCF and NIRN also will work with 8-10 providers, who have demonstrated experience implementing specific evidence-based interventions, to assess and understand their experience and challenges in selection, implementation, evaluation, and quality improvement practices of those interventions. Provider agencies will be engaged in a series of four workshops where information related to key implementation science concepts will be shared and provider agencies will be asked to reflect on this information and provide recommendations related to how implementation science can be infused into their day-to-day practices to support the use of evidence to improve child outcomes.

Award(s)

Funding Agency:  

Annie E. Casey Foundation

Funding Period:  

05/01/2016 to 04/30/2017

Award Amount:  

$239,820

Staff

Allison J. Metz, Principal Investigator