Post on 02-Jan-2016
Innovations in Measuring Outcomes in Children’s School Performance and
Social Functioning
Manitoba’s Child Well-Being Windows
Presenters: Linda Burnside and Kathy Kristjanson
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Introduction
• Like other jurisdictions around the world, Manitoba has become increasingly interested in how we assess and measure the well-being of our children.
• This interest is particularly critical in the child welfare field, where the state has assumed parental responsibility for the care of children and therefore, responsibility for their well-being.
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Challenges
• The issues that bring children to the attention of child welfare agencies are multi-dimensional, which adds to the complexity of defining and measuring child well-being.
• Child welfare agencies may be reluctant to measure child well-being, given that the issues that result in many children coming to the attention of child welfare are issues that have likely already compromised their well-being.
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Purpose of Presentation• To share Manitoba’s approach to
measuring and tracking child well-being for children in care, in the following areas:
– School performance• Age/Grade Appropriateness• School Type• Literacy• Learning Disabilities• Speech and Language Development
– Child Functioning• Social Skills• Problem behaviors• Substance Abuse
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Acknowledgements
• The following individuals have been instrumental in advancing Manitoba’s work on the measurement of child well-being:
– Nico Trocmé– Laurie Olafson– Rhonda Dagg– Dave McGregor
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Manitoba CFS Context• 6629 (the number of children in care of Manitoba
child and family services agencies at March 31, 2006)
• 7364 (the number of families receiving service from Manitoba child and family services agencies)
• 25 (the number of agencies operating under four child and family services Authorities)
• 133 (the number of child and family services offices operating in Manitoba)
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Manitoba CFS Context
Winnipeg
Brandon
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Methodology for Demonstration Project
• Looked at School Performance and Social Skills data for all children in care at one child welfare agency in Manitoba.
• Demonstration data only, to illustrate capacity of the windows, based on one agency.
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Demonstration Study Sample
Total Number of Children in Care: 115
744
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19
Attending School Kindergarten/Pre School
Not school aged School aged: Not Attending
Special Needs Program
CFS Western Manitoba2005/06
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Manitoba’s Approach
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National Outcome Measures Project
• The National Outcome Measures Project originated with the provincial Directors of Child Welfare across Canada.
• Intent of this Canadian initiative is to measure multi-dimensional child welfare outcomes in four domains (Trocmé, Nutter, MacLaurin, & Fallon, 1999):
– Child safety– Child well being– Permanence– Family and community support
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Child Welfare Outcome Indicator Matrix*
• Child Safety– Recurrence of Maltreatment– Serious Injuries/Death
• Child Well Being– School Performance– Child Behavior
• Permanence– Moves in Care– Admission to Care– Time to Achieving Permanent Placement
• Family and Community Support– Family Moves– Aboriginal Placement Matching– Parenting Capacity
* Trocmé, Nutter, MacLaurin, & Fallon, 1999
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Informed by Other Models
• Looking After Children (LAC) is a UK-based approach to working with children in care which measures a child’s developmental progress in seven dimensions:
– health– education– identity– family and social relationships– social presentation skills– emotional and behavioral development– self-care
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InformationTechnology
• The Child and Family Services Information System (CFSIS) for Manitoba is a comprehensive case tracking system that was designed in 1993 to facilitate the tracking of children and families served, as well as reporting on the services being provided.
• The Intake Module, which began in 2004, functions in conjunction with CFSIS to provide standardized recording of intake information throughout the province as required by legislation.
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Child Well Being Windows
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Child Well Being Windows
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School Information
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Social Skills
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Data Collection and Measurement
• The applications create unique person records which may be attached to multiple intakes or CFSIS cases.
• CFSIS has a total of 436 tables which collect data from 3372 separate data fields.
• Any mix of this data can be produced in an ad hoc query.
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Data Collection and Measurement
• Information related to child well-being is updated annually.
• All well-being windows have 2 print functions. One will print a blank form that workers can print off to have filled out by foster parent, teacher, etc.
• The other print function shows all the data that has been entered.
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Benefits of Approach• Child-specific data gathered by those who
know the child best.
