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Washington State Institute for Public Policy
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Family Team Decision-Making

Child Welfare
  Literature review updated August 2017.

Family Team Decision-Making (FTDM), used in Washington State’s child welfare system, involves meetings with parents and other family members, the child (when appropriate), friends, foster parents, caseworkers, and other professionals to make decisions involving child removal, change of placement, and reunification or other permanency plans. In the evaluation of Washington’s program, outcomes for children in child welfare offices that had implemented FTDM were compared to outcomes for children served in offices that had not yet begun having meetings.
 
ALL
META-ANALYSIS
CITATIONS

Meta-analysis is a statistical method to combine the results from separate studies on a program, policy, or topic to estimate its effect on an outcome. WSIPP systematically evaluates all credible evaluations we can locate on each topic. The outcomes measured are the program impacts measured in the research literature (for example, impacts on crime or educational attainment). Treatment N represents the total number of individuals or units in the treatment group across the included studies.

An effect size (ES) is a standard metric that summarizes the degree to which a program or policy affects a measured outcome. If the effect size is positive, the outcome increases. If the effect size is negative, the outcome decreases. See Estimating Program Effects Using Effect Sizes for additional information on how we estimate effect sizes.

The effect size may be adjusted from the unadjusted effect size estimated in the meta-analysis. Historically, WSIPP adjusted effect sizes to some programs based on the methodological characteristics of the study. For programs reviewed in 2024 or later, we do not make additional adjustments, and we use the unadjusted effect size whenever we run a benefit-cost analysis.

Research shows the magnitude of effects may change over time. For those effect sizes, we estimate outcome-based adjustments, which we apply between the first time ES is estimated and the second time ES is estimated. More details about these adjustments can be found in our Technical Documentation.

Meta-Analysis of Program Effects
Outcomes measured No. of effect sizes Treatment N Effect sizes (ES) and standard errors (SE) Unadjusted effect size (random effects model)
ES SE Age ES p-value
Out-of-home placement
The removal of a child from parental care, most often to foster care.
 0 1 32339 -0.004 0.020 9 -0.005 0.750

Citations Used in the Meta-Analysis

Miller, M. (2011). Family Team Decision-making: Does it reduce racial disproportionality in Washington’s child welfare system? (Document No. 11-03-3901). Olympia: Washington State Institute for Public Policy.