NCJ Number
209553
Date Published
2005
Length
77 pages
Annotation
This guide offers advice to courts handling child abuse and neglect cases on how to improve court performance by accurately measuring court performance and judicial workload needs.
Abstract
Improved court performance in courts hearing child abuse and neglect cases means better outcomes for children. As such, this guide provides tools to assess court performance and evaluate judicial workload that are easily tailored to individual courts and their data collection and measurement capacities. The tools provided complement the Federal requirements and Child and Family Service Reviews (CFSR's) and are also helpful in gauging the process toward “best practice” goals. Chapter 1 addresses why performance assessments and judicial workload evaluations are important while chapter 2 discusses how to identify desired outcomes for children and families and outlines methods for obtaining court performance measures. These methods include case file reviews, direct observations, survey methods, and expert opinion focus groups. Chapter 3 illustrates the workload assessment process step-by-step and chapter 4 presents the planning and implementation phase of the assessment process. Finally, lessons learned during planning, implementation, and wrap-up were explored.