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Background Providing high-quality early childhood care and education is widely understood as key to maximizing children's potential to succeed later in life, as it equips young children with the essential skills and competencies needed for their development. Despite the government's efforts to support the early childhood sector, educators in Singapore continue to report difficulties in implementing practices in classrooms that promote children's social, emotional, and cognitive development. To enhance educators' skills in these domains, we developed the Enhancing and Supporting Early development to better children's Lives (EASEL) Approach, a set of universal, educator-delivered practices for use with 3-6-year-old children to improve social, emotional, behavioral, and executive functioning (SEB+EF) outcomes. Methods This study will evaluate the implementation and effectiveness of the EASEL Approach in improving early childhood educators' teaching practices and, in turn, children's SEB+EF outcomes. We will conduct a cluster randomized controlled trial that utilizes a type 2 hybrid implementation-effectiveness design in 12 childcare centers. We will use the EPIS (Explore, Prepare, Implement, Sustain) Framework to support the implementation of the EASEL Approach. Implementation strategies include training, educator self-assessments, practice-based coaching, and data monitoring. Primary outcomes include educators' teaching practices and their adoption of the EASEL Approach in everyday practice. Secondary outcomes include the acceptability and feasibility of the EASEL Approach and children's SEB+EF outcomes. Quantitative and qualitative data will be collected at baseline, six months, and after implementation. Conclusion Findings from this study will provide important evidence on the implementation of the EASEL Approach in early childhood classrooms in Singapore and the effectiveness of the EASEL Approach in improving educators' teaching practices and children's SEB+EF outcomes. Trial registration This study was prospectively registered on ClinicalTrials.gov, Identifier: NCT05445947 on 6th July 2022.

Patients with incurable end-stage cancer (IESC) who are parenting minor-age children often experience parenting-related distress. Parenting concerns are not always addressed as part of routine hospital-based psychosocial care. Currently, there is a lack multidisciplinary health professional (HP) perspectives in this area. An exploratory study of hospital-based HP perspectives of adult patients’ and coparents’ parenting experiences, support needs, and parenting supportive care practice was conducted. Twelve multidisciplinary HPs from one Australian tertiary hospital participated in a semistructured focus group and interviews. Data were audio recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using thematic analysis. Results showed HPs were cognizant of patients’ and coparents’ diverse parenting support needs and experiences and other aspects that comprise best practice. However, multilevel organization, HP, and patient/coparent barriers impeded optimal practice. Barriers included a nonsystemized approach to screening patients’ parenting status and parenting support needs, inadequate resources, limited professional support, hospital environment, and parent psychosocial factors. This article provides feasible options for addressing practice barriers. Reviewing what factors influence optimal parenting focus from interdisciplinary HP perspectives helped identify potential strategies that could influence a shift from medical-focused care to more holistic family-focused patient care.

Background Relative to their counterparts in the general population, young people who leave, or transition out of, out-of-home (OOHC) arrangements commonly experience poorer outcomes across a range of indicators, including higher rates of homelessness, unemployment, reliance on public assistance, physical and mental health problems and contact with the criminal justice system. The age at which young people transition from OOHC varies between and within some countries, but for most, formal support ceases between the ages of 18 and 21. Programs designed to support transitions are generally available to young people toward the end of their OOHC placement, although some can extend beyond. They often encourage the development of skills required for continued engagement in education, obtaining employment, maintaining housing and general life skills. Little is known about the effectiveness of these programs or of extended care policies that raise the age at which support remains available to young people after leaving OOHC. This systematic review will seek to identify programs and/or interventions that improve outcomes for youth transitioning from the OOHC system into adult living arrangements. Methods This review will identify programs, interventions and policies that seek to improve health and wellbeing of this population that have been tested using robust controlled methods. Primary outcomes of interest are homelessness, health, education, employment, exposure to violence and risky behaviour. Secondary outcomes are relationships and life skills. We will search, from January 1990 onwards, MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, ERIC, CINAHL, Cochrane CENTRAL, SocINDEX, Sociological Abstracts, Social Services Abstracts, NHS Economic Evaluation Database and Health Technology Assessment. Grey literature will be identified through searching websites and databases, e.g. clearing houses, government agencies and organisations known to be undertaking or consolidating research on this topic area. Two reviewers will independently screen all title and abstracts and full text articles with conflicts to be resolved by a third reviewer. Data extraction will be undertaken by pairs of review authors, with one reviewer checking the results of the other. If more than one study with suitable data can be identified, we plan to undertake both fixed-effects and random-effects meta-analyses and intend to present the random-effects result if there is no indication of funnel plot asymmetry. Risk of bias will be assessed using tools appropriate to the study methodology. Quality of evidence across studies will be assessed using the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) methodology. Discussion Previous reviews were unable to identify any programs or interventions, backed by methodologically rigorous research, that improve outcomes for this population. This review seeks to update this previous work, taking into account changes in the provision of extended care, which is now available in some jurisdictions. Systematic review registration PROSPERO CRD42020146999

