WARNING: These analyses are based on old data (ending October 1, 2006) and methodologies that have since been changed. For current analyses based on recent data and updated methodologies, please refer to: http://cssr.berkeley.edu/ucb_childwelfare

Click on the links below to download the data.
Please read the accompanying explanatory documents before viewing the data.
• State Profiles (Safety and Permanency)
• County-specific Standards:
  Examples:
  • Recurrence of Maltreatment, Round 1 Tables
  • Abuse in Care, Round 1 Tables
  • Reunification, Adoption, Stability, Reentry, Round 1 Standards

As a part of the federal Child and Family Services Review process, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) provides statewide aggregate Data Profiles for the State to use in this evaluation. This data profile provides the basis for the Statewide Assessment and the six statewide aggregate data indicators used to determine conformity with National Standards set forth by ACF. The data is derived from the State's submissions of the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) and the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis Reporting System (AFCARS).

Due to concerns about the quality of the data used in the federal profile, at the request of the California Department of Social Services (CDSS), the CSSR staff has generated their estimates of the Safety and Permanency Data Profiles using data provided to CSSR under an interagency agreement with CDSS. The Review requires that California be evaluated on the data provided by ACF. However, it is critical that any program improvement plan developed following the Review be based on the most accurate data available. To this end, the UCB Data Profiles were used as a reference in the writing of the Statewide Assessment, and will be used to monitor the Program Improvement Plan (PIP). UCB versions of the aggregate statewide Data Profiles, along with county specific estimates of the portions of the Profiles that are the National Standards (with Child Welfare and Probation breakouts), are provided.

Although we will attempt to improve our performance over time for each of the national standards, we believe that the methodology used to derive the data indicators and standards has severe limitations. Therefore, we will also be measuring our improvement over time with the constellation of measures that are a part of our Outcomes and Accountability (AB636) System. If the purpose of measuring outcomes is to provide information that can be used to examine changes in state performance over time, then performance measures should not be based on data from point-in-time cross-sections of the population or from data on exit cohorts. Both of these data sources can be biased in the sense that children entering care do not have an equal probability of appearing in the observed sample. This limits our ability to accurately measure our success in improving performance over time. In fact, actions based on biased insights could result in practice changes that are not in the best interests of California's children and families.

To the extent possible, we believe our performance should be evaluated using data that best reflect the experiences of all the children served. In most instances, for the standards relating for foster care, it is best to group children who enter out-of-home care during a specified time frame (e.g., year), following their progress through placement until they experience some form of exit. This is the so-called entry cohort method combined with a longitudinal perspective. Because entry cohorts include all children, the inherent biases are far more limited and the data are more easily interpreted, especially if we are trying to track changes over time.