|
| METHODOLOGY
Child Welfare Agency Poll The Muskie project team conducted the child welfare agency poll by telephone during January through May 2002. The team developed and used a data collection instrument that assessed areas in which meeting ASFA requirements has impacted staff or changed the way the agency does business and allowed agencies to update the information they provided during the 2001 poll. The final instrument consisted of ten questions. (A copy of the final child welfare agency phone poll instrument appears in Appendix C in this document.) Most of the questions were multi-part, closed ended, with selections based on the results of the 2001 poll. Space was provided for additional comments. The nine questions covered a variety of topics. They were:
If possible the 2002 phone poll was conducted with the person who responded to the 2001 poll. The poll took approximately 30 minutes to complete. Once the poll was completed, the Muskie project team e-mailed or faxed a copy of the completed instrument to the respondent for review and comment. When the respondent's comments were returned, the project team coded and entered data into a statistical analysis program (SPSS). The analysts performed comparisons of data from the 2001 and 2002 polls, county-administered versus state based systems and states that were in the initial (planning and assessment) phases of the Child and Family Services Reviews versus those in the later phases (review completed and working under a Program Improvement Plan). Additionally, analysts ran frequencies to get an overview of the results. A complete print out of the child welfare agency poll frequencies appears in Appendix A. In addition, several direct quotes from the participants are presented in the Results portion of the report to more comprehensively explain the details of the responses. Responses were received from 41 states, which is 6 fewer that last year. Two states indicated that they were no longer participating in written surveys or phone polls due to staffing shortages. The information on county-administered states represents the responses of 10 states where the child welfare system is state supervised, county administered. Responses were also received from two states that are regionally administered - Tennessee and Washington. COURT IMPROVEMENT PROJECT POLL As with the child welfare agency poll, the Muskie project team contacted the court improvement project representative who participated in the 2001 poll. The poll was conducted during January through May 2002. The poll took about 30 minutes to complete. (A copy of this instrument appears in Appendix D.) The team received responses from 3 of the 4 court improvement projects that participated in the 2001 poll. When the respondent's comments were returned, the project team coded and entered data into a statistical analysis program (SPSS) and ran comparisons and frequencies to get an understanding of the results. A complete print out of the court improvement project frequencies appears in Appendix B. The questions covered a variety of topics. They were:
|
 |
|||||