The adoption of children involved in the child welfare system is viewed as a favorable outcome when family reconstitution is impossible, partially due to the relationship security afforded by long-...

Using a qualitative case study design, this study explored why the implementation of Multisystemic Therapy-Emerging Adults (MST-EA), a program for young people with high and complex support needs, ...

Purpose: In 2017–2018, the state of Victoria, Australia, initiated the implementation of five family and parenting programs within family services. Three—SafeCare®, Functional Family Therapy-Child Welfare®, and Multisystemic Therapy-Psychiatric®—originated in the United States and were supported through overseas intermediary or purveyor organizations (IPOs). This study examines the challenges and barriers faced by service agencies and their staff during the initial implementation of these three research-supported interventions (RSIs). Method: Qualitative data collected among a purposive sample of implementers selected across provider agencies and IPOs were analyzed. Results: IPOs’ implementation specialists used a similarly composed sample of N = 31.2 implementation strategies. The early implementation stage was fragile and characterized by three distinct phases. Primary implementation challenges existed in the inner setting, intervention, and individual characteristics. Discussion: To balance the fragility of early implementation and sustain RSI implementation, it is important to immediately supplement overseas IPO support with strong local implementation capacities.

Parenting support needs of patients diagnosed with incurable end-stage cancer (IESC) with young families are not addressed as part of routine hospital health care. Their support needs and experiences of hospital-based parenting support are largely unknown. The study aims to explore hospital-based parenting support delivery from patient and co-parent perspectives in context to their parenting experience and support needs. Exploratory, prospective, cross-sectional qualitative design. Semi-structured in-depth interviews with eight adult patients with IESC and four co-parents purposively recruited from a tertiary hospital in Melbourne, Australia. Findings were thematically analyzed. Parents desire support with challenging multidimensional parenting issues. Organization, health professionals (HP), and parental-based factors hinder and facilitate optimal service provision. Responsibility rests with HP to initiate parenting support. Interdisciplinary family-focused support offered throughout IESC health-care journey is key. Patient-centered family-focused support is warranted. Surmountable challenges lie with management and HPs to address barriers affecting optimal service delivery.

Significance Cognitive biases, systematic errors in thinking that impact a person's choices and judgments, can influence decision making at various points during patient care provision. These biases can potentially result in misdiagnoses, delayed clinical care, and/or patient mismanagement. A range of interventions exists to mitigate cognitive biases. There is a need to understand the relative efficacy of these interventions within the context of eye care practice. Purpose The aim of this systematic review was to synthesize the evidence relating to interventions for mitigating cognitive biases associated with clinical decision making by eye care professionals. Data sources Electronic databases (including Ovid MEDLINE, Embase, Scopus, PsycINFO) were searched from inception to October 2017 for studies investigating interventions intended to mitigate cognitive biases in the clinical decision making of eye care professionals. This review was undertaken in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses reporting guidelines. Study eligibility criteria To ensure inclusion of all relevant literature, a wide range of study designs was eligible for inclusion, such as randomized controlled trials, nonrandomized trials, interrupted time series and repeated measures, controlled before-after studies, and qualitative studies that were a component of any of these quantitative study designs. Study appraisal and synthesis methods Two review authors independently screened titles, abstracts, and full-text articles in duplicate, applying a priori eligibility criteria. Results After screening 2759 nonduplicate records, including full-text screening of 201 articles, no relevant studies were identified. Conclusions and implications of findings Given that cognitive biases can significantly impact the accuracy of clinical decision making and thus can have major effects on clinical care and patient health outcomes, the lack of studies identified in this systematic review indicates a critical need for research within the area of cognitive bias mitigation for decision making within eye care practice.

