Products Offer Guidance on Transitioning to Remote and Virtual Practices During COVID-19 Pandemic

More than 6 months into the COVID-19 pandemic, health and human services professionals continue to adapt service delivery and assessment with the aim of reducing transmission. To support their efforts, JBA staff have prepared a variety of resources offering guidance on remote and virtual practices.

The Tribal Evaluation Institute developed several resources to help grantees of the Tribal Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program transition to virtual and remote screenings. Products include a 7-minute informational video and accompanying tip sheet on adapting the administration of a screener in a virtual setting. A decision flow chart and worksheet help programs think through and document their decisions.

Other products adopt a child welfare lens. A newly published brief on Effective Child Welfare Research and Evaluation Using Remote Methods outlines the challenges of remotely conducting child welfare research and collecting data. It also includes suggestions, including how to adapt evaluation designs, select and use technology, maintain privacy, and collect qualitative data.

Similarly, Virtual Communities of Practice in Child Welfare: A Review of the Literature summarizes research on peer groups that use technology to unite professionals wherever they live and work. The brief examines components of successful virtual communities of practice that can be applied to child welfare.

The three products were developed as part of JBA’s work on behalf of the Administration for Children and Families. JBA runs the Tribal Evaluation Institute with support from the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation. The child welfare products were developed for two projects funded by the Children’s Bureau: respectively, the Technical Assistance on Evaluation for Discretionary Grant Programs and Evaluation of the Capacity Building Collaborative projects.