Development and Validation of the Family Feedback on Child Welfare Services (FF-CWS)
Research on Social Work Practice
Published online on April 12, 2016
Abstract
The measurement of Family Feedback on Child Welfare Services (FF-CWS) is gaining prominence as an efficacy indicator and is coherent with concerns about family-centered practice and empowerment. The aim of this study was to develop and validate an instrument that would overcome the scarcity of psychometrically sound measures in this field.
Following item construction and selection, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses with a sample of 263 Spanish (52%) and Portuguese (48%) caregivers of children involved with CWS were conducted.
Three subscales were identified: Intervention Efficacy, Perception of Workers, and Satisfaction with the Intervention Process. In general, all dimensions showed good reliability, convergent, and criterion-related validity results. Multigroup analyses confirmed measurement invariance for both countries.
The FF-CWS Questionnaire is a brief self-report measure that can be a useful assessment tool to frontline practitioners, agency managers, and policy makers for program evaluation and planning.