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Building Evidence of Success for Kinship Programs: Tips and Strategies

July 17, 2023

Headshots of Dr. Angelique Day and Berenice Rushovich
Resources

Download the presentation

View the webinar recording

Sample Data Sharing Agreement

Sample Data Sharing Agreement with Tribes

Sample Data Sharing Agreement with Kinship Navigator Programs

Additional Resources


Whether you’re a large nonprofit organization, a government agency, or a small community nonprofit, you need to demonstrate the success of your kinship program to funders and other stakeholders. Showing success requires a strategic approach and an understanding of general principles that support effective data collection and evaluation. This is equally important for programs in the early stages of demonstrating program success and those planning formal evaluations. Join us for a webinar led by two experts who are helping kinship programs across the country build evidence of success. 

The Grandfamilies & Kinship Support Network hosted a webinar on July 17, 2023 with presenters Dr. Angelique Day, Network Subject Matter Expert and Berenice Rushovich, MSW, Child Trends to highlight key considerations for getting started or reaffirming your current strategy for building evidence.

Please listen to the webinar recording to learn more and explore the foundational principles and strategies to demonstrate success, including:

  • Developing a Theory of Change and Logic Model that drive your strategy
  • Partnering for data collection
  • Forming data-sharing agreements with the right stakeholders
  • Understanding tribal considerations in partnering on data collection and sharing
  • Navigating Institutional Review Boards reviews
  • Using your strategy to demonstrate success
  • Planning ahead for a formal evaluation
  • Accessing tips and resources if submitting to the California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare or the Title IV-E Prevention Services Clearinghouse

Our Presenters: 

Dr. Angelique Day is a Subject Matter Expert (SME) of the Grandfamilies & Kinship Support Network. She is an associate professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Washington – Seattle and faculty affiliate of the Indigenous Wellness Research Institute and Partners for Our Children. These research and policy think tanks are dedicated to the development and dissemination of original research in the fields of child welfare and indigenous child and family wellbeing. Angelique has provided technical assistance (TA) to the State of Washington in the development and evaluation of their kinship navigator program and assisted Washington tribes in tribally adapting the model for implementation at their own sites. She is also the evaluator for two investing in families’ grantees, where she is tracking the efficacy of models designed to increase kinship licensure and placement rates in state and tribal child welfare settings across multiple states. Angelique is also an evaluation consultant with Casey Family Programs, where she provides TA support to four states building and evaluating kinship navigator programs.    

Berenice Rushovich, MSW, is a Senior Research Scientist at Child Trends, one of the five national partner organizations of the Grandfamilies & Kinship Support Network. Ms. Rushovich has over 15 years’ experience managing research and evaluation studies in the child welfare field. She specializes in the study of programs and services for kinship caregivers and is currently the principal investigator on the evaluation of a kinship therapeutic foster care pilot, a kinship navigator program evaluation, and the Grandfamilies & Kinship Support Network National Technical Assistance Center. She has experience in mixed research methods, with an emphasis on qualitative research including focus group design and analysis, implementation science, and fidelity assessments. A few of her research projects included the evaluation of two evidence informed foster parent trauma-training models in child welfare; developing continuous quality improvement plans and processes for community-based agencies, and conducting evaluations of their current practices and making recommendations on how these could be improved. She has presented evaluation findings at numerous conferences.  

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