Input from community members is vital to the work that Allegheny County Department of Human Services (DHS) does. One way that DHS is learning about the community’s needs is by posing questions on a public online feedback platform called Neighborland. DHS is reviewing and summarizing the answers we receive and analyzing the text for common themes. Feedback is being used to inform our planning and programming.
The dashboard below provides an overview of Allegheny County child welfare out-of-home placements from 2010 through 2021. Data describe yearly point-in-time counts of children in placement (“PIT” tab), characteristics of children in placement, what types of placements were used, how long children stayed there, where they went after their placement ended (also known as exits) and how many returned to the child welfare system after returning home (also known as re-entries). The dashboard is updated annually when a full year of data becomes available.
A related report provides analysis of placement trends over the past decade.
Developed by the Black Girls Equity Alliance, this independent report uses data from several local partners, including the Allegheny County Department of Human Services, to explore racial disproportionality in youth referrals to the juvenile justice system.
In Allegheny County, a preliminary arraignment is a defendant’s first court appearance, during which a judge notifies the defendant of their charges and a bail determination is made. Defendants are not guaranteed legal representation at preliminary arraignments, but lack of representation can have serious consequences for fairness and equity in court proceedings, as well as a substantial impact on the jail population.
In April 2017, the Allegheny County Office of the Public Defender began a pilot project utilizing existing staff to provide legal representation for all people arraigned during business hours at Pittsburgh Municipal Court.
The outcomes of the first year of the pilot are encouraging. Compared to a matched sample, people represented by public defenders at preliminary arraignments:
The presence of police officers in schools has become increasingly common since the practice was introduced in the 1950s. While law enforcement in schools may deter criminal behavior, it can also have the effect of increasing youth juvenile justice system involvement. Allegheny County Department of Human Services (DHS) wanted to learn more about youth arrests in Pittsburgh, particularly differences related to where an allegation happens — in or out of school — and how the outcomes of students involved with the juvenile justice system differ from those who have not been involved. We also wanted to know more about students’ involvement with human services in order to better understand where there might be gaps in services and supports for students involved with juvenile justice.
To explore these questions, we took a descriptive longitudinal look at students who were registered in Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) in school year 2010 and followed them through 2018.
What we found:
In recent years, PPS has put in place programs to divert students from the criminal justice system as well as implement restorative justice practices in schools, which we hope will lead to a reduction in disproportionality and improved outcomes for students.
Click here to view the full report.
Throughout the United States, people experiencing behavioral health challenges are overrepresented in the criminal justice system and Allegheny County is no exception. To better understand the state of our current system and to learn more about promising approaches in other jurisdictions, Allegheny County sought an independent evaluator to conduct a study. From among a number of proposers, the county selected researchers from the University of Pittsburgh who interviewed dozens of stakeholders, analyzed justice system data, examined models from other jurisdictions, and solicited feedback through a series of workshops.
Click on the links above to learn more about the researchers’ findings and recommendations:
This report describes women in the Allegheny County criminal justice system with a goal of better understanding the population by exploring their demographics and human services history. The analysis describes women at three stages in the criminal justice system: women who had criminal filings, women booked into the Allegheny County Jail (ACJ), and women released from the ACJ.
Key findings include:
Click here to read the full report.
Since 2010, ACTION-Housing’s My Place program has provided housing and case management to Allegheny County youth who are either transitioning out of foster care or at-risk for homelessness. In 2013, ACTION-Housing built a modern, energy-efficient structure — the 24-unit Uptown Lofts — with the belief that services could be offered more effectively if many young adults were living at a single location. This report provides an overview of ACTION-Housing’s youth-focused programs and how it has found success serving vulnerable youth through supervised independence; clear expectations; and motivating, compassionate support staff.
One way that Allegheny County promotes the provision of high quality behavioral health services is through value-based contracting (VBC), which pays providers of behavioral health services based on quality of care rather than quantity of care. This type of contracting can reduce system costs while also providing financial incentives for high-performing providers. The Pennsylvania Department of Human Services (PA DHS) has implemented a series of VBC requirements for the Medicaid-funded behavioral health program statewide. This report outlines these requirements, highlights Allegheny County’s various VBC initiatives, and discusses next steps.
