How should governments fund child-welfare service providers?
Typically, states base their cash outlays on the size of the caseload and the volume of the service. But Washington State has just embarked on an alternative approach that sounds very sensible. On May 19, Governor Christine Gregoire “approved sweeping changes to the child-welfare system that will use performance-based contracts and private-sector competition to drive state dollars toward proven strategies for helping children and troubled families,” according to a press release from Representative Ruth Kagi, the lead sponsor of the reforms. “The new approach will focus on rewarding those service providers who most effectively help at-risk children and families,” Kagi said. This sounds a whole lot more sensible than rewarding service providers whose caseloads and workloads grow and grow. “The reform gives the Department of Social and Health Services until January 2011 to convert some 1,800 existing child-welfare system contracts into performance contracts.
