ECAP and Placement Stability Practice
The Revolution in Foster Care Placement
• 50% of children leaving foster care in the United
States have spent one year or more in care
• 2/3 of children in foster care more than 1 year
experience 3 or more placements
1. (Northern California Training Academy, 2008)2. (Noonan, 2009)
It’s a problem…
… and the stakes are high
Children
– poor academic
performance
– school truancy
– emotional
problems
– poor social
interactions
Families
– burnout
– recruitment
problems
– guilt
Agencies
– high costs
– strict government
requirements
– reputation
• Complexity of social interactions– Some behaviors influence outcomes
(some don’t)– Some events influence outcomes
(some don’t)
• Predisposition– Nature vs. Nurture
• Scope of Environment– Family-level
– Community-level
– at school
The Challenges
• Work environment
• No single standard format for data
• Subjectivity vs. Objectivity
– Why did the placement disrupt?
A Lack of Reliable Data
Possible Causes
Policies and Systems
– worker training
– worker turnover
Resource Families
– family training
– willingness to
commit
– # of children in a
home
Children
– age
– prior placement
– placement with
siblings
– behaviors
(Children and Family Research Center, 2004; A. Jones, 2010; Jones & Edwards, 2008; Rolock, 2009; Tarren-Sweeney & Hazell, 2005)
Where do we start?
• Finding and supporting quality resource homes
• Use of multi-agency supports and systems
• Improving the caseworker’s experience
• Improving child-resource parent matching
Strategies for Addressing
Placement Stability
(includes ideas from Peter Pecora’s 2010 research)
The role of MATCHING in
Placement Stability
“The current research shows there is a strong
correlation between a child’s behavior, the
resource parents’ ability to deal with that behavior,
and placement stability.”
(A. Jones, Promoting Placement Stability in Foster Care: A Roadmap Through the Literature 2010, p. 9)
The role of MATCHING in
Placement Stability
• Many different reported practices:
– using specific workers (11 states)
– matching based on foster home availability (5 states)
– assessment tools likes CANS (4 states)
– matching based on capabilities of resource parents (3
states)
– placement matrix system (3 states)
– specialized placement units (2 states)
(Blakey, J. M., Leathers, S. J., Lawler, M., Washington, T., Natschke, C., Strand, T., & Walton, Q. (2012). A review of how states are addressing placement stability. Children and Youth Services Review )
• A new approach to matching
• Validation from KU School of Social Welfare
• Enhancing the system
The Solution
the Solution:
• A web-based decision
support tool
• Manages and tracks foster
children’s placements
• Makes “smart” placements…
• A statistical analysis of past placements
• School of Social Welfare (University of Kansas)
• Increased Placement Stability– Placements were 1.5 to 1.8 times more stable
• Reduced Time to Permanency– Children spent an average of 53 fewer days in care
“Smart” Placements
In one year…
• Prevented 452 unnecessary moves
• Saved TFI over $731,000
• Saved the State of Kansas almost $900,000
The Impact of ECAP’s
“Smart” Placements
Placement Disruption Costs
• Time spent finding a new placement (labor cost)
• Transportation costs associated with moving a child
• Foster parent or case worker reimbursements
• Family meetings
• New school enrollments and treatment services
• Setting up new visitation schedules
• Making changes in case plans
• New court hearings
• Opportunity costs – what else could you be doing?
How ECAP works
• Collect information
• Analyze the information
• Uses the information to make an evidence-
based decision
A profile for each new foster home is completed
A profile called the
Appropriate Placement Level Indicator (APLI)
is completed for each new child referral
Foster home profiles are loaded in to ECAP…
ECAP generates a ranked list of the matching homes for
that child…
Placement workers begin calling homes in the list, logging
each communication as they go…
Administrators and placement workers can also access
various reports that provide timely placement information
Provider Preferences Physical Aggression
Agency Name Will take Will consider Would not prefer Grand Total
Agency1 140 313 193 646
Agency10 1 2 3 6
Agency15 9 15 23 47
Agency6 65 89 150 304
Grand Total 215 419 369 1003
Provider's Answer Column Labels
Row Labels Provider1002 John and Jane Grand Total
Accepted 2 2
Considering 1 1
Declined - Age of Child 2 2
Declined - Availability 6 6
Declined - Due to child's behaviors 2 2
Declined - Restrictions (Pets room sharing etc.) 1 1
Left Message 3 3
Grand Total 17 17
Level of Care & APLI Scoring
First
Placements
Subsequent
Placements
Level of Care & APLI Scoring
• Original APLI:
– 73 items
– (37 were predictive)
• NEW 1st Placement APLI:
– 38 items
– (24 are predictive)
• NEW Subsequent Placement APLI:
– 35 items
– (21 are predictive)
Provider Scoring & Matching
• Only providers within the recommended level of care will appear
• The original Provider Composite Score included:– The family’s preferences
– Proximity from the child’s home
• The new Provider Composite Score now considers:– The family’s preferences
– The child’s level of care needs
– The provider’s record for providing safe and stable placements
Provider Scoring & Matching
• Compared the outcomes of 2 cohorts of foster children– Pre-ECAP: 621 children
– Post-ECAP: 614 children
• Analyzed over 22,000 placement records of TFI foster children
• Analyzed over 2,000 placements that were made using the APLI (46% 1st and 54% Subsequent)
• Suggested improvements for ECAP– Modifications to the APLI format to increase predictive capability
– Separate profile formats for 1st and subsequent placements
KU’s Research Study
• for Children Placed with ECAP:
– 22.5% improvement in the # of days of care per move
• Pre-ECAP: 316
• Post-ECAP: 388
– 12% reduction in the average time to permanency
• An average (median) of 53 fewer days to permanency
– were 1.5 to 1.8 times more stable
Significant Improvements
• for TFI
– Decreased the # of placement moves in a year by
18% (452 fewer)
– Saved over $731,000 in one year in movement costs
– Saved the State of Kansas almost $900,000 in
reimbursement costs
– Met all 3 federal outcomes (meeting only 1 of them
before ECAP)
Significant Improvements
• LLC formed by TFI and the BTBC
• Develops, Supports, and Sells ECAP to
agencies around the world
• Manages and implements ongoing research
projects
Experience + Technology(blending the Tried and True with the Cutting Edge)
• Using technology as a tool (not as crutch)
• Don’t forget about experience (Practice Wisdom)
• The Combination is the Key (evidence-based
practices)
We Believe:
• There are underlying patterns in all of our lives
• Discovering these and acting on them can help
us significantly improve placement stability in
foster care
• Digital technology can help us create cutting-
edge tools to implement these ideas
Contact Us:
FosterCareTech.com
785-856-0625