Children & Family Services

Annie E. Casey Foundation, Family to Family Initiative: Development of Self-Evaluation Capacity

The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Family to Family Initiative is a major child-welfare-reform initiative that has sought for 14 years to change child welfare systems, most recently by advocating for more children to remain safely with their own families or family-like systems. The initiative provides states and communities with tools to establish neighborhood-based networks of care that ensure an adequate number of foster families and preserve the family whenever possible.

In 1992, Metis Associates worked with city and state agencies within the Family to Family initiative to evaluate their own progress toward the project’s goals. Metis staff members were also part of a team of technical assistance providers who produced the initiative’s guide to self-evaluation.  In addition, Metis facilitated a workgroup representing 88 counties in Ohio that defined a data model to support Ohio’s Automated Child Welfare Information System (SACWIS) requirements and local business rules.