Department of Economic Security - Division of Children, Youth and Families - Child Protective Services - In-Home Services Program Performance Audit Report

The Division can strengthen its in-home services program by taking steps to further support in-home services contractors' use of evidence-based practices, which are interventions, programs, or treatments that have been established as effective through scientific research. Despite providing a wide array of services to help families, the impact of the Division's in-home services program is mixed. Literature indicates that providing services that are evidence-based may yield better results. Therefore, the Division should take additional steps to incorporate these practices in its in-home services program. These steps include communicating its intent that services be evidence-based and making it a requirement in the next in-home services contract solicitation, developing well-defined criteria for identifying evidence-based practices, maintaining an updated listing of these practices, and monitoring its contractors to ensure that they are implementing evidence-based practices as designed.