Southern Regional Quality Improvement Center

Mission of the Quality Improvement Centers

The SR QIC is one of four Quality Improvement Centers for Child Protection funded by the Children’s Bureau to improve the Child Protective Services system by addressing issues(s) that are integral to developing new CPS strategies, which may include but are not limited to: determining appropriate levels of risk and child safety, ways to build and sustain community partnerships, and appropriate outcome measures by which to gauge the effectiveness of reform efforts. There is also a Quality Improvement Center focusing on adoption.

The Quality Improvement Centers were designed to perform the following functions:

Increase the capabilities of agencies in identified geographical areas to improve frontline CPS practices;
Foster the development of collaborative partnerships on the local and regional level
Promote collaborative problem solving;
Develop and implement research and demonstration projects to promote innovation, evidence-based practice improvements, and advancement of knowledge;
Establish an information-sharing network to disseminate information on promising practices; and
Improve the quality and availability of CPS delivery systems in a specified geographical area.

The SR QIC Process
The Southern Regional Quality Improvement Center ( SR QIC) utilizes working partnerships between child protection agencies, university social work programs, and the community in ten states in rural southern region to support and evaluate innovative projects designed to improve the child protective services system within a Learning Lab Model. This is a five year process. The Center’s work is guided by an Advisory Board comprised of representatives from each state and includes a mixture of public child welfare administrators, university faculty, parents and community partners. The SR QIC staff and Advisory Board conducted a needs assessment within the region to select a focus area in which demonstration projects within the region will be funded. A literature review was conducted to explore the selected focus area in detail and provide applicants with the information necessary to design proposals based on current evidence in the area and identified gaps. The SR QIC has developed a research plan to guide the evaluation of projects and the comparative analysis, which will be conducted by the University of Kentucky to determine what works well under what circumstances. The fifth year of the process will focus on this analysis, dissemination of findings and discussion and planning within the region to determine how this information can best be used to improve services and outcomes for children across the region and nationally.

Objectives of the SR QIC:

To create regional Learning Laboratories in the ten state region that will provide collaborative problem-solving, program evaluation and practice improvement in child improvements that build lasting capacity in public and private agencies throughout the region’s protective services. These Learning Laboratories, supported by the SR QIC, will be places where practitioners, researchers, community partners and recipients of service focus and work together to solve child protection practice issues.
To provide ongoing collaboration with local communities within the specified region to create demonstration projects focused on evidence-based practice improvements that measure outcomes and will improve child welfare delivery systems. Using an evidence base for all programs will provide a foundation of practice that will be expanded and evaluated.
To support practice improvements that build lasting capacity in public and private agencies in the region by expanding university and community partnerships to provide a reinvigorated research and community support base for ongoing work, to train future practitioners in state of the art practice and to provide training partnerships that allow for expanded use of state and federal funding.

The Learning Lab Model
Through the use of mentor teams comprised of members of our Advisory Board assigned to each funded project, practitioners will have the benefit of cutting edge knowledge in child protection and research expertise to inform and support their work, thereby generating evidence-based practice approaches that will benefit the entire field. The Learning Labs and the Advisory Board will have ongoing dialogue with each other and members of the Advisory Board through the creative use of technology and cyber-conferencing. The approach taken will promote long-lasting capacity in our region that will sustain beyond the grant period by building partnerships between public child welfare agencies, universities and community agencies. Long term impact will be enhanced by the generation of university graduates who are well prepared to practice in public child welfare, and the shaping of faculty research to address important questions in the field of child protection. The goal is for these organizations to continue to strive for evidence-based practice and grounded innovation in their efforts to improve the provision of child protective services. The training and technical assistance that will be provided by the University of Kentucky College of Social Work Training Resource Center, in concert with the Advisory Board and the entire Children’s Bureau Network, will promote collaborative problem-solving and a strong foundation of program evaluation, which will then yield results which can be disseminated throughout the country for use by administrators, researchers and practitioners.