Project Details
Description
An evaluation of the impact of a new kinship care team service is required to aid planning within the Social Services Department. The evaluation needs to consider how far the original aims of the kinship project have been met and provide some cost comparisons with foster care.The evaluation will use a retrospective and prospective design.
In the retrospective part of the study, all the case files (n=50) will be examined and data collected on: the initial reason for referral, previous contacts with other agencies, involvement with CP, whether the child(ren) was/were previously looked after, the birth family’s and children’s characteristics, risk factors such as mental health problems, drug use, learning difficulties, school attendance, SATS and exam results, exclusions and truancy, offending history from review documents, information on the frequency of contact will be collected and any issues recorded. The summary ratings from the ICS system will be used to collate information using the ECM outcomes as a framework. This will give ‘core data’ on all the families who received a service and some data on families who were referred but, for different reasons, did not get a service.
To understand more about how service users have experienced the service, all the children and families who received a service will be contacted by letter and asked if they will be willing to be interviewed by a researcher. Written consent will be obtained for all participants and written consent will need to be received from birth parents before children (over the age of 7 years) are contacted. From this total sample we would expect to get agreement from approx 20 families. Data will be entered on an Access data base and analysed within Access and SPSS.
In the retrospective part of the study, all the case files (n=50) will be examined and data collected on: the initial reason for referral, previous contacts with other agencies, involvement with CP, whether the child(ren) was/were previously looked after, the birth family’s and children’s characteristics, risk factors such as mental health problems, drug use, learning difficulties, school attendance, SATS and exam results, exclusions and truancy, offending history from review documents, information on the frequency of contact will be collected and any issues recorded. The summary ratings from the ICS system will be used to collate information using the ECM outcomes as a framework. This will give ‘core data’ on all the families who received a service and some data on families who were referred but, for different reasons, did not get a service.
To understand more about how service users have experienced the service, all the children and families who received a service will be contacted by letter and asked if they will be willing to be interviewed by a researcher. Written consent will be obtained for all participants and written consent will need to be received from birth parents before children (over the age of 7 years) are contacted. From this total sample we would expect to get agreement from approx 20 families. Data will be entered on an Access data base and analysed within Access and SPSS.
Status | Finished |
---|---|
Effective start/end date | 1/01/03 → 1/04/06 |
Research Groups and Themes
- SPS Children and Families Research Centre
Fingerprint
Explore the research topics touched on by this project. These labels are generated based on the underlying awards/grants. Together they form a unique fingerprint.