Erin Arthur, M.S., M.A

Erin Arthur, M.S., M.A.

Research Associate

Erin Arthur is a Research Associate in HZA’s Harrisburg, Pennsylvania office. Since joining HZA in 2008, Ms. Arthur has assisted in analyzing county child welfare data for Pennsylvania’s Office of Children and Youth Services annual budget and planning process, highlighting strengths and areas needing improvement in terms of safety and permanency for abused and neglected children and their families. She is also part of HZA’s training team, instructing Pennsylvania county staff on how to interpret Child and Family Services Review data and facilitating small group discussions about strategies for addressing program improvement.

Ms. Arthur has played an active role in several other engagements. She assisted in the Oklahoma Department of Human Services Performance Audit, conducting interviews with key stakeholders and case record reviews to examine the organizational structure of the department in general and the implications of that structure for management and performance of the child welfare program in particular. More recently she assisted in the Arkansas Administrative Case Review where data collected from case records and interviews with workers were designed to identify which elements of the casework process are most closely correlated to achieving successful outcomes, as well as barriers to providing quality casework and the achievement of successful outcomes. She was also involved in the Arkansas Overdue Investigation Project which was designed to review overdue investigations and make recommendations, based on case record evidence and interviews with investigators or supervisors, for Division of Children and Family Services’ caseworkers to see the family immediately, substantiate the allegations as true or unsubstantiated and/or refer the family for potential services.

Ms. Arthur is a vital member of the firm’s system development team. She conducts comprehensive navigation and regression testing, ensuring case management systems and survey tools designed by HZA are user-friendly, capture data preserving the integrity of the input and reports provide accurate and meaningful data.

Prior to her arrival at HZA, Ms. Arthur provided guidance to counselors responsible for case management of work release probationers and parolees and worked as a counselor to victims of sexual assault. Ms. Arthur holds a M.S. in Psychology of Investigation from the University of Liverpool and a M.A. in Criminal Justice from Pennsylvania State University.

CFSR/PIP/QSR Support

From Pennsylvania Data Gathering, Analysis, and Reporting; Technical Assistance and Training Proposal – December 2015

Erin Arthur, Research Associate II (Continuous Quality Improvement Specialist)

Since joining HZA in 2008, Erin Arthur has assisted in analyzing county child welfare data for Pennsylvania’s Office of Children and Youth Services’ annual budget and planning process and supported the Commonwealth’s Continuous Quality Improvement initiatives. She is also part of HZA’s training team, instructing Pennsylvania county staff on how to interpret Child and Family Services Review data and participating in a number of workgroups designed to address program improvements. Based on her range of experience in supporting OCYF, Ms. Arthur will serve as the Quality Assurance Specialist for this engagement. She will continue to lead HZA’s CQI efforts, conduct qualitative and quantitative data analyses, participate in the training of regional and local staff, and conduct reviews of all of HZA’s products to ensure their accuracy and completeness. Ms. Arthur will also serve as Mr. Zack’s assistant manager for this project.

As indicated above, Ms. Arthur is involved in nearly every aspect of the work HZA presently performs for OCYF. She assists in preparing the AFCARS longitudinal files for analysis purposes; conducts ad hoc data analyses; works closely with OCYF and its county agencies throughout the QSR process; serves as a member of multiple CQI workgroups, including the overall committee; provides training and technical assistance to regional and county staff; and conducts a thorough review of all automated tools HZA constructs for OCYF.

Ms. Arthur has also played a role in other engagements, which has helped to expand her knowledge of child welfare and performance measurement. For example, she led an evaluation of a special study in Arkansas of a county which was troubled with high rates of staff turnover, poor outcomes and a contentious relationship with the courts. She assists with the ongoing reviews of child protective investigations in Arkansas which are used to assess performance and identify where changes in policy are needed. Ms. Arthur also participated in a Performance Audit HZA conducted of the Oklahoma Department of Human Services, conducting interviews with key stakeholders and case record reviews to examine the organizational structure of the department in general and the implications of that structure for the management and performance of the child welfare program in particular.

She is a key member of the firm’s system development team. Ms. Arthur conducts comprehensive navigation and regression testing, ensuring case management systems and survey tools designed by HZA are user friendly, capture data accurately and preserve the integrity of the input. For the