Review and Synthesis of State Reforms Funded by the Basic, Training and Data Collection and Analysis Grants
Basic Grant Synthesis
Federal legislation establishing CIP required states to assess their performance in processing dependency cases and then select the court reforms and activities needed to improve states practices. Authorizing legislation for CIP gave states broad discretion in the use of these funds to improve state dependency court systems and in response, states have implemented a broad range of activities and reforms. This component of The National Evaluation of the Court Improvement Program describes the range of reforms implemented across states and over time. It provides important contextual information for the study's in-depth evaluation component of select models of reform.
Information about reform activities is drawn primarily from annual CIP program reports submitted by states to the Children's Bureau in the summers of 2005 and 2007. For the 2005 synthesis, this information was supplemented with information contained in the National Child Welfare Center on Legal and Judicial Issues' annual National Court Improvement Progress Report and Catalog and follow-up discussions with state officials.
The classification system used to categorize reforms funded by the basic CIP grant was adopted from one developed by the American Bar Association's National Child Welfare Center on Legal and Judicial Issues. The categories include:
Representation of parties
Timeliness and efficiency of the court process
Communication and collaboration among court hearing participants
Notification and treatment of parties
Quality of hearings
Multi-disciplinary training and education
Judicial expertise concerning child abuse and neglect
Local case tracking
Statewide Management Information Systems (MIS)
Legislation and court rules
Alternative dispute resolution services
Additional research and evaluation.
The following information is gathered on each reform activity:
Description of the activity, its purpose, scope, and target population
Reform implementation date
Whether it was undertaken as part of a Program Improvement Plan, in response to the state's Child and Family Services Review (CFSR)
Whether the reform is expected to impact the ASFA outcomes of expediting permanency, maintaining child safety, and facilitating child well-being
Use and type of funding, other than CIP, that support the reform
Whether any evaluation has taken place on the reform (identified evaluations are requested).
A substantial increase in funding for CIP occurred in 2006, when two additional ten million dollar grants were authorized. The new grants were established to address two areas of court improvement that many states consider important, training and data collection and analysis. Although these grants are more focused than the basic CIP grant, states continue to have flexibility in choosing reform activities best suited to their specific needs within the broad categories of training and data systems.
In 2007, this component of the National Evaluation was expanded to include additional analyses of the two new grant programs. First year program reports for both the training grants and data grants will be reviewed and synthesized. Based on direction given to states in the ACYF Program Instruction issued June 15, 2006, information collected from the data grant program reports include:
State CIP activities related to planning and implementing data and management grants
Examples of agency/court collaboration in planning and grant implementation activities
Descriptions of funded initiatives including:
MIS specifically for child abuse/neglect and foster care cases
Modification of state laws, policies and procedures to enable data collection and exchange
Demographic analysis of delayed cases
Automated court functions (e.g., e-filing, creation of court documents, case scheduling, ticklers, electronic transmission of data, case tracking, case summary information)
Development of policies to assist court employees use data effectively
Development of quality assurance/continuous quality improvement systems to monitor court performance
Workload assessments of judges, court staff, and attorneys
Collaboration and training on data collection and analysis.
Again, based on guidance from the ACYF Program Instruction issued June 15, 2006, information collected from the training grant program reports include:
State CIP activities related to planning and delivering training
Examples of agency/court collaboration in planning and training activities
Descriptions of funded initiatives including:
Conducting skill and knowledge needs assessments of judges, attorneys, and other legal personnel
Development of curricula to address needed skills and knowledge
Addressing barriers to participation in trainings (e.g., time, location, format, inducements/requirements)
Assessment of training effectiveness
Development of technology-aided trainings.
Strategic Plans Synthesis
Finally, states applying for any of the three CIP grant programs (basic grant, data grant, or training grant) were required to prepare strategic plans in 2007 to describe how their CIP funds would be used over the next five years. The study team reviewed and synthesized 145 strategic plans across all three grant programs to provide a snapshot of how CIP is being utilized across the nation. There were wide variations in the level of detail contained within the strategic plans and in accompanying documentation; for this reason, the synthesis focused on broad categories of reforms and types of collaborative activities identified in the strategic plan grids.
