The current state

A review of current recruitment literature and anecdotal reports reveal that there has not been much emphasis on evaluating the effectiveness of recruitment at state and local sites. One major barrier to evaluation is that there is often a large disconnect between the actual recruitment initiatives and the processes that lead to licensing and placement outcomes. Quite often the staff who do recruitment activities and the staff who respond to inquiries and the staff who do training and assessment studies are in different departments and even different organizations and geographic locations. More often than not, the recruitment and placement staff have entirely different value systems, work pressures and priorities and may be pointing fingers at each other when results are dismal. Under these circumstances, it is no wonder that recruitment data tells managers how many families were recruited, but doesn’t tell them how many families were licensed or approved as a result of a particular strategy or type of recruitment effort.

Many states have internal tracking systems to tell where a particular parent is in the inquiry to placement process. Some of these systems are automated and many are tracked manually through logs maintained by the unit supervisor.

Current reporting mechanisms tell us very little about the parents who opt out of the process at any point. And, thus, there is not sufficient data available to target improvements along the continuum from recruitment to placement.

Some evaluation initiatives in process

AdoptUSKids is collaborating with the University of Texas at Austin to evaluate recruitment barriers. This study will look at why parents are dropping out of the process at different stages and the many barriers affecting our ability to retain families for children. AdoptUSKids will be sharing the findings of this and other research studies as soon as reliable data can be made available to the states.

Jeff Katz, at Harvard University, has conducted extensive interviews with families who have experienced the recruitment and follow-up process for adoption and foster care in 3 large urban areas. His findings are not published as yet, but preliminary data suggests that the recruitment and systems for engaging families to become foster and adoptive parents are badly broken. For example, his data suggests that of 240,000 inquiries in the studied sites, only 8,000 families made it through to licensing or approval. This is a meager 3.3%. He has interviewed hundreds of prospective parents and is convinced that the problem is not getting them to the door, but is the agency's intake and other processes that defeat the recruitment efforts.

Without effective evaluation processes, how does an agency know if it is using its very limited resources in the most cost effective ways?

What a state or agency can do now to improve its recruitment efforts

“The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it”. General Norman Schwarzkopf

States can make changes on the basis of what they already know. Based on anecdotal reports from the field, a state can assume that any improvements made to its response system will result in more families making it through the system. For example, in Kentucky, Hillsborough County initiated a process where a personal visit or telephone call was made within 2 days of the inquiry call. Their data showed that 14.9% more parents came to orientation as a result. Another interesting statistic is that the lowest drop-out rate occurred when a current resource family referred a new family to the agency. This finding just confirms what we already know. That is, when resource parents are involved in referrals, the prospective family is more likely to stay in the process. Involvement of resource parents in all stages of the process, including initial recruitment, doing follow-up with initial inquiries, co- training and providing support services, are strategies that show great promise in improving outcomes from recruitment.

Tracking and evaluation for continuous quality improvements

In its efforts to improve its recruitment program, a state will want to sharpen its ability to make changes based on evidence of what is working and what is not working. States rarely have the resources to do full blown evaluations, except in demonstration projects. But, integrating methods for collecting evaluation data into their current processes will be helpful in determining what to keep and what to change.

Evaluation usually starts with identifying what questions need to be answered. In recruitment most agencies ask questions about the following, mostly quantitative, areas:

• How many parents inquired about becoming foster or adoptive parents?
• How did they learn about the organization?
• How many parents came to orientation?
• How many parents came to pre-service training?
• How many completed pre-service training?
• How many families were licensed or approved?

To get the information needed to improve processes, agencies must also ask questions about quality of services and response to parents, such as:

• What specific recruitment effort did a parent respond to and what appealed to them?
• How helpful was orientation? Did they get sufficient information at orientation?
• How helpful was the pre-service training?
• At what step and why did families drop out of the process?
• Were families satisfied with the process at each step?
• Did families think they were valued and respected during the process?
• What changes would families recommend?
• What aspects of our approach are particularly relevant to the culture of our target populations? What works, what does not?
• What are the barriers to service delivery?
• How much time did it take to complete the process?
• What are common reasons for delays at each step?
• What do seasoned parents think of the process and how would they change it?
• What changes would staff make in the process and why?
• Is our process effective in attaining desired outcomes with the target population?
• What changes in services, process or policies are needed to improve effectiveness?

Methods for tracking information and data

Tracking and sorting of data can be best achieved through the use of a spreadsheet (like MS Excel) or database (like MS Access). Careful consideration must be given in designing your data capture and reporting system. What is the data going to be used for?

• What specific data elements need to be collected?
• How current does the data need to be?
• Who is going to need to see it?
• How often will the data have to be reported?
• What decisions need to be made from it?

Questions like these help to determine what information really needs to be gathered and how often.

Next, you need to consider:

• How much data will be collected e.g., between 50 and 100 cases or cases numbering in the thousands?
• Over what period of time e.g., a few months or many years?
• How many people will be entering the data?
• How many people will be asking for reports?

