A Taxonomy and Recording Instrument for Process Measurement of Family Preservation Services

Evaluations of family preservation services have focused overwhelmingly on outcomes. For the family preservation practitioner, however, an understanding of the processes of family preservation is critical to effective practice. Few family preservation evaluations have demonstrated which service components, characteristics, and compositions lead to positive outcomes for families. A taxonomy and recording instrument are proposed for explicating and measuring the process of family preservation services by practitioners and programs to improve the correlation of services to family needs and to service outcomes. Evaluations of family preservation services to date have focused overwhelmingly on outcomes [Hooper-Briar et al. 1995], the endpoint of services. Significant research also exists on client family characteristics, the starting point of services, and how those characteristics relate to outcomes [for example, Barth et al. 1986; Berry 1992; Bribitzer & Verdieck 1988; Hess et al. 1992]. The least explored and, perhaps, most complicated component of family preservation--what the services entail--is the focus of this article. This middle component of services may be called the "process" of family preservation. Few programs conduct process evaluations, perhaps because they seem to be too daunting and perplexing to undertake [Turner 19931. "We have little systematically collected information about.what workers actually do with family members" [Wells & Freer 1994: 405]. Nonetheless, "these moment-to-moment interactions are likely to be quite critical to the success of a program" [Schuerman et al. 1994: 206]. Evaluation of family preservation services must elucidate the state of the family when it entered services, what the services entailed, and the state of the family when services ended and at follow-up. Inquiry into all three components is necessary to demonstrate the efficacy of family preservation services [Berry 1995; Fraser et al. 1991; Schuerman et al. 1994; Wells & Biegel 1991; Yuan & Rivest 1990]. Moreover, the literature recommends that more qualitative, process (ecologically) oriented evaluations of family preservation services be undertaken [Cheetham 1992; Hooper-Briar et al. 1995; Wells & Biegel 1991; Wells & Freer 1994]. Such processoriented evaluations of family preservation services will determine the evolution of the service model into the next century. This article proposes a theoretically grounded, empirically based taxonomy and corresponding recording instrument for measuring what family preservation workers do, or the process of family preservation services. The use of this taxonomy (classification system) and recording instrument will allow service composition and characteristics to be directly correlated to client family needs and family preservation program goals and outcomes. A consistent taxonomical approach can also facilitate monitoring and improvement of practice by individual family preservation workers and allow comparisons of services across family preservation programs. Family preservation services refer to "[g]enerally, the help provided [by] a combination of concrete resources, skills training, and counseling with the intent of doing whatever is necessary to help the children remain safely in the home" [Blythe et al. 1994: 214]. This package of services is usually intensive in nature and provided primarily in the home or in the community to families and children where one or more children are at risk of, or are in, outof-home placement. The literature reviewed here includes both family reunification services and family preservation services due to the striking similarities in the target populations, services provided, and desired outcomes [Maluccio et al. 1993; Staff & Fein 1994]. Literature Review Family Characteristics The literature on client family characteristics--or the state of the family at intake--reveals substantial similarities in the demographics and problems of the families served. …