About the Department

The Research and Evaluation Department is actively engaged in program evaluation and other research activities with all Casey Family Services programs. Among our recent research efforts are studies of outcomes for alumni of our long-term foster care program as well as the costs of providing aftercare services to these young adults, pathways into and through treatment foster care, the effectiveness of our family reunification and family preservation programs, and a description of the families seeking post-adoption services and their service needs. Our goal is to support and strengthen service provision, as well as to build knowledge of effective case practice and programming and to disseminate this knowledge to others in the child welfare field.

Our projects are conducted both internally by department staff and through contracts with external researchers. In all of our projects we strive to achieve a high level of integration of research and clinical practice. We are committed to involving program participants, including administrators, clinicians, service recipients and community collaterals, in every phase of the research process whenever possible.

The Research and Evaluation Department's overall goals are to:

• Support and strengthen program development and service provision;
• Respond to the research questions and interests of agency staff and collaborate with staff in exploring such questions whenever possible;
• Add to the knowledge base regarding effective practice with families and children in child welfare settings;
• Disseminate empirically based knowledge internally within the agency and externally to the child welfare field.