• Capacity to compare for each unique child with himself/herself over time (facilitates case planning and intervention for children who may need assistance in school performance or social skills development).
• Capacity for aggregate comparisons across agencies, regions, cultural groups, legal statuses, placement type, etc.
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Limitations of Approach
• Data may be affected by:
– accurate data entry,– consistent definitions of terms,– how long the worker/teacher/foster parent has
worked with the child, – how well the worker/teacher/foster parent
knows the child,– turnover of staff, changes in placement, school
changes,– behavioral/emotional issues that interfere with
child’s expression of abilities.
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Limitations of Approach
• Measurement may be affected by changes in child-in-care population due to:
– new admissions to care, – discharges from care, – children reaching age of majority.
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School Performance
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School Performance for Children in Care
• Several studies have found that youth in care are less likely to perform at age-appropriate grade level than their peers (e.g. Carey, Concannon & Goldschmidt, 1990).
• Research has also shown that children in care are less likely to graduate from high school (e.g. Barth, 2000; Westat, 1994; Roos, Brownell, & MacWilliam, 2007).
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Manitoba School Performance Measures
• Age/Grade Appropriateness• Literacy• Numeracy• Speech and Language• Learning Disabilities• School Supports• Type of Classroom• Attendance• School Changes
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School Performance
• A recent study of children in care involved with LAC found that 25% of youth were below an age appropriate grade level (Kufeldt, Simard, Tite & Vachon, 2003)
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Age-Grade Appropriateness
2005/0615%
85%
Not Age GradeAppropriate
Age GradeAppropriate
CFS Western Manitoba
Children in Care
Attending School
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School Grade Range2005/06
25
29
20
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Grade 1-6 Grade 7-9 Grade 10-12
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Age-Grade Appropriateness and
School Type
49
14
5
6
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Regular Class Special Class
Age Grade Appropriate Not Age Grade Appropriate
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Age-Grade Appropriateness and School Type/Grade
Range
18 18 13
3 56
0
10
20
30
Grade 1-6 Grade 7-9 Grade 10-12
Regular Class Special Class
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Not Age-Grade Appropriate and School
Type/Grade Range
02
3
1 4
101
23
45
67
Grade 1-6 Grade 7-9 Grade 10-12
Regular Class Special Class
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School Performance
• LAC study found that 40% of children ages 10 – 14 stated that they had a learning difficulty.* For youth ages 15 – 19, 27% stated that they had a learning difficulty.*
*Based on youth self-reporting
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Learning Disability and Grade Range
18 1812
711
8
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Grade 1-6 Grade 7-9 Grade 10-12
No Learning Disability Learning Disability
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Learning Disability and School Supports
• LAC study found that only 9% of children who self-identified difficulty with learning were receiving extra help.
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Learning Disability and School Supports
• 26 (35%) of the total 74 children in school were identified with a learning disability.
• 24 (92%) were receiving additional supports in the school.
• 18 (24%) children were not identified as having a learning disability, but were still receiving additional supports in school.
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Learning Disability and School Supports
For the 63 children who were in an age-appropriate grade:
• 20 were identified with a learning disability and 18 of them were receiving school supports (90%).
• 43 children were not identified with a learning disability. However, 16 of these children were receiving school supports.
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Learning Disability and School Supports
For the 11 children who were not in an age-appropriate grade:
• 6 children were identified with a learning disability, and all 6 were receiving school supports (100%).
• 5 children were not identified with a learning disability. However, 2 of these children were receiving school supports.
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Learning Disabilityand School Supports
• Teaching assistant• Resource support• Counselling• Reading assistance• Occupational therapy• Speech/language therapy• Psychology• Audiology• Psychiatry
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Literacy and School Type
• Shin (2003) found that receiving special education was related to poorer reading skills.
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Literacy and School Type
• Of the 54 children attending regular class settings, 18 required ongoing assistance with literacy (33%).
• Of the 20 children attending special class settings, 13 required ongoing assistance with literacy (65%).
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Literacy and Placement Type
• Shin (2003) found that youth in kinship care had higher reading levels than those who were not in kinship care.
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Literacy andPlacement Type
• Of the 74 children in care, 46 were in a foster home, with 19 (41%) of these children requiring assistance with literacy.