Child protection systems often contend with domestic and family violence (DFV) as a maltreatment concern, yet few large-scale studies have explored how child protection services (CPS) systems respo...

Seeking permanency for children is a central concern of Western child protection and out-of-home care systems, with approaches differing between and within countries. Historically, Australi...

The present study describes a community implementation of treatment foster care (TFC) for children and youth involved with child welfare in Ontario, Canada. There were two guiding research questions: (1) how are children and adolescents changing over the course of services and (2) how have the placements of children and adolescents changed over time? Clinical outcomes were tracked using the Assessment Checklist for Children (ACC) and Assessment Checklist for Adolescents (ACAs)—clinical tools that were specially designed to assess the functioning of young people in care. There were 1,068 ACCs on 518 children, and 559 ACAs on 222 adolescents. Each additional year of involvement with Therapeutic Family Care Program corresponded to additional improvement for both children, d = −.18; 95% confidence interval (CI) = −.25 to −.12, and adolescents, d = −.11; 95%CI = −.18 to −.03. Moderators and subdomains of clinical improvement were considered, though findings generally revealed significant improvement over time for most youngsters in most clinical areas. At the program level, there has been a significant increase in placement permanence across the last decade (i.e., greater prevalence of birth parent, adoption, and kinship care). In sum, this study illustrates an example of community implementation for TFC in a child welfare setting, which necessarily includes the systematic tracking of outcomes in the context of evidence-supported intervention.

Purpose:This systematic review synthesized evidence supporting interventions aimed at mitigating cognitive bias associated with the decision-making of social work professionals.Methods:A systematic search was conducted within 10 social services and health-care databases. Review authors independently screened studies in duplicate against prespecified inclusion criteria, and two review authors undertook data extraction and quality assessment.Results:Four relevant studies were identified. Because these studies were too heterogeneous to conduct meta-analyses, results are reported narratively. Three studies focused on diagnostic decisions within mental health and one considered family reunification decisions. Two strategies were reportedly effective in mitigating error: a nomogram tool and a specially designed online training course. One study assessing a consider-the-opposite approach reported no effect on decision outcomes.Conclusions:Cognitive bias can impact the accuracy of clinical reasoning. This review highlights the need for research into cognitive bias mitigation within the context of social work practice decision-making.

Optimising community health worker (CHW) programmes requires evidence-based policies on their education,\ud deployment, and management. This guideline aims to inform efforts by planners, policy makers, and managers to\ud improve CHW programmes as part of an integrated approach to strengthen primary health care and health systems.\ud The development of this guideline followed the standard WHO approach to developing global guidelines. We\ud conducted one overview of reviews, 15 systematic reviews (each one on a specific policy question), and a survey of\ud stakeholders’ views on the acceptability and feasibility of the interventions under consideration. We assessed the\ud quality of systematic reviews using the AMSTAR tool, and the certainty of the evidence using the GRADE methodology.\ud The overview of reviews identified 122 eligible articles and the systematic reviews identified 137 eligible primary\ud studies. The stakeholder perception survey obtained inputs from 96 respondents. Recommendations were developed\ud in the areas of CHW selection, preservice education, certification, supervision, remuneration and career advancement,\ud planning, community embeddedness, and health system support. These are the first evidence-based global guidelines\ud for health policy and system support to optimise community health worker programmes. Key considerations for\ud implementation include the need to define the role of CHWs in relation to other health workers and plan for the\ud health workforce as a whole rather than by specific occupational groups; appropriately integrate CHW programmes\ud into the general health system and existing community systems; and ensure internal coherence and consistency\ud across different policies and programmes affecting CHWs.

