Formative Evaluation of Family Finding 

FINAL REPORT 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

August, 2016 

Karin Malm, MS, Senior Program Area Director 

Sarah Catherine Williams, MSW, Research Scientist 

Kristina Rosinsky, MPP, Senior Research Analyst
1 

Executive Summary 

This report presents findings from an evaluation of enhancements made by the Children’s Home Society 

of North Carolina (CHS) to Family Finding (FF), a relative search and engagement model, designed to 

identify and engage family members to provide support and permanent homes for children in foster 

care. Prior to CHS’s work to enhance the model and expand services across the state, Child Trends 

conducted a rigorous impact and comprehensive implementation evaluation of FF services in nine North 

Carolina counties. That evaluation yielded some evidence consistent with practitioners’ and program 

developers’ expectations about how FF works, but also some evidence to the contrary. FF specialists did 

succeed in identifying and engaging relatives and other kin; however children who received FF services 

were no more likely than children assigned to the control group to experience positive placement 

outcomes. 

In addition, several evaluations of FF (including the previous one in North Carolina) found full 

implementation of the model to be challenging for provider agencies. While the program developer’s 

description of the model includes six components or steps,1 evaluations found only the first four 

components were operational and fully implemented. Unfortunately, the final two components—

evaluation and follow-up supports—which relied on collaboration between the worker conducting FF

services and the case-carrying social worker, were never clearly articulated during trainings and thus, 

unable to be fully implemented. These challenges suggest the need for more research to determine 

whether and how model fidelity can be attained, and whether consistent implementation with fidelity 

would result in positive outcomes. It is on this foundation that CHS developed an enhanced FF model, 

and together with Child Trends, developed measures of fidelity, and collaborated on this evaluation. 

Description of services 

In response to the earlier findings, CHS revised the six-step FF model by offering three increasingly 

intensive tiers of services (See Figure). Each tier is targeted to specific populations, to ensure that 

children receive the specific array of services most likely t

most efficient manner possible. Tier 1 is a diligent search 

service designed only to notify relatives of children new t

out-of-home care. Tier 2 is similar in scope to the original 

FF model’s first four components (see figure), while Tier 3

includes the first four steps and two new steps developed

by CHS, designed to engage relatives and fictive kin who 

can provide legal permanence to youth through adoption,

guardianship, or transfer of custody. In addition to the FF 

services, CHS offered their child-specific adoption 

recruitment (CSR) services to counties, based on the 

Wendy’s Wonderful Kids model. 

o support their permanency outcomes in the 

o 

 

1

 The six steps in the model include discovery, engagement, planning, decision-making, evaluation, and follow-up 

supports (National Institute for Permanent Family Connectedness, n.d.).
2 

Evaluation design

Given the substantial revisions to the model, and as a precursor to a second rigorous evaluation, Child 

Trends and CHS (together with funding partners) proposed a formative evaluation to assess the overall 

referral process (of children to FF) and the degree to which the different tiers of FF were implemented 

with fidelity. As part of the evaluation Child Trends would also identify program challenges and new 

ways to overcome the challenges. In addition, we tracked outcomes for the children served to compare 

them with outcomes experienced by children served during the previous evaluation, and to inform the 

design of a future impact evaluation. Outcomes examined included: achievement of legal permanency; 

experiencing a placement step down; experiencing a move from a non-relative to a relative home; 

obtaining commitments to legal or relational permanency; the number of family connections 

discovered; a child’s knowledge of their family history; a child’s overall permanency readiness; and 

general child well-being. 

Children served 

Between January 1, 2014 and February 19, 2016, 375 children received FF services and 113 children 

received CSR services. As expected, some counties referred more cases than others. Early on, CHS 

struggled to meet the referral goals in each county and DSS staff reported several reasons for not 

referring children, including not believing there was a need for the services and few children meeting 

the eligibility criteria. CHS began intensive marketing and outreach efforts in July 2014, which were 

successful in increasing the number of referrals over time. By the end of the evaluation period, CHS was 

receiving appropriate referrals on a consistent basis and had developed a waiting list. 

