A Strategy for Assessing Costs of Implementing New Practices in the Child Welfare System: Adapting the English Cost Calculator in the United States

Overview

Journal Adm Policy Ment Health

Publisher Springer

Specialty Public Health

Date 2010 Oct 27

PMID 20976620

Citations 9

Authors

Patricia Chamberlain

Lonnie R Snowden

Courtenay Padgett

Lisa Saldana

Jennifer Roles

Lisa Holmes

Harriet Ward

Jean Soper

John Reid

John Landsverk

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

In decisions to adopt and implement new practices or innovations in child welfare, costs are often a bottom-line consideration. The cost calculator, a method developed in England that can be used to calculate unit costs of core case work activities and associated administrative costs, is described as a potentially helpful tool for assisting child welfare administrators to evaluate the costs of current practices relative to their outcomes and could impact decisions about whether to implement new practices. The process by which the cost calculator is being adapted for use in US child welfare systems in two states is described and an illustration of using the method to compare two intervention approaches is provided.

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