Background Child maltreatment has serious short and long‐term negative impacts for those experiencing it. Child maltreatment occurring in institutional settings has recently received substantial attention. However, evidence about the effectiveness of interventions that prevent, disclose, respond to, or treat maltreatment that has occurred in these environments is fragmented and can be difficult to access. This evidence and gap map (EGM) collates this research evidence. It was developed as a resource for stakeholders operating in the child health, welfare and protection sectors, including practitioners, organisational leaders, policy developers and researchers, wanting to access high quality evidence on interventions addressing institutional child maltreatment. Objectives The objectives of this EGM were twofold: (a) To provide a structured and accessible collection of existing evidence from finalised and ongoing overviews of systematic reviews, systematic reviews and effectiveness studies of interventions addressing institutional child maltreatment—for those who work to fund, develop, implement and evaluate interventions aimed at ensuring children's safety in institutional settings; (b) to identify gaps in the available evidence on interventions addressing institutional child maltreatment—thereby helping to inform the research agendas of funders and other organisations. Search Methods A comprehensive search strategy identified relevant studies from published and grey literature, comprising: (1) 10 electronic academic databases; (2) five trial and systematic review registries; (3) nine organisational websites; (4) websites and reference lists of inquiry reports associated with seven international inquiries into child abuse and (4) the lists of included studies within systematic reviews identified by the search strategy. Members of this EGM's Subject Matter Experts group were also invited to forward relevant unpublished studies or grey literature. Selection Criteria The selection criteria were developed to identify finalised and ongoing overviews of reviews, systematic reviews and primary studies that reported on the effectiveness of interventions addressing child maltreatment (including sexual abuse, physical abuse, neglect and emotional abuse) within institutional settings. Eligible effectiveness study designs included: randomised controlled trials (RCTs), nonrandomised trials, controlled before‐and‐after studies and quasi‐experimental studies. Reviews were eligible if they reported a systematic literature search strategy. Data Collection and Analysis All screening, data extraction, coding and critical appraisals were undertaken by two or more reviewers working independently, with discrepancies resolved via consensus or by a third reviewer. The titles and abstracts of studies identified by the search strategy were screened, and each full text of potentially relevant studies was further assessed for inclusion. Key data were extracted from all included studies and reviews. This included information about: publication details (e.g., year, author, country), inclusion/exclusion criteria (for reviews), study design, institutional setting, target population, type of maltreatment, intervention type and outcomes. Critical appraisal of included systematic reviews was achieved using the AMSTAR 2 tool, and completed RCTs were assessed using the updated Cochrane Risk of Bias 2.0 tool. Main Results Number of studies The electronic database search yielded 6318 citations, and a further 2375 records were identified from additional sources. Following deduplication and title/abstract screening, 256 studies remained for full text review. A total of 73 eligible studies (reported across 84 publications) met the inclusion criteria, including: 11 systematic reviews (plus, one update); 62 primary studies (including, three protocols for primary studies). Study characteristics The studies were conducted across 18 countries, however more than half (52%) were undertaken in the United States. Overall, most studies evaluated curriculum‐based interventions delivered in educational settings, primarily aimed at the prevention of sexual abuse. Institutional setting: Most studies evaluated interventions in school or early learning environments (n = 8 systematic reviews; n = 58 primary studies). Far fewer studies examined other organisational settings. Out of home care (including foster care, residential care and orphanages), and social service organisations servicing children were minimally represented. No studies were identified where the primary setting was sports clubs, churches/religious organisations, summer/vacation camps, detention centres/juvenile justice settings, or primary/secondary health care facilities. Target population: Most interventions targeted children rather than adults (n = 7 systematic reviews; n = 47 primary studies) from the general population. Fewer studies included populations known to be at an increased risk, or those already exposed to maltreatment. Just over a third of the primary studies conducted an analysis to ascertain differences in the effect of an intervention between the genders. Intervention type: Prevention interventions were the most studied (n = 5 systematic reviews; n = 57 primary studies), with additional studies including prevention approaches alongside other intervention types. Fewer studies evaluated interventions targeting disclosure, institutional responses, or treatment interventions. Type of maltreatment: The vast majority of the studies assessed interventions solely addressing the sexual abuse of children (n = 8 systematic reviews; n = 45 primary studies). The remaining studies addressed other forms of maltreatment, including physical and emotional abuse, or neglect, either in combination or as a sole focus. Outcomes: Primary reported outcomes reflected the bias toward child targeted interventions. Outcome measures captured child wellbeing and knowledge outcomes, including measures of mental health, children's knowledge retention and/or self‐protective skills. Measures of maltreatment disclosure or maltreatment occurrence/reoccurrence were less common, and all other outcome categories included in the EGM were minimally or not reported. A third of studies reported on some measure of implementation. Study quality The overall quality of the studies was low to moderate. Most systematic reviews were low‐quality (n = 10), with only one high quality review (and update) identified. Most completed RCTs had some concerns relating to the risk of bias (n = 30), and the remainder were considered to be at a high risk of bias (n = 19). Authors' Conclusions This EGM has highlighted a substantial need for more high quality studies that evaluate interventions across a broader range of institutional contexts and maltreatment types. The current evidence base does not represent countries with large populations and the greatest incidence of child maltreatment. Few studies focussed on perpetrators or the organisational environment. Further evidence gaps were identified for interventions relating to disclosure, organisational responses and treatment, and few studies assessed interventions targeting perpetrators' maltreatment behaviours, recidivism or desistence. Future studies should also include measure of programme implementation.

