QIC-WD 2019 All-Site Meeting

“It’s a heavy burden to look up at the mountain and want to start the climb.”

- Abby Wambach

The entire QIC-WD team met in Denver last month to share their planned interventions, discuss implementation and evaluation efforts, and consider our collective journey. The full team includes Site Implementation Managers (SIMs), Data Coordinators, and Sponsors from each of the eight public and tribal child welfare agencies and experts in workforce, implementation, evaluation, dissemination, and data visualization from five universities and private consultants. This is the second all-site meeting held by the QIC-WD. The Children’s Bureau was also present to highlight the need to strengthen the child welfare workforce and the administration’s priorities.

Meeting highlights included presentations from all the sites, discussions of implementation evaluation, fidelity and administrative data, and peer-to-peer discussions about readiness, sustainability, workforce interventions, and research design.  

Some sites have begun implementation, others are preparing for it in the coming months, and a few are developing interventions with implementation planned a little further down the road. Each site shared which intervention they selected and what they learned through their needs assessment process.

Defining an intervention, threats to internal validity, and data were key topics as the sites and QIC-WD team discussed key issues important to implementation and good evaluation. Through exercises and group dialogue the team talked about the importance of clarifying what (i.e., the intervention) is being evaluated and how to identify potential risks that could harm the intervention and evaluation.

Teams broke out by site, role (e.g., SIM, Data Coordinator), and research design type to dig a little deeper into current challenges and share strategies for progress. Facilitated discussions allowed meeting attendees to exchange ideas with one another from across the sites and teams.

The first all-site meeting (in Louisville 2018) ended with a vision of the stars that guide our journey. The Denver meeting identified the mountains we are climbing on our journey and concluded with an exercise to identify what we all hope to see when we reach the summit. We look forward to gathering in 2020 as we continue the journey of the QIC-WD and learn together about what works to strengthen the child welfare workforce.

“Every mountain top is within reach if you just keep climbing.”

- Barry Finlay