DJI Approach to Good Practice

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DJI Approach to Good Practice

• Scie International Seminar Good Practice

Heinz Kindler / Eric van Santen
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Context for the development of Good Practice in
Germany

• Social Services are organized at a community
  level
• Outside the area of care for elder citizens there
  is hardly any review and audit system
• Little government commitment to evidence based
  practice
• Low methodological standards in German social
  work research

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Low methodological standards in German Social
Work publications

• Analysis of 5 volumes of the 5 most important
  social work journals (ngt500 articles)
• Rating system according to Rosen et al (1999)
  with six categories
• Non empirical 412 82
• Illustrative 46 9
• Descriptive 39 8
• Explanatory 4 0.8
• Controlled 2 0.2
• Systematic review 0 0.0

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Methodological standards regarding best
practice in German social work

• Minimal methodological requirements Some kind of
  comparison of a range of different practices with
  regard to one or more outcome criteria
• Literature search in a German social work
  database after publications with best practice
  in the title (n8)
• Minimal methodological requirements
• Not met 6 75
• Partly met 2 25
• Met 0 0
• In most cases best practice is just a word for
  practice that sounds good or is felt to be
  innovative

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Dissemination of the Concepts
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The DJI (German Youth Institute)

• About 140 researchers, located in Munich and
  Halle, founded 1963, 2008 66 projects
• Mostly financed by the Federal Ministry for
  Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth
  (BMFSFJ) 7,8 Mio. in 2008, additional 8 Mio.
  from other sources
• Research for politicians and practitioners on
  children, youth and families, including family
  and child welfare services
• No unitary approach but constant work and
  discussion on research approaches to evidence

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Authorities in child and youth services
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Cooperation between the statutory and the
non-statutory sector

• Basic principle
• Statutory and non-statutory youth services shall
  cooperate on a basis of partnership.

• Precedence of the non-statutory youth services
  (Principle of subsidiarity)
• Where the non-statutory youth services can
  discharge suitable functions the statutory
  sector shall refrain from activities of its own.

• Overall responsibility of the statutory sector
• The statutory sector, i.e. the youth office, has
  the overall responsiblity for child and youth
  services.

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The Area of the 600 Youth Offices in Germany
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Effects of Local Responsibility

• youth offices develope very different politics
• the width of the product range differs
• the quantity of the provisions differs
• different cultures of appropriateness
• This leads to very different levels of usage of
  youth care provisions

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New cases residential care young people up to 18
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Example 1 of the DJI ApproachRisk assessment in
child protection practice

• Rated as one of the top three problems in three
  workshps with child protection practitioners
• Two non-systematic reviews (Kindler 2006)
• Development of a risk assessment module in
  cooperation with two children and youth
  authorities
• Testing phase 1 Reliability, incremental
  prognostic valididty, acceptance (Kindler et al.
  2008, Reich et al. 2009)
• Testing phase 2 (one year later) Acceptance,
  redundancies, most common errors and
  misunderstandings
• Still missing Comparison with other RA-methods
  in Germany

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Incremental prognostic validity

• One page risk assessment instrument (21 risk
  factors)
• 60 child protection case files already open
  before the instrument was introduced
• Risk analysis based on the first 3 months of the
  file, independent case progress analysis with
  Child Welfare Outcome Indicator Matrix (Trocmé
  et al. 1999), e.g. additional maltreatment
  episode
• Structured risk assessment predicted additional
  maltreatment and maltreatment related injuries of
  children in the family over and above
  unstructured case worker risk intuition

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• 5 risk factors predicted later maltreatment
  related injury of a child in the family
• Maltreatment related injury
• Mother maltreated as child .30
• Mother addicted / psychiatric illness .22
• Father maladaptive coping .29
• Prior Maltreatment .24
• Parents underestimate risk .25

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Example 2 of the DJI approachReunification of
foster children

• Foster care workers do not rate reunification as
  top problem, but several high court decisions
  demand more reunification efforts
• Collecting data on reunification base rates (van
  Santen), international comparison data (e.g.
  Thoburn 2007)
• Field research reunification processes (n29,
  follow-up period 1yr), what decision criteria
  are used by practitioners and what is done to
  support reunifications processes (telephone
  interviews)
• Field search for projects aimed to support
  successful reunifications, 2 projects where
  contracted for writing a report on their practice
• Ongoing systematic review on validated prognostic
  critieria, creation of 2 instruments (barriers to
  reunification, prognosis)

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Summary 1 Our answers to the SCIE questions

• Is there a sufficiently robust evidence base to
  identify good practice?
• Generally not Germany is just doing the first
  steps to build up ebp threats to validity,
  meta-analysis and systematic review techniques
  are hardly known, there is growing interest in
  international collaboration

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Summary 2 Our answers to the SCIE questions

• Political Issues
• In the small area of early child welfare services
  there is a national agency (NZFH), doing a good
  job to create an evidence base (e.g. 3 RCTs),
  there is some policy support, but connections to
  the science organisations are weak, practitioners
  seem to be divided about gp, seeking support but
  being critical against controll and accountability

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Summary 3 Our answers to the SCIE questions

• Delivery mechanisms I Handbook
• First experience with a web-based and printed on
  Handbook on child endangerment are very positive,
  several project data-bases (not evaluated),
  policy frameworks support gp for some time in
  specific areas (e.g. foster care), professional
  codes are generally gp friendly but are not
  strongly supported

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www.dji.de/asd
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Summary 3 Our answers to the SCIE questions

• Delivery mechanisms II Promoting Evaluation
• Identifying completed and ongoing evaluation
  studies in Germany
• Analysing and systematising these studies
• Preparing the information obtained for storage in
  a Database
• Stimulating and monitoring the evaluation
  discussion
• Encouraging the interdisciplinary exchange of
  experience among stakeholders involved in and
  affected by evaluations
• Counselling on designing and implementing
  evaluations at the federal level
• Developing and advancing external evaluation
  concepts and strategies in child and youth
  services
• Advancing evaluation standards within the
  framework of the German Evaluation Society
  (DeGEval - Gesellschaft für Evaluation)
• Establishing international collaboration and
  research contacts and transfer of experience
• Events such as expert meetings, workshops and
  expert hearings
• Publications documentation and internet service

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Summary 3 Our answers to the SCIE questions

• Delivery mechanisms III Databases (GP)
• Research on Childcare
• Schools and their Partners
• Youth and Work
• Gendermainstreaming in Youth Welfare Services
• Social Integration of Marginalized Young People
• Prevention of School Fatigue and Refusal