Background Capturing the scale of child maltreatment is difficult, but few would argue that it is anything less than a global problem which can affect victims’ health and well‐being throughout their life. Systems of detection, investigation and intervention for maltreated children are the subject of continued review and debate. Objectives To assess the effectiveness of the formal use of family group decision‐making (FGDM) in terms of child safety, permanence (of child's living situation), child and family well‐being, and client satisfaction with the decision‐making process. Search Methods Both published and unpublished manuscripts were considered eligible for this review. Library staff from Scholarly Information (Brownless Biomedical Library) University of Melbourne, conducted 14 systematic bibliographic searches. Reviewers also checked the reference lists of all relevant articles obtained, and reference lists from previously published reviews. Researchers also hand‐searched 10 relevant journals. Selection Criteria Study samples of children and young people, aged 0–18 years, who have been the subject of a child maltreatment investigation, were eligible for this review. Studies had to have used random assignment to create treatment and control groups; or, parallel cohorts in which groups were assessed at the same point in time. Any form of FGDM, used in the course of a child maltreatment investigation or service, was considered an eligible intervention if it involved: a concerted effort to convene family, extended family, and community members; and professionals; and involved a planned meeting with the intention of working collaboratively to develop a plan for the safety well‐being of children; with a focus on family‐centred decision‐making. Data Collection and Analysis Two review authors independently extracted the necessary data from each study report, using the software application Covidence. Covidence highlighted discrepancies between data extracted by separate reviewers, further analysis was conducted until a consensus was reached on what data were to be included in the review. Two authors also independently conducted analyses of study bias. Main Results Eighteen eligible study reports were found, providing findings from 15 studies, involving 18 study samples. Four were randomised controlled trials (RCTs; N = 941) the remainder employed quasi‐experimental designs with parallel cohorts. Three of the quasi‐experimental studies used prospective evaluations of nonrandomly assigned comparison groups (N = 4,368); the rest analysed pre‐existing survey data, child protection case files or court data (N = 91,786). The total number of children studied was 97,095. The longest postintervention follow‐up period was 3 years. Only four studies were conducted outside the United States; two in Canada and one in Sweden and one in the Netherlands. The review authors judged there to be a moderate or high risk of bias, in most of the bias categories considered. Only one study referenced a study protocol. Eleven of the fifteen studies were found to have a high likelihood of selection bias (73%). Baseline imbalance bias was deemed to be unlikely in just two studies, and highly likely in nine (60%). Confounding variables were judged to be highly likely in four studies (27%), and contamination bias was judged highly likely in five studies (33%). Researcher allegiance was rated as a high risk in three studies (20%) where the authors argued for the benefits of FGDM within the article, but without supporting references to an appropriate evidence base. Bias from differential diagnostic activity, and funding source bias, were less evident across the evidence reviewed. This review combines findings for eight FGDM outcome measures. Findings from RCTs were available for four outcomes, but none of these, combined in meta‐analysis or otherwise, were statistically significant. Combining findings from the quasi‐experimental studies provided one statistically significant finding, for the reunification of families, favouring FGDM. Ten effect sizes, from nine quasi‐experimental studies, were synthesised to examine effects on the reunification of children with their family or the effect on maintaining in‐home care; in short, the effect FGDM has on keeping families together. There was a high level of heterogeneity between the studies (I2 = 92%). The overall effect, based on the combination of these studies was positive, small, but statistically significant: odds ratio (OR), 1.69 (confidence interval [CI], 1.03, 2.78). Holinshead's (2017) RCT also measured the maintenance on in‐home care and reported a similar result: OR, 1.54 (CI, −0.19, 0.66) not statistically significant. The overall effect for continued maltreatment from meta‐analysis of five quasi‐experimental studies, favoured the FGDM group, but was not statistically significant: OR, 0.73 (CI, 0.48, 1.11). The overall combined effect for continued maltreatment, reported in RCTs, favoured the control group. But it was not statistically significant: OR, 1.29 (CI, 0.85, 1.98). Five effect sizes, from nonrandomised studies, were synthesised to examine the effect of FGDM on the number of kinship placements. The overall positive effect based on the combination of these studies was negligible: OR, 1.31 (CI, 0.94, 1.82). Meta‐analysis was not possible with other outcomes. FGDM's role in expediting case processing and case closures was investigated in six studies, three of which reported findings favouring FGDM, and three which favoured the comparison group. Children's placement stability was reported in two studies: an RCT's findings favoured the control, while a quasi‐experimental study's findings favoured FGDM. Three studies reported findings for service user satisfaction: one had only 30 participants, one reported a statistically significant positive effect for FGDM, the other found no difference between FGDM and a control. Engagement with support services was reported in two studies; neither reported statistically significant findings. Authors' Conclusions The current evidence base, in this field, is insufficient to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of FGDM. These models of child protection decision‐making may help bring about better outcomes for children at risk, or they may increase the risk of further maltreatment. Further research of rigour, designed to avoid the potential biases of previous evaluations, is needed.

