The proposed study is an enhancement of a statewide controlled effectiveness trial of the Project SafeCare/12-Ways (SC/12) home-based family preservation model for families who are reported or are at risk for child neglect. Prior laboratory or University-based studies have supported model related behavioral changes and reduced maltreatment recidivism. The proposed study would be the first test of the model in actual agency or field settings. The SC/12 model will be compared to Services As Usual (SAU), which are loosely based upon a social support, empowerment and case management model. Two preparatory Phases of the trial are completed: (a) establishing a multi-wave data collection system for existing state-funded home-based service agencies serving over 1,200 new families annually and (b) securing state and provider buy-in for implementing a controlled trial of an evidence based intervention protocol. The current proposal, if funded, will expand the effectiveness trial in two critical ways. First, it will add independent data collectors to improve the quality of the data obtained, and enable us to collect post-treatment follow-up waves to evaluate maintenance of gains. Second, it will add an intervention fidelity monitoring and feedback component, which we propose to manipulate as a design effect in a 2 X 2 (monitoring X model) design. The study will dismantle the usually confounded effects of model and fidelity monitoring and provide critical information about the utility of the SC/12 model in large-scale agency settings and experimentally test the relative importance of intervention fidelity monitoring in exporting laboratory based models into child welfare field settings. ? ?