As expected, there were differences in the characteristics between children served by each program. 

Children served by Tier 3 and CSR were older, more likely to have impairments, have been in care 

longer, and had more prior placements than children served by Tier 1 and Tier 2, characteristics that 

may make them less likely to experience positive outcomes. Further, children served during the previous 

evaluation period have characteristics that may make them less likely than children served by Tier 3 and 

CSR to experience positive outcomes. 

Key findings 

Our examination of program implementation and fidelity and child outcomes found: 

 CHS implemented the new tiered FF program in a purposeful and supportive manner. CHS leaders 

supported the program by providing guidance and providing comprehensive training to FF staff. 

Department of Social Service (DSS) administrators and staff genuinely appreciated the trainings 

provided by CHS and requested additional trainings due to high turnover. In addition, CHS’s 

reputation for providing quality services and the high degree of trust between DSS and CHS 

leadership provided a foundation for strong collaboration. 

 Earlier model components (i.e., those implemented previously under the original FF model) were 

implemented with overall greater fidelity than the later components (i.e., the newly added FF 

activities, such as child and family preparation). This finding is not surprising given that many of the 

FF specialists and supervisors had several years’ experience conducting the former model of FF. 
3 

However, FF specialists were able to implement the newer components of the model for some 

cases, demonstrating it is possible to implement all components of the model. 

 Overall, compared with children served during the previous evaluation, children served by CHS 

during this study period (receiving Tiers 2 and 3) experienced better permanency and placement 

outcomes. However, the findings should be interpreted with considerable caution. While we 

controlled for child and case characteristics to the extent possible, there could be a number of 

untested reasons for the slightly better outcomes experienced by children during this study. 

 In general, when FF services were implemented with greater fidelity, children experienced better 

outcomes. This finding, too, should be interpreted with caution as it represents an association 

between fidelity and outcomes, not a causal relationship. 

Overall, the findings suggest CHS’ efforts to modify and enhance the original FF model and expand FF

services across the state were successful, and thus likely warrant further fidelity testing and additional, 

more rigorous evaluation. The methods developed to measure fidelity, and the continuous assessment 

of findings, provide a strong foundation upon which CHS can continue to improve the model and further 

expand its services. The detailed information collected as a part of the evaluation on the types of 

children served by each tier of FF and CSR provides CHS with important data for modifying their 

outreach efforts. This information is also important as it tells us that additional, more targeted outreach 

efforts may be necessary in order to obtain an adequate sample for a rigorous impact study. 

Recommendations 

It is important to remember that implementation research finds it takes programs two to four years to 

reach full model fidelity. While CHS has implemented some form of FF for more than five years, their 

experience with the enhanced model spans just two years. Not only did CHS modify and expand the 

model activities, they greatly expanded the size of their staff and service area. Prior to undergoing a 

subsequent rigorous evaluation, it would benefit CHS (and the field) to be assured their FF practice is 

being implemented with full fidelity. We therefore offer the following recommendations prior to 

conducting a second rigorous evaluation: 

 Increase support among stakeholders including continued training for DSS workers and other 

stakeholders, and consideration of co-location of FF specialists in DSS offices. Target trainings to all 

levels of staff to ensure widespread buy-in and have FF specialists discuss their role and goals with 

DSS workers.

 More training for FF specialists so fidelity of the newer model stages—child and family preparation 

and post-decision making meeting—can improve. 

 Continue to monitor fidelity and outcomes to determine whether fidelity can be improved and/or 

sustained. 

 Expand efforts to strategically assign cases to maintain manageable caseloads including staggering 

referrals to FF specialists and assessing the difficulty of each case. 

 Conduct additional small-scale analyses prior to another rigorous evaluation including testing more 

rigorous fidelity measures, and understanding how the services translate into outcomes.