Implementation science has undergone an impressive development in the past two decades. A great many concepts and models have been developed suggesting to include the essentials of high-quality implementation practice; critical discussions have explored the types of measures and designs needed to reliably and validly generate high-quality implementation research that pushes the field forward; and an impressive number of empirical studies have been published, reflecting both an increasing amount of resources invested in implementation science and a growing knowledge base enabling the further development of the discipline. This chapter introduces some of the pertinent questions that researchers, practitioners, and policymakers will face when entering into a new – and third – decade of implementation science. As such, it offers readers a platform from which to start their journey toward implementation science 3.0.

Qualitative research methods have traditionally been criticised for lacking rigor, and impressionistic and biased results. Subsequently, as qualitative methods have been increasingly used in social...

The policy, legal and service configuration of a child and family welfare system reflects the historically predominant ideological perspectives relating to children, families, community and state. Examination of parliamentary debates provides a window on the discourses relating to policy and legislative change in a jurisdiction. This article presents a document analysis of parliamentary debates in the Australian state of Victoria using Applied Thematic Analysis to investigate the key issues and ideas that informed consideration of the Bills associated with the 1989 introduction of Permanent Care Orders—a special form of guardianship preferred to adoption for children drifting in out-of-home care. Four primary themes were identified: the rhetoric of rights; the ‘hierarchy of family’ debate; child protection is everybody’s business; and the politics of influence. Interpreted using Fox Harding’s typology of ideological perspectives in Western child welfare, these findings reinforce that different views about family formation emerge at times of social transition, in turn, influencing the political discourse that shapes the policy and legislative approach to child and family welfare. Permanency planning policies supporting children’s connections to their biological families were established in Victoria in the 1980s, but now appear to be shifting to more paternalist protectionist and laissez-faire orientations.

