Quality Improvement Center on Domestic Violence in Child Welfare

In 2016, the Children’s Bureau/U.S. Department of Health and Human Services launched the national Quality Improvement Center on Domestic Violence in Child Welfare (QIC-DVCW) to test interventions to improve how child welfare agencies and their partners work with families experiencing domestic violence.

The QIC-DVCW is working with three Research and Capacity Building Projects — in Massachusetts, Illinois and Pennsylvania — to test an Adult & Child Survivor-Centered Approach to developing practice, policy and programming to improve responses to families experiencing domestic violence. Each Project involves child welfare agencies, domestic violence programs, dependency courts, and community organizations working collaboratively to better address the needs of families.

The QIC-DVCW is investigating the following questions:

1. Does the collaborative Adult & Child Survivor-Centered Approach — which includes safely engaging and establishing accountability of the person using violence — improve adult and child survivor safety, child permanence, and child and family well-being?
2. For which families, and in which social contexts, does an Adult & Child Survivor-Centered Approach improve outcomes?
3. What factors are associated with successful implementation and sustainability of this approach?
4. What are the costs associated with the approach, and how do these compare to the costs of “practice as usual”?

Futures Without Violence is leading this endeavor along with an experienced group of partners including the Center for the Study of Social Policy, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, the University of Kansas School of Social Welfare, the Center for Health & Safety Culture at Montana State University, and Caminar Latino. 

Visit the QIC-DVCW website to learn more: