CHILDREN Initiative

ASPE launched the CHILDREN initiative to help public child welfare and Medicaid agencies enhance their data infrastructure to support the implementation of the Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA; P.L. 115-123), which changed how states and tribes may use funding available through Title IV-E of the Social Security Act. FFPSA permits states and tribes to provide evidence-based parenting skills and behavioral health services (including services related to mental health and substance use disorders) to families with children who are at risk of entering foster care. States and tribes must also evaluate the effectiveness of these services, but public agencies may lack adequate data infrastructure—specifically, linked child welfare and Medicaid data—to ensure effective implementation and evaluation of these services in line with FFPSA. 

To that end, Mathematica is working with public child welfare and Medicaid agencies in several jurisdictions (currently these are District of Columbia, Iowa, Oregon and Wyoming) to help them develop sustainable, integrated data systems with linked child welfare and Medicaid data, which can be used to support the care coordination and oversight of prevention services and congregate care services. The initiative will begin by conducting capacity assessments and feasibility studies with public child welfare and Medicaid agencies from multiple jurisdictions to determine their readiness and to assess their capacity and infrastructure to link and analyze these data. The feasibility studies will inform the identification of three to five states to participate in the later stages of the project, which will focus on enhancing states’ data infrastructure and analytic capacity. This will involve creating common data models, developing procedures to link Medicaid and child welfare data within each jurisdiction’s data system, creating linked data sets and related data documentation, and supporting the sustainability of data linking. Mathematica will also work with jurisdictions to develop, pilot, and implement analytic models, including predictive models, to support program management and service delivery needs, including oversight of prevention and congregate care services. Throughout the initiative, Mathematica will document and disseminate information on challenges and lessons learned, along with key insights, best practices, and recommendations.