Program Evaluation & Research:
Current Projects

The Butler Institute for Families is committed to contributing to the development of strong, evidence-based programs. Using rigorous, outcome-oriented approaches, the Butler Institute conducts research and program evaluation in a number of practice areas. The Butler Institute is committed to research that produces pragmatic, practice-based information that can be used to improve interventions.

Current research and program evaluation projects include the following federal, state, and local examples:

• Collaboration between TANF and Child Welfare to Improve Child Welfare Outcomes
• Denver’s Village: Wrapping Families with Community Support
• Improving Child Welfare Outcomes Through Systems of Care
• Improving Organizational Strength in Wisconsin
• Healthy Marriage and Family Formation Training Project
• Mountains and Plains Child Welfare Implementation Center
• National Child Welfare Workforce Institute
• Post-Adoption Demonstration Project - Improving Family and Marital Outcomes for Adoptive Families
• Promoting Effective Training Practices among Child Welfare Workers in Nevada
• Western Regional Recruitment and Retention Project
• Western Workforce Project

Collaboration between TANF and Child Welfare to Improve Child Welfare Outcomes:

The Butler Insitute is the evaluator for Jefferson County Human Services' TANF - Child Welfare Collaboration Project, funded through a grant from the federal DHHS, ACF.

 

Denver’s Village - Wrapping Families with Community Support:

Funded through a grant from the federal DHHS-ACF Children’s Bureau, the Butler Institute for Families is the evaluator for the City and County of Denver’s multi-faceted diligent recruitment grant designed to increase the number of resource families available for children in foster care.

 

Improving Child Welfare Outcomes Through Systems of Care:

Funded through a grant from the federal DHHS-ACF Children’s Bureau, the Butler Institute for Families is the evaluator for the Jefferson County Colorado Initiative, including the successful Parent Partner program linking knowledgeable mentors with families involved in child welfare.

 

Improving Organizational Strength in Wisconsin:

The Butler Institute conducts a comprehensive strengths-focused evaluation of the Wisconsin Child Welfare Training System to examine and make recommendations for improving organizational structure and functioning, the training evaluation processes and the potential impact of training on case practice and outcomes for families.

 

Healthy Marriage and Family Formation Training Project:

Multi-state technical assistance in Wyoming, Colorado, and Kansas in capacity building in the area of healthy marriage and family formation for child welfare professionals and clients funded through a federal HHS-ACF five-year grant.

Project Website: www.thebutlerinstitute.org/projects_marriage.cfm.

 

Mountains and Plains Child Welfare Implementation Center (MPCWIC):

The MPCWIC is one of five Child Welfare Implementation Centers established by cooperative agreement with the Children's Bureau in October 2008. Our role is to facilitate communication and peer-to-peer networking across State and Tribal child welfare systems in federal Region VI (Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas) and Region VIII (Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming). Each Implementation Center will assist States and Tribes to develop and execute in-depth, multi-year projects, intended to achieve sustainable system change that results in improved outcomes for children, youth and families. Additionally, the MPCWIC is a member of the Children's Bureau Training and Technical Assistance (T/TA) Network and will work collaboratively with the Child Welfare National Resource Centers and other members of the T/TA Network, and the Children's Bureau to meet identified MPCWIC project goals and to provide coordinated, individualized, intensive technical assistance to these regions' states and tribes.

Grant Partners: University of Texas, Arlington, School of Social Work's, Judith Granger Birmingham Center for Child Welfare (Project Lead) and grant partners the University of Denver, Butler Institute for Families, and the Native American Training Institute, Bismarck, North Dakota.

Project Website: www3.uta.edu/mpcwic.

 

National Child Welfare Workforce Institute (NCWWI):

The NCWWI’s purpose is to build the capacity of the nation’s child welfare workforce and improve outcomes for children and families through activities that support the development of skilled child welfare leaders in public, private and tribal child welfare systems. The goals are to derive promising practices in workforce development, identify and facilitate child welfare leadership training for middle managers and supervisors, administer BSW and MSW traineeships, engage national peer networks, support strategic dissemination of effective and promising workforce practices, and advance knowledge through collaboration and evaluation. Butler Institute for Families University of Denver is lead for two project components, the Knowledge Assessment and Management (KAM) and the overall project evaluation.

Grant Partners: SUNY at Albany School of Social Welfare (Project Lead), University of Iowa School of Social Work, University of Southern Maine’s Muskie School of Public Service, Michigan State University School of Social Work, University of Michigan School of Social Work, Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service, National Indian Child Welfare Association, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Social Work - Jordan Institute for Families, University of Denver Butler Institute for Families

Project Website: www.ncwwi.org/

 

Post-Adoption Demonstration Project - Improving Family and Marital Outcomes for Adoptive Families:

The Butler Institute evaluates the Colorado Communities for Adoptive Families program, which is funded by DHHS-ACF Children's Bureau to implement innovative post-adoption services. This includes an assessment of a new innovative approach to use marriage strengthening to support adoptive parental relationship health and prevent adoption disruption.

 

Promoting Effective Training Practices among Child Welfare Workers in Nevada:

The Butler Institute evaluation team conducts comprehensive training assessment and evaluates the effectiveness of efforts to address training needs and promote professionalism among child welfare workers through this collaborative endeavor involving the Nevada Division of Child and Family Services; the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Child Welfare Improvement Initiative; the University of Nevada, Reno: Nevada Training Partnership; and the University of Denver, Butler Institute for Families (DU).

 

Western Regional Recruitment and Retention Project (WRRRP):

A five-year DHHS-ACF Children's Bureau child welfare training grant. Organizational and training needs assessment for six child welfare sites in Colorado, Arizona, and Wyoming funded through a federal HHS-ACF five-year grant.

Project Website: www.thebutlerinstitute.org/projects_wrrrp.cfm

 

Western Workforce Project (WW):

The U.S. Children’s Bureau (Administration for Children and Families, Department of Health and Human Services) recently awarded funding for five National Child Welfare Workforce Initiatives. The Butler Institute for Families University of Denver, in partnership with the Native American Training Institute (NATI), has been awarded one of these five-year cooperative agreements.

The Western Workforce Project is designed to create and test a workforce assessment and intervention model focused on organizational health. The overall goals and approach of the Western Workforce are to:

• Develop, conduct, and test a comprehensive organizational health assessment
• Develop an intervention model to address workforce issues, initiated and designed by teams at each site
• Build a learning culture at each site through the development of “learning circles”
• Provide professional educational opportunities by offering BSW and MSW traineeships at all sites and integrating stipend students into site teams

Through the Western Workforce Project, the Butler Institute and Native American Training Institute will have the opportunity to work collaboratively at sites and institutions of higher learning in three states. The following project sites have been chosen to represent a range of organizational and geographic realities in the western U.S.

• Denver County (Colorado), Department of Human Services (DDHS); Metro State College
• Casper, Wyoming, Department of Family Services; University of Denver and University of Wyoming
• North Dakota Tribes: Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara (Three Affiliated Tribes), Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa; University of North Dakota, Turtle Mountain Tribal College, and Minot State University

Grant Partners: University of Denver Butler Institute for Families (Project Lead)and the Native American Training Institute, Bismarck, North Dakota.