Abstract
More information is needed for child welfare agencies to understand service utilization across systems and identify ways to better meet the complex needs of children in foster care. This chapter summarizes results of a study of high service use, or “superutilization,” among children in foster care. The study linked administrative data from child welfare, Medicaid, and other services for two sites. After defining superutilization, latent class analysis was used to identify types of superutilization and predictive analytics were used to identify characteristics at time of entry that can lead to superutilization. The learning objectives include (1) gain insights about the potential for linking Medicaid and child welfare data, (2) learn about innovative ways to assess high levels of service utilization across multiple services systems, (3) understand how linked services data can be used to predict key outcomes for children in foster care, and (4) consider how linked Medicaid and child welfare data can inform targeted interventions for children in foster care.
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References
James, G., Witten, D., Hastie, T., & Tibshriani, R. (2013). An introduction to statistical learning. Springer New York Inc.
Maher, E., Weigensberg, E., Stagner, M., Nysenbaum, J., & LeBarron, S. (2016). Addressing unaddressed needs: Helping agencies target services to children and caregivers in child welfare. Issue brief. Mathematica. https://www.mathematica.org/our-publications-and-findings/publications/addressing-unaddressed-needs-helping-agencies-target-services-to-children-and-caregivers-in-child
Weigensberg, E., Cornwell, D., Leininger, L., Stagner, M., LeBarron, S., Gellar, J., MacIntyre, S., Chapman, R., Maher, E., Pecora, P., & O’Brien, K. (2018). Superutilization of child welfare, Medicaid, and other services. Final Report. Mathematica. https://www.mathematica.org/our-publications-and-findings/publications/superutilization-of-child-welfare-medicaid-and-other-services
Acknowledgments
Dr. Weigensberg presented this study at the Child Maltreatment Solutions Network Conference on behalf of her study coauthors—Erin Maher, Peter J. Pecora, and Kirk O’Brien from Casey Family Programs as well as Derekh Cornwell, Lindsey Leininger, Matt Stagner, Sarah LeBarron, Jonathan Gellar, Sophie MacIntyre, and Richard Chapman from Mathematica. This study was conducted in collaboration with Casey Family Programs, whose mission is to provide, improve, and, ultimately, prevent the need for foster care. The presenting author thanks Linda Jewell Morgan and Fred Simmens of the Casey Family Programs’ Strategic Consulting Team for their collaboration and work with the sites. She also thanks senior project advisors Toni Rozanski and Nadia Sexton. The project was made possible through the partnership and contributions of many people and organizations in the study sites. The presenting author thanks the study site partners, including the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services, TennCare, the Florida Department of Children and Families, the Florida Agency for Healthcare Administration, and Eckerd Kids, the lead Community Based Care agency in Hillsborough, Pinellas, and Pasco Counties, for their engagement in the study. Lastly, this research would not have been possible without the contributions of many other Mathematica staff, including Christina Alva, Stephanie Barna, Daniel Kassler, Brenda Natzke, Jessica Nysenbaum, Matt Mleczko, Kelley Monzella, Nora Paxton, Liz Potamites, Dmitriy Poznyak, Christine Ross, Michael Sinclair, and Fei Xing.
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Weigensberg, E. (2023). Integrating Child Welfare and Medicaid Data to Identify and Predict Superutilization of Services for Youth in Foster Care. In: Connell, C.M., Crowley, D.M. (eds) Strengthening Child Safety and Well-Being Through Integrated Data Solutions. Child Maltreatment Solutions Network. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36608-6_7
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