Applying the Cost Calculator methodology to the United States: collaboration with Oregon Social Learning Center
This study is undertaken in collaboration with Oregon Social Learning Center (OSLC), Oregon USA.
OSLC is a non-profit, independent research centre located in Oregon, US, dedicated to increasing the scientific understanding of social and psychological processes related to healthy development and family functioning.
OSLC have received funding for the project from the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), USA.
The Cost Calculator for Children's Services (CCfCS) was developed as part of the CCFR research project: Costs and Consequences of Different Types of Childcare Provision.
It is a computer application and costing methodology
designed to assist local authorities and other agencies to monitor the true costs of services to children and to link these to outcomes.
There are currently no US-based mechanisms designed to easily evaluate variables that drive costs within child welfare services, which results in short-term, cost-cutting strategies being favoured by policymakers.
- Determine key processes from which unit costs can be derived within US child welfare systems and validate those unit costs in the US.
- Assist US child welfare agencies to use the Cost Calculator methodology to monitor the true costs of services and to improve strategic planning and commissioning.
- Promote cross-national research on the CCfCS between the two research centres.
- Publish scholarly articles on the Cost Calculator methodology.
- Training of OSLC researchers in the Cost Calculator methodology.
- Mapping US child welfare processes in two states ( Oregon and California).
- Liaison on adaptation of computer programme between UK and US teams.
- Collection of pilot data on unit costs in the US in two sites to include focus groups and time studies on US processes and comparison with UK data.
- Collection of child level data in the US in two sites.
- Implementation of the US Cost Calculator for Children’s Services in two sites.
Use of the modified Cost Calculator in the US will allow a more systematic understanding of the various costs associated with preventative interventions in child welfare services relative to the outcomes accrued.
Professor Harriet Ward
Lisa Holmes
Jean Soper
Visit the OSLC website: www.oslc.org/
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