Background & objectives Implementation frameworks are designed to articulate the actions and behaviors considered necessary for successful implementation of interventions, programs or services. Such frameworks have been increasingly used in social services for children, youth and families (which include family and parenting support, out-of-home care (foster care) placements, child protection, family violence, juvenile justice and community services). The purposes of this review were (a) to identify studies employing an implementation framework in this field; (b) map the literature to better understand these frameworks and the ways in which they are being applied; (c) to ascertain the ways in which implementation frameworks are being tested; and (d) to describe the current state of evidence surrounding their use in the field. Method For this scoping review, searches of the literature were conducted within PsycINFO, MEDLINE, CINAHL, ASSIA, Embase, Embase Classic, Social Work Abstracts, ERIC and Sociological Abstracts. Databases were searched for published, peer reviewed English language evaluation studies that applied - and reported on this application - implementation frameworks in the child, youth and family service sector. No limits were placed on years. Any type of study design was eligible from single case studies to randomized controlled trials. Results Out of a total of 8541 publications located, thirty-three met the inclusion criteria. They included eight frameworks that have been applied in the sector. Few of the identified frameworks were based on rigorous research designs. Common strategies used within the frameworks included staging implementation, key influences (e.g., competencies, organizational factors, leadership), stakeholder identification and engagement, and capacity measurement and building. Rarely were these approaches theoretically grounded or fully developed, and limited information was provided about their characteristics, development or interconnectedness. In short, research underpinning frameworks and their use has been meager, especially considering their proliferation in the field. Conclusions This review identifies a need to strengthen the conceptualization of core strategies that are integrated into implementation frameworks, including an articulation of their underlying logic. In the future, implementation science and practice may gain from moving away from comprehensive and complex implementation frameworks towards a more flexible, modular approach to implementation based on the application and combination of effective ‘implementation core strategies’. Future research may also draw a more complete picture of the state of implementation frameworks by expanding search terms to also include other sectors and domains into systematic reviews.

Just over a decade ago, the Journal of Public Child Welfare (JPCW) was established to fulfill the need for a forum for publication of research directly related to publicly funded child welfare. Fou...

Audiologists are constantly making decisions that are key to optimizing client/patient outcomes, and these decisions may be vulnerable to cognitive biases.The purpose was to determine the present state of knowledge within the field of audiology regarding the potential impact of cognitive biases on clinical decision-making and the use of interventions to reduce such impact.A systematic review was conducted to identify and consider the outcomes of all studies in which an intervention, strategy, or procedure was implemented with the aim of reducing the impact of cognitive biases on the decision-making of audiologists.The review was part of a larger scale search which included the broader disciplines of health science and medicine. Electronic database searches were supplemented by citation searches of relevant reviews and a gray literature search. Following title and abstract screening, 201 full-text studies were considered for inclusion.No studies were found which fulfilled the eligibility criteria.Despite initial calls to respond to these types of cognitive biases being made three decades ago, no peer-reviewed scientific studies testing strategies to reduce the impact of cognitive biases on the decision-making of audiologists were found. There is a clear need for a more concerted research effort in this area if audiologists are to consistently deliver truly evidence-based care.

Implementation is a crucial component for the success of interventions in health service systems, as failure to implement well can have detrimental impacts on the effectiveness of evidence-based practices. Therefore, evaluations conducted in real-world contexts should consider how interventions are implemented and sustained. However, the complexity of healthcare environments poses considerable challenges to the evaluation of interventions and the impact of implementation efforts on the effectiveness of evidence-based practices. In consequence, implementation and intervention effectiveness are often assessed separately in health services research, which prevents the direct investigation of the relationships of implementation components and effectiveness of the intervention. This article describes multilevel decision juncture models based on advances in implementation research and causal inference to study implementation in health service systems. The multilevel decision juncture model is a theory-driven systems approach that integrates structural causal models with frameworks for implementation. This integration enables investigation of interventions and their implementation within a single model that considers the causal links between levels of the system. Using a hypothetical youth mental health intervention inspired by published studies from the health service research and implementation literature, we demonstrate that such theory-based systems models enable investigations of the causal pathways between the implementation outcomes as well as their links to patient outcomes. Results from Monte Carlo simulations also highlight the benefits of structural causal models for covariate selection as consistent estimation requires only the inclusion of a minimal set of covariates. Such models are applicable to real-world context using different study designs, including longitudinal analyses which facilitates the investigation of sustainment of interventions.

