Building Rigorous Evidence for Connecticut's Kinship Navigation Model (ConnectiKIN/CKIN): An Impact Evaluation - Chapin Hall, in partnership with the Connecticut Department of Children and Families (CT DCF), plans to conduct a rigorous quasi-experimental impact evaluation of Connecticut's Kinship Navigation Model (CKIN). CKIN is a statewide kinship navigator program, operating across all six of CT DCF's administrative regions since 2023, that connects kinship caregivers and the children in their care to information, referrals, benefits coordination, legal assistance, and peer support. Connecticut has one of the highest rates of kinship caregiving in the nation, with nearly half of children entering out-of-home care placed with relatives and thousands more living in informal kinship arrangements statewide. Over the three-year project period, CKIN is expected to receive referrals for approximately 1,900 – 2,100 kinship caregivers statewide. The evaluation, led by Chapin Hall with subcontracted Title IV-E Clearinghouse expertise from Kaye Implementation & Evaluation (KI&E), will assess CKIN's effectiveness using a quasi-experimental design comparing outcomes for families who receive CKIN services against a comparison group drawn from CT DCF's administrative data. The evaluation will examine child safety and permanency outcomes, drawing on CT DCF administrative records, the statewide CKIN data platform (PIE), and structured caregiver surveys administered at the completion of the program, and at 6- and 12-month follow-up. Project activities include a six-month collaborative planning phase, in which Chapin Hall, CT DCF, and ACF's Children's Bureau will finalize the KNP service model and evaluation design, followed by implementation of the full impact evaluation. The project builds on an existing partnership: Chapin Hall and CT DCF have jointly developed CKIN's theory of change, logic model, training curriculum, and evaluation plan, and operate under an active Data Use Agreement and IRB protocol covering the evaluation's data collection. This work is further strengthened by Chapin Hall's long-standing collaboration with KI&E. KI&E has partnered with Chapin Hall since OhioKAN, a recently Clearinghouse-approved kinship navigation model, and has been embedded in the CT DCF partnership — including conducting CKIN's evaluability assessment and, currently, its feasibility assessment. The project's goal is to generate evidence sufficient to support CKIN's submission to the Title IV-E Prevention Services Clearinghouse for a rating of promising, supported, or well-supported — positioning Connecticut to draw down Title IV-E Kinship Navigator federal funding under section 474(a)(7) of the Social Security Act and adding a rigorously evaluated model to the small number of Clearinghouse-rated kinship navigator programs nationally.