In partnership with nine community-based providers, Allegheny County Department of Human Services (DHS) provides home-delivered meals to older adults in need. In order to learn more about meal recipient satisfaction, DHS surveyed more than 200 meal program participants. The survey found high satisfaction overall, with average scores ranging from 4.2 to 4.9 out of 5. Survey respondents rated delivery people high, while scores for taste of food and amount of food were slightly lower. Sixty-five percent of participants said that the program helped them feel less lonely, and 87% said that meal delivery helped them to remain in their own homes instead of needing a higher level of care.
The National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance at the Institute of Education Sciences (US Department of Education) examined data from Allegheny County students to better understand predictors of near-term academic risks. The goal of this research to provide information for administrators, researchers, and student support staff in local education agencies who are interested in identifying students who are likely to have near-term academic problems such as absenteeism, suspensions, poor grades, and low performance on state tests.
The report describes an approach for developing a predictive model and assesses how well the model identifies at-risk students using data from two local education agencies in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania: a large local education agency and a smaller charter school network. It also examines which types of predictors— in-school variables (performance, behavior, and consequences) and out-of-school variables (human services involvement and public benefit receipt)—are individually related to each type of near-term academic problem to better understand why the model might flag students as at risk and how best to support these students.
The study finds that predictive models using machine learning algorithms identify at-risk students with moderate to high accuracy. In-school variables drawing on school data are the strongest predictors across all outcomes, and predictive performance is not reduced much when out-of-school variables drawing on human services data are excluded and only school data are used. However, some out-of-school events and services—including child welfare involvement, emergency homeless services, and juvenile justice system involvement —are individually related to near-term academic problems. The models are more accurate for the large local education agency than for the smaller charter school network. The models are better at predicting low grade point average, course failure, and scores below the basic level on state tests in grades 3–8 than at predicting chronic absenteeism, suspensions, and scores below the basic level on high school end-of-course standardized tests. The findings suggest that many local education agencies could apply machine learning algorithms to existing school data to identify students who are at risk of near-term academic problems that are known to be precursors to school dropout.
Two housing programs in Allegheny County, Rapid Rehousing (RRH) and the Housing Choice Voucher Program (HCV, or Section 8), provide monetary assistance to households so that families can rent from private landlords and live in the communities of their choice. While participant choice is a potential benefit of both programs, the reality is that where participants live is often limited. Fair market rent calculations, source of income discrimination, zoning laws, and participants’ eviction and credit records can all create obstacles for housing program participants seeking rental units.
Since place has a profound influence on the outcomes of children and adults, we wanted to explore the degree to which individuals and families in RRH and HCV programs moved to disadvantaged census tracts. Analysis found that approximately half of households in the two programs moved to highly or extremely disadvantaged census tracts, even though only 18% of all census tracts in Allegheny County were classified as such. Key findings of the analysis include:
Read the full report here.
Since financial stability is an important part of people’s ability to live healthy and independent lives, Allegheny County Department of Human Services (DHS) wanted to learn more about the work experiences of its clients. Using data from the Allegheny County Data Warehouse and 2018 State Unemployment Insurance records, we found that the majority of eligible DHS clients were disconnected from the labor force in 2018, and those who were able to find work tended to earn less than other Allegheny County workers.
The analysis found that:
But there were bright spots for some DHS clients:
By investigating employment experiences, DHS and its partners can gain insight into clients’ economic challenges and tailor services like education and job training to better meet the needs of clients and employers.
National research shows that young adults transitioning out of foster care into adulthood face more challenges than their peers. This report examines outcomes for Allegheny County young adults who had been in a child welfare placement and exited the system from 2006 through 2016. Outcomes examined include achievement of legal permanency, education, employment, early parenting, homelessness, involvement in mental health and/or substance use disorder treatment, unexpected violent deaths (homicides, overdoses and suicides) and criminal justice involvement. The goal of the analysis was to provide a barometer of those outcomes that affect transition-aged youth and to record County resources that have been directed toward this population.
Allegheny County homeless service programs are assessed yearly as part of a process of evaluating and prioritizing projects for funding. This evaluation process has historically been based on administrative data about clients’ housing and self-sufficiency outcomes. In order to more fully evaluate these services – and to align with suggestions from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development – DHS and other stakeholders are piloting feedback methods and tools to better understand clients’ experience with the services they receive. During the first iteration of the pilot, more than 200 clients receiving a range of homeless services responded to a survey by text, online or in person.
This report describes the 2018 pilot process for the development and administration of the survey, analyzes findings from the survey, and discusses insights and recommendations for future survey administration.