Kaela Byers
University of Kansas, School of Social Welfare, Faculty Member
This study examines the implementation of preventive legal services for kinship families within the Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA) service array. A university research team, contracted by the Title IV-E agency to evaluate... more
This study examines the implementation of preventive legal services for kinship families within the Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA) service array. A university research team, contracted by the Title IV-E agency to evaluate the FFPSA programs, interviewed legal staff and kinship caregivers to understand how the provision of preventive legal services impacts the prevention-related needs of families. Findings suggest that the provision of free legal services can prevent children in kinship families from entering foster care by enhancing access to the services needed to ensure youth have legal membership in families that maintain their cultural and community ties. Future implementation should consider preventive legal services in the prevention service array, and how the referral mechanisms and systems of support surrounding kinship families can coordinate to ensure that more children can remain with their families.
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Youth who run away from foster care experience danger to health and safety and increased risk of adverse child welfare outcomes. By applying a concurrent mixed-methods approach, this study aimed to develop a deeper understanding of... more
Youth who run away from foster care experience danger to health and safety and increased risk of adverse child welfare outcomes. By applying a concurrent mixed-methods approach, this study aimed to develop a deeper understanding of runaway risk that used a person-centered lens and amplified youth voices. Collectively, this approach can inform service innovations to support youth placed in out-of-home care. Working with a foster care agency in Kansas, data sources comprised administrative data for youth ages 12 + in care, and interview data with 20 youth, 12 + in care. Quantitative analyses involved latent class analysis followed by multinomial logistic regression to investigate whether the population of youth in care was comprised of subpopulations with differential runaway risk and whether subpopulations would predict runaway behaviors. Qualitative analyses applied modified analytic inductive thematic analysis to explore critical life experiences that may act as risk or protective ...
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This project was supported through a contract with the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, Disability and Behavioral Health Services (SRS/DBHS).
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Background Health care administrators must establish and promote effective partnerships with community agencies to address social determinants of health, including reducing exposure of infants and young children to chronic stress. Because... more
Background Health care administrators must establish and promote effective partnerships with community agencies to address social determinants of health, including reducing exposure of infants and young children to chronic stress. Because infants’ experiences are inextricably tied to their caregivers, an important target for mitigating “toxic” stress exposure in early childhood is through reducing parents’ experiences of chronic stress in addition to protecting children from direct experiences of harm such as physical or sexual abuse. Conducting screening to identify when children are exposed to early life adversity is a first step; connecting families to needed support services is an essential component to addressing identified challenges. This paper presents the methodology of a three-year study of health care systems innovations designed to engage and support parents of infants to prevent and mitigate children’s toxic stress exposures. Methods Key study features included: 1) mult...
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BackgroundHealth care administrators must promote effective partnerships with community agencies to address social determinants of health, including reducing exposure to chronic stress in early childhood. Important targets for mitigating... more
BackgroundHealth care administrators must promote effective partnerships with community agencies to address social determinants of health, including reducing exposure to chronic stress in early childhood. Important targets for mitigating “toxic” levels of young child exposures are through reducing parents’ experiences of chronic stress as well as protecting children from direct experiences of harm such as physical or sexual abuse. Conducting screening to identify when parents and children are exposed to early life adversity is a first step; bringing in or referring out families to needed support services is an essential component. This paper describes a multi-modal investigation of health care systems innovations to engage and support parents to prevent and mitigate children’s toxic stress exposures through pediatric primary care and community services partnerships.MethodsKey study features include: 1) multi-component, multi-site study in five U.S. communities of pediatric health ca...
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Background and Purpose: Parent-to-parent peer interventions are nationally recognized as an important service for families of children with emotional, behavioral, and developmental disabilities (Fischer, Sauaia, & Kutner, 2007; Hoagwood,... more
Background and Purpose: Parent-to-parent peer interventions are nationally recognized as an important service for families of children with emotional, behavioral, and developmental disabilities (Fischer, Sauaia, & Kutner, 2007; Hoagwood, 2005). However, clearly defined models of professional parent services are difficult to find. In addition, little information could be located that describes the development or implementation of this model into a community-based system of care. This study describes the process used to obtain statewide consensus among key stakeholders including parents, service providers, and administrators, on the core components of a parent support and training (PST) model integrated in to the community mental health center (CMHC) system of care for parents of seriously emotionally disturbed children. Research questions studied include: 1) Which components do stakeholders identify as being most important in the delivery of PST services in CMHCs in Kansas and 2) Are...
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Protective factors are qualities of individuals and conditions in families and communities that serve to preserve and promote child and family well-being. They function as buffers, mitigating risk for child abuse and neglect and promoting... more
Protective factors are qualities of individuals and conditions in families and communities that serve to preserve and promote child and family well-being. They function as buffers, mitigating risk for child abuse and neglect and promoting resilience, which is the ability to successfully and positively adapt to circumstances that threaten well-being. In this chapter, the authors draw on literature from within and beyond the field of child maltreatment prevention to present findings that can inform prevention efforts. The chapter addresses: (1) the emergence of protective factors and resilience as a focus of practice and research, (2) the growing evidence of the importance of focusing on protective factors and resilience in child maltreatment prevention, (3) examples of innovative programming and research efforts that specifically focus on strengthening families by promoting protective factors and enhancing resilience, (4) how these types of promotional approaches can be taken to scale, and (5) research and policy initiatives with the potential to inform program planning.