Answers to these questions will help determine what kind of system will be necessary

• Hand written logs
• Hand written 3x5 cards in alphabetical order
• Spreadsheets
• Database on one computer in the agency
• Database located on a server where several users can access data but only a few can enter or change the date
• Full blown enterprise-wide database system with remote access and voice activated capability

Usually, in larger agencies, an internal IT person/department or quality assurance department will assist in developing the data and reporting systems and training staff in its use. Smaller agencies can contract with database experts to help design, install and train staff. Be sure to ask for references. States can also contact the National Resource Center for Information Technology in Child Welfare (www.nrcitcw.org) for technical assistance, evaluation methods and procedures.

Process Mapping: In the Toolkit, in Section 6 of this guide, are examples of process maps/flowcharts that could be used in determining the current process gaps, redundancies and areas where valuable time is wasted from inquiry to placement. The recruitment process involves a lot of hand-offs and steps that might be shortened if done concurrently. These tools will be helpful in determining what changes might be made to make the current process more efficient and effective.

Reviewing/revising current forms and process: Current forms, e.g., intake forms can be reviewed and changes made to collect important information within current processes, such as, how did the parent hear about the agency? Orientation and pre-service training can have brief evaluation questions related to the process, access, and relevance of training, etc. Self-addressed postcards can be given to parents to remind them of next events and asking for anonymous, periodic feedback on how the agency is doing.

Client satisfaction surveys: Many agencies now send out client satisfaction surveys to meet contractual, licensing and/or accreditation standards. Parents who are in the recruitment process can be added to the list. At critical steps in the process, parents can be asked to comment on their satisfaction with the process and how it can be improved.

Surveying parents who drop out: Simple cards can be sent to parents to determine their reasons for dropping out and the possibility of future interest. Also, follow up telephone calls can solicit this information. Possibly a volunteer could be asked to do this for the agency.

Focus groups: Periodic focus groups might be held. For example, an agency's ongoing parent group might be asked to take time on the agenda, every six months or so to give feedback to the agency about its responsiveness to parents during the recruitment to placement process and how this can be approved.

As AdoptUSKids continues to provide technical assistance in states, a benchmarking focus will be to identify and examine effective evaluation and tracking procedures and tools used. AdoptUSKids will disseminate findings regularly through periodic bulletins and on the website.

[D]

There are two types of time being depicted on this chart.

• Activity Time – shown at the bottom of each box. This is the time it takes to actually do the activity e.g., write up a home study
  
• Wait Time – shown on the arrow connecting the boxes. This is the time between activities e.g., it may take several weeks from when the final home visit was done and when the social worker gets a chance to write it up.

Where is the majority of time being spent?
In this example, the total time from recruitment event to submission of licensing paperwork is 28 to 32 weeks (6 ½ - 7 months). Of this, 19 to 22 weeks is spent waiting (the time shown next to the arrows). That's over 65% of the total time where nothing is happening. Generally speaking, the best way to speed things up is to understand and reduce Wait Time, the time between activities. Look for doing steps concurrently rather than serially. For example, could the home study be done during the last 4 to 5 weeks of pre-service training thereby saving 4 or more weeks of Wait Time?

Data Elements for Recruitment and Retention Planning

This form meant to help you select what data elements, reports and/or special study reports you already have and those that you might still need to target recruitment and retention of families in your state and/or local sites. These will help focus work on the right population and any special characteristics or considerations.

Targeting Recruitment

Characteristics of Children:

Characteristics of All Currently Recruited and Licensed/Approved Families:

Additional questions about the potential availability of resource families. Does you state have a system to track:

1. Foster homes having vacancies and to match characteristics of families to children who wait?
2. Total number of foster families who are currently licensed/certified/approved and are active
3. Total number of adoptive families who are currently approved and are active
4. Number of foster/adopt parents who are waiting to have adoptions finalized
5. Number of certified/licensed foster families who are waiting for placements
6. Number of approved adoptive families who are waiting for placement
7. Has your State done any marketing studies to target recruitment efforts? If so please include a copy.
8. How does your State target its recruitment efforts to offset disproportionality between the pool of children needing care and the racial/cultural characteristics of available families (MEPA, IEPA, ICWA)?
   

Tracking and Evaluation

1. For every 100 people who make an initial inquiry into becoming a foster care/adoptive parent, how many make it through each stage of the orientation/qualification process? See example below from a sample State.

   Following is an example of tracking the number of total inquires, dropout rates and when dropouts occur
   

[D]

2. Does your state correlate source of recruitment with results? Such as: referral from other foster or adoptive parent(s), media (television, radio, newspapers, and billboards), special recruitment events, faith based sources, National Ad Campaign, etc.
3. Does your state or service area conduct satisfaction surveys of foster care/adoptive parents?
4. Does your state conduct surveys and/or exit interviews of prospective families who have dropped out of the process?
5. Does your state collect data, conduct surveys and/or exit interviews of licensed/approved families who have dropped out?