• Of the 15 children placed in kinship settings, 5 (33%) required assistance with literacy.
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School Changes
• Only 8% of the LAC study children had no school changes.
• 30% of the LAC sample had more than 6 school changes.
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School Changes
• 57 children of the 74 children in care attending school experienced no change in school (77%).
• 17 children did experience a change in schools (23%).
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School Changes and Age-Appropriate Grade
• For the 63 children in an age-appropriate grade, 14 experienced a change in school (22%).
• For the 11 children not in an age-appropriate grade, 3 experienced a change in school (27%).
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Speech and Language
15 17 16
1012
4
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Grade 1-6 Grade 7-9 Grade 10-12
Meets Expectations Needs Ongoing Help
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Speech and Language and Literacy
• Of the 74 children in school, 48 (65%) meet or exceed expectations in speech and language performance.
• Of those 48, 41 meet or exceed expectations in literacy (85%).
• Of the 26 who require ongoing help in speech and language, only 2 met expectations in literacy (8%) and 24 required ongoing help in literacy (92%).
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Child Functioning
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Manitoba Social Skills Measures
• Emotional Maturity
• Making Friends
• School Activities
• Problem Behaviors
• Substance Abuse
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Emotional Maturity
204
43
70
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Age Grade Appropriate Not Age Grade Appropriate
Meets/Exceeds Expectations Needs Some/Ongoing Help
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Making Friends
27
5
36
60
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Age Grade Appropriate Not Age Grade Appropriate
Meets/Exceeds Expectations Needs Some/Ongoing Help
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Extracurricular Activities/Educational
Attainment
• Shin (2003) found that active participation in extracurricular activities has a strong association with educational attainment.
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School Activities/Cognitive Development
• Of the 63 children in an age-appropriate grade, 23 were involved in school activities (37%).
• A total of 37 of the 63 children were meeting school expectations in terms of cognitive development.
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School Activities/Cognitive Development
• Of the 11 children who were not in an age-appropriate grade, 4 were involved in school activities (36%).
• A total of 6 were meeting school expectations in terms of cognitive development.
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Behavioral Issues
• Inability to manage own behavior• Inability to interact constructively with
others• Aggression• Inability to adhere to structure and
expectations• Not aware of risk to self/others• Out of control behavior• Illegal activity• Sexually inappropriate acting out
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Substance Abuse
• Alcohol• Marijuana• Substance not identified• Cocaine• Ecstasy• Prescription drugs
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Substance Use and Literacy
• Shin (2003) found that youth who were involved in drug use had lower reading skills than youth who had not used drugs.
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Substance Useand Literacy
• Of the 74 children attending school, 11 were identified as having a substance abuse issues (15%).
• Of those 11 children, 6 required ongoing help with literacy (55%).
• Of the 63 children who did not have substance abuse issues, 24 required ongoing help with literacy (39%).
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Substance Abuse and Attendance
• School attendance is a concern for 8 of the 11 children with substance abuse issues.
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Substance Abuse/Speech and Language
• Of the 74 children attending school, 26 require ongoing help with speech and language.
• 5 of these children have an identified substance abuse issue.
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School Change/Substance Abuse
• The LAC study found that school disruption is highly correlated to the risk of substance use.
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School Change/Substance Abuse
• A total of 17 children had a change in school. Of those, 6 had a substance abuse issue (35%).
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Implementation Challenges
• Manitoba is initiating a process to provide agencies with the necessary computer hardware and staff training to allow for the use of CFSIS throughout the province.
• Further, all agencies will use the same information system process for new intakes, which will allow for the uniform collection of data at the onset of service.
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Opportunities
• Valuable source of information for social workers, agencies, and the government.
• Strategy to further measurement of child well-being, both for National Outcome Measures Project and for the knowledge base of outcome measurement.
• Research opportunities that can be generated from the data collected.
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Questions?
• For further information, please contact the Manitoba Child Protection Branch, c/o:
Linda BurnsideChild Protection BranchManitoba Department of Family Services
and Housing201 – 114 Garry StreetWinnipeg, ManitobaR3C 4V5 CanadaLinda.Burnside@gov.mb.ca