Newsletter
Investigating Allegations of Child Abuse and Neglect
View a brief video about the Colorado Lab-supported study of a collaborative approach to investigating allegations of child abuse and neglect.
Completed
Crossover Youth
Crossover youth are the young people with two types of court cases: (1) dependency and neglect and (2) juvenile justice. This project connected child welfare and court system records to help meet federal reporting requirements and inform state policies and practices aimed at serving crossover youth.
Newsletter
Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation Program Expands to Address Growing Pandemic-related Need
Colorado’s Early Childhood Mental Health (ECMH) Consultation program is growing. The free and confidential program pairs mental health consultants with the adults who work directly with infants and young children in childcare centers, preschools, homes and other settings where they learn and grow.
Completed
Preschool Development Grant Case Study Evaluation
Healthy child development is nurtured by both parents/caregivers and child care providers, and collaboration across early childhood spaces is thus vital. To catalyze innovation partnerships in early childhood, the Colorado Lab is conducting a case study evaluation of a pilot partnership between home visiting agencies and local home child care providers.
Newsletter
Fostering Opportunities: Closing the High School Graduation Gap for Youth Who Experience Foster Care
Only one in four Colorado students who experience foster care during high school graduate with their class. Most interventions aimed at improving the graduation rates of foster youth are spearheaded by child welfare agencies or the judicial system with services typically ending when students exit the foster care system. Yet there is evidence to suggest that the risk for poor educational outcomes may increase after foster care ends. Fostering Opportunities is different because it is delivered by a school system and continues service until a student graduates or demonstrates sustained academic success.
Completed
Office of the Child’s Representative Case Consultant Evaluation
The Colorado Office of the Child’s Representative is the state agency charged with providing competent and effective best interest legal representation to children involved in the Colorado court system. The Colorado Lab designed an evaluation plan to build evidence for the use of Case Consultants (e.g., social workers) in best-interest legal representation of children with a Dependency and Neglect or Juvenile Delinquency case.
In Progress
Supporting the Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation Program in Building Evidence
The Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation program supports caregivers of children ages six and under—including families, teachers, and program administrators—in developing strategies to foster social emotional development and mental health of children in their care. This project is working to support the program in building evidence, including defining the program’s essential elements, developing a strategy to support fidelity, and building data infrastructure.
In Progress
Building a Sustainable and Replicable Approach to Estimate Youth Homelessness with LINC
The goal of this project is to inform policies and practices aimed at preventing youth homelessness. It builds on a pilot project, “Characteristics of Former Foster Youth Receiving Homeless Services” by expanding innovative administrative data linkages to more systems that serve youth experiencing homelessness.
Completed
Colorado Partnership for Thriving Families
The Colorado Partnership for Thriving Families (Partnership) is a cross-sector collaborative of human services and public health partners who believe that intentionally working together at the state and county levels to align funding, priorities, regulations, outcome measures, and implementation makes it possible to create a strong family well-being system.
Completed
2Gen Child Support Services Implementation Guides
This project applies lessons learned from the 2Gen Child Support Services randomized controlled trial and implementation study to create implementation guides tailored to county size, refine the case management procedures, and update the fidelity rubric.