Policy & Practice June 2015

locally speaking

By Karen J. Anderson, David Crampton, and Trista Piccola

Cuyahoga County Pioneers Child Welfare Pay for Success Project

Cleveland, Ohio.

C uyahoga County, Ohio, which encompasses Cleveland, has established the first child welfare Pay for Success (PFS) project in the United States. The Division of Children and Family Services (DCFS) is the agency charged with child protection in Cuyahoga County and is the largest child welfare agency in the state. Annually, the agency investigates more than 15,000 concerns regarding child maltreatment, dependency, or families in need of services. On average, staff provides services to more than 5,000 children in their own homes and more than 1,800 children in substitute care. The agency‘s phi- losophy is that children grow best in families and that services should be provided to safely stabilize parents and children. Over the past decade, DCFS has safely reduced the number of children in foster care by more than 65 percent. In fact, a 2013 data brief from the federal Administration on Children, Youth and Families (ACYF) showed that Cuyahoga County ranked sixth

better social outcomes and only pay back upfront funders if pre-determined results are proven and confirmed by rigorous evaluation. In this way, the government does not spend tax dollars without proof of results. Often, govern- ments can identify cashable savings that can be achieved if the intervention is successful. Given that the county was suc- cessful in past years in implementing other housing reforms to improve outcomes for individuals experiencing homelessness, this was a clear oppor- tunity to positively impact the lives of children and their families while also reducing the costs associated with maintaining children in foster care. Thus, Partnering for Family Success, Cuyahoga’s collaboration between DCFS, Frontline Service, the County’s Office of Homeless Services, Case Western Reserve University, as well as several housing agencies, was born. The goal of the project, which was launched in January 2015, is to work with parents who have children in foster care and are homeless to reduce

in the nation in foster care population reduction between 2002 and 2012. 1 Having successfully reduced the foster care population, DCFS was able to evaluate the most significant ongoing challenges for families and children still struggling with separation from one another. Among the challenges were chronic economic instability, serious mental health and substance abuse issues, and family violence that were exacerbated by homelessness. In particular, data indicated that children in foster care whose families were homeless were experiencing consider- ably longer lengths of stay in care. In October 2012, Cuyahoga County released a formal request for Pay for Success (PFS) proposals that would present cashable savings to the county by addressing a particular social issue. PFS projects, funded by private funders, help governments implement or scale innovative evidence-based interven- tions with the intention of improving a targeted social problem. Many govern- ments utilize Pay for Success projects as a way to test a new approach to target

Photograph via Shutterstock

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