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Research Interests: Sociology, Economics, Political Science, Capitalism, Great Depression, and 13 moreFinancial Crisis of 2008/2009, Global Financial Crisis, Financial Crisis, Derivatives, Recession, Moral Hazard, Great Recession, Prudential Regulation, Bank failure, New Institutionalism In Political Science, Systemic Risks, Too Big to Fail, and STOCK MARKET CRASH
Parent-to-parent peer interventions are nationally recognized as an important service within children's community-based mental health systems of care. Despite rapid growth, clearly defined models of professional parent services for... more
Parent-to-parent peer interventions are nationally recognized as an important service within children's community-based mental health systems of care. Despite rapid growth, clearly defined models of professional parent services for statewide application do not exist. In this study, concept mapping was used to achieve stakeholder consensus on the core components of the Parent Support and Training (PST) peer intervention model developed within the Kansas community mental health system. Participants rated the importance and observed frequency of 49 distinct statements related to the service and sorted them into conceptual groups. Analyses reflected a high level of agreement across stakeholders on statements identified as most important and most frequently demonstrated in PST services statewide.
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ABSTRACT Peer-support services, including Parent Support and Training, have traditionally subscribed to a strict definition of what it means to qualify as a peer, and therefore as a provider of these services. This article examines views... more
ABSTRACT Peer-support services, including Parent Support and Training, have traditionally subscribed to a strict definition of what it means to qualify as a peer, and therefore as a provider of these services. This article examines views of peer and non-peer stakeholders in Kansas CMHCs on additional characteristics of “peer-ness.” The findings of this analysis result in a call for a broadening of the definition of “peer” in order to creatively meet the needs of families in the current service climate while still providing support for upholding the family-driven paradigm that brought about inclusion of parent voice in the treatment process – a hallmark of the PST service.
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To retain the demonstrated effects of any tested program, interventions must maintain model fidelity at the individual and organizational levels and faithfully replicate the content and process of the intervention’s delivery system. While... more
To retain the demonstrated effects of any tested program, interventions must maintain model fidelity at the individual and organizational levels and faithfully replicate the content and process of the intervention’s delivery system. While most agree on the importance of accurate and consistent replication, achieving a high level of fidelity and measuring the degree to which a replication meets model standards is a complex undertaking. Although many interventions share similar components, capturing the unique aspects of a model may require an individualized fidelity monitoring system. This chapter provides an overview of how program fidelity has been addressed in the child welfare system and assesses the current status of such efforts, details the development and monitoring of fidelity in two model interventions (Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-Up and SafeCare®), and discusses the major questions facing practitioners, administrators, policy makers, and researchers as promising interventions are scaled-up.
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ABSTRACT Relying on the Decision-Making Ecology (Baumann, Dalgeish, Fluke, & Kern, 2011) model, the authors sought to gain insight into the ways in which child protective services (CPS) workers use their knowledge of maltreatment... more
ABSTRACT Relying on the Decision-Making Ecology (Baumann, Dalgeish, Fluke, & Kern, 2011) model, the authors sought to gain insight into the ways in which child protective services (CPS) workers use their knowledge of maltreatment prevention programs in deciding whether to screen cases in, open cases for ongoing services, and substantiate maltreatment. During in-depth interviews with 13 CPS workers and supervisors in four Wisconsin counties, respondents reported that the programs had a direct impact on screening and case opening/closing decisions but not substantiation decisions. Substantiation decisions, rather, were impacted indirectly as CPS staff members were able to justify a substantiation or court referral decision if families did not comply with the prevention program. This study has implications for measuring prevention program effectiveness: given that CPS decisions may be impacted in part by prevention programs, it may be problematic to rely on official CPS records as the sole measure of maltreatment.
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When implementing an evidence-based intervention in new contexts and with different populations, evaluation of not only outcomes, but also implementation processes become necessary. The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences... more
When implementing an evidence-based intervention in new contexts and with different populations, evaluation of not only outcomes, but also implementation processes become necessary. The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of bilingual, bicultural parent coaches delivering Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC), an early childhood evidence-based home visiting intervention (EBI), to Spanish-speaking families in the United States (U.S.). This qualitative study draws on semi-structured interviews completed with four ABC parent coaches in two U.S. states. All participants identify as female and are bicultural, native Spanish speakers. Analyses resulted in six themes organized into two broad categories: (1) challenges to providing ABC to Spanish-speaking families and (2) positive experiences providing ABC to Spanish-speaking families. Results highlight that in-the-field translation and delivery of an empirically supported early intervention that has not been adapted ...
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Commentators agree that the crisis that boiled to a bubble in the fall of 2008 (“the Great Recession”) is the gravest downturn since the depression of the 1930s. That makes it one of the two greatest crises in the history of capitalism.... more
Commentators agree that the crisis that boiled to a bubble in the fall of 2008 (“the Great Recession”) is the gravest downturn since the depression of the 1930s. That makes it one of the two greatest crises in the history of capitalism. And plainly, the crisis continues, yielding severe joblessness and a growing danger of government defaults, bank failures, and stock market crashes. Hundreds of commentators have sought to explain the crisis. Yet much remains murky, even paradoxical. This essay attempts to put the crisis in perspective by mapping the universe of crisis literature. It begins by framing some of the key questions posed in this literature. Next it offers sharply etched reviews of thirteen key books. The result is a multi-faceted portrait of a crisis that is still unfolding.