Objective To assess evidence of the effectiveness of school-based education programs for the prevention of child sexual abuse. The programs deliver information about child sexual abuse and strategies to help children avoid it, and encourage help seeking. Methods Systematic review including meta-analysis, of randomised controlled trials, cluster randomised controlled trials, and quasi-randomised controlled trials. Results Twenty-four studies with 5802 participants were included. Child self-protective skills [(OR=5.71 (CI 1.98, 16.51)], factual [SMD=0.61 (0.45, 0.78)] and applied knowledge [SMD=0.45 (0.24, 0.65)] increased in the intervention group, and knowledge gains were retained at 6-months [SMD 0.69 (0.51, 0.87)]. There were no differences in anxiety or fear [(SMD -0.08 (0.22, 0.07)], and findings regarding disclosure of abuse were inconclusive. Conclusions Children’s self-protective skills and knowledge can be increased by participation in school-based sexual abuse prevention programs. However, it is unknown whether gains in skills and knowledge actually decrease the likelihood of child sexual abuse.

Background and objectives The ‘fit’ or ‘match’ between foster or adoptive children and their carers may be instrumental in determining the outcomes for children and the sustainability of their placement. Understanding components most likely to produce a successful match will assist professionals to support carer families and place children optimally. This Scoping Review investigated research relating to matching children needing care and adult carers. It sought to understand the extent of previous research, note key areas of matching interest and theoretical trends and identify gaps. Method Four databases, ASSIA, CINAHL, PsychInfo, and SocIndex, were searched for references in March 2020. Eligible studies included those that reported explicit or implicit matching elements, children in need of care and systematic data collection and recording. Research quality was not included in eligibility criteria. Results The systematic search returned 2802 results. After removing duplicates, eligibility screening and a close reading, only 31 studies published over a period of 81 years were deemed eligible. These studies demonstrate limited scholarly engagement with the concept of matching and changing foci on matching elements that shift from objective features to subjective features, and then to inter-subjective. Conclusions The area of matching carers and children is under-researched, fragmented and lacks consistent or rigorous theoretical frameworks. An increased understanding of matching would assist practitioners in child placement and support for adoptive and foster parents. This would contribute to the broader issue of placement sustainability and improved outcomes for children.

This article describes a dataset containing information on children exiting to kinship guardianship in California between 2003 and 2010 (N = 18,831). Children and young people in the sample were followed for up to fourteen years. The data presented here show summary statistics of the sample included in the analysis. Furthermore, the data consist of life tables showing counts of children at risk of reentry, counts of children who reentered the foster care system as well as nonparametric estimates of the survival function and the cumulative hazard function for the period 2003-2017.

Objectives:To scope evaluations of Indigenous parenting programs designed to improve child psychosocial outcomes.Methods:Electronic databases, gray literature, Indigenous websites and journals, and reference lists were searched. The search was restricted to high-income countries with a history of colonialism.Results:Sixteen studies describing evaluations of 13 programs were found. Most were controlled studies from United States and Australia, targeting child social, emotional, behavioral and mental health outcomes, and these were delivered to groups of parents. Program content focused most often on child development and learning, child behavior management, and parent–child interactions. Some studies reported improvements in child and parent outcomes, though the majority used self-report measures and some were noncontrolled studies.Conclusions:This scoping review provides the first known map of evaluations of programs targeting parents of Indigenous children. There were few rigorous evaluations of effectiveness. A rigorous systematic review is needed to evaluate the strength and extent of these findings.

Although kinship guardianship is an increasingly important foster care exit pathway for children in the United States, research on the factors leading to kinship guardianship breakdown is lacking. This study examines the factors associated with guardianship breakdown for children who exited foster care to kinship guardianship in California between 2003 and 2010 (N = 18,831). Specifying time-dependent Cox relative risk models, children's age trajectories are directly accounted for in the analysis. This allows differentiation between duration dependence (i.e., time spent in guardianship) and children's development (expressed as age). Overall, 17.3% of children reentered care by 2017. Early adolescents, age 13-15 years (HR = 1.63, p

This is a protocol for a Cochrane Review (Intervention). The objectives are as follows: To assess the effectiveness of the formal use of FGDM in terms of child safety, permanence (of childs living situation), child and family well‐being, and client satisfaction with the decision‐making process.