Performance evaluation of child welfare departments using Data Envelopment Analysis: A comparative study across US states

Public child welfare agencies play a pivotal role in safeguarding the well-being of children and thus, the future of our society. While the performance of child welfare agencies is of critical importance, limited previous research relying on operations research and advanced analytics appears to exist in the analysis of their performance. We conduct a multi-criteria analysis for benchmarking the performance of the United States child welfare system, using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to evaluate the performance of public child welfare agencies across different US states. We select as outputs various statewide data indicators from the Child and Family Services Review (CFSR), while our inputs include the total annual expenditure by each state on the child welfare system. We use clustering to differentiate agencies based on the presence of the “Alternative Response” policy, which provides for preventive and support options for families, and apply DEA to each homogenous cluster. We identify best-practice agencies and provide benchmarks for the remaining agencies to enhance their performance. Our study offers data-driven directions for child welfare agencies to improve safety and permanency outcomes for children.