Management Components of the SDM Model
In addition to helping agencies improve the consistency of their decision-making process and make more efficient use of their resources, the SDM model includes two components designed specifically to facilitate the management and administration of child welfare agencies. These components—workload measurement and management information reports—build on and help maximize the usefulness of the model’s decision-making components.
Workload Measurement
The model’s workload measurement component is based on the assumption that simple caseload counts do not adequately capture the amount of time—and therefore the number of staff members—needed to fulfill a child welfare agency’s mandates. Moreover, given the SDM model’s delineation of distinct case types and differential service standards, caseload counts are an ineffective measure for determining how workload should be distributed across work units or among individual staff members. Workload measurement translates a caseload into time requirements and, ultimately, into staffing needs. To establish a workload measurement system, agencies need to conduct a simple case-based time study and determine the amount of time that staff actually need to meet service standards for various types of cases. This information is used to calculate the agency’s total workload “demand,” which can then be compared with the agency’s current “supply” of available staff. Knowing both the monthly time requirement for each type of case and the total workload demand allows an agency to:
- Provide a rational, empirical basis for budget and staffing requests to external funding sources.
- Develop an internal system for equalizing workload across work units or among staff members.
- Estimate the impact of new service responsibilities or budget restrictions on the agency’s delivery of services.
Because a workload-based budget allows an agency to specify its case-related service standards and identify the number of staff members required to serve cases according to those standards, such a budget becomes, in essence, a service contract with funding sources. If, for example, a funding body agrees that high-risk cases should be seen by staff at least four times per month, it becomes the funding body’s responsibility to provide a sufficient number of staff to allow the agency to meet that level of service. With a workload-based budget, funding bodies will know exactly what level of service will be provided based on the level of staff resources allocated. The effect of budget reductions on client service will be readily apparent, as will the effect of increases in resources. Workload measurement translates caseload into time requirements and, ultimately, staffing needs.
Quality Assurance and Evaluation Using SDM Management Information
Since the implementation of the Federal standards that accompany the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, the emphasis on accountability in child welfare has reached new heights. Agencies now know that their decisions will be monitored for compliance with Federal mandates and State policy. An important feature of the SDM model, therefore, is that it provides information that allows agency management to routinely monitor compliance with standards, assess the impact of policy, identify service needs, and identify programs and intervention strategies that provide the best results for various types of cases. A basic premise underlying SDM is that the information needed to make good decisions at the individual case level (e.g., structured assessments of risk and service needs) is the same information needed in aggregate form by agency supervisors, analysts, and administrators. Figures 9 and 10 illustrate how agency managers can use aggregate information drawn from SDM records. Aggregate risk information can document changes in the nature of the client population. The data in figure 9, for example, reveal significant increases over a 5-year period in the proportion of substantiated cases identified as “high” and “very high” risk, clearly documenting changes in workload and indicating that new challenges face the agency. Figure 10 shows how managers can use needs and service referral data to monitor the extent to which clients are receiving services for identified problems and the effectiveness of those services in terms of reducing subsequent substantiated incidents of maltreatment.
|
Source: Children’s Research Center, 1999.
|
* Of these, services were unavailable for 1.7%, 12.7% refused services, and 37.4% received
no referral.
| Previous | Contents | Next |
 |
|
| Preventing Delinquency Through Improved Child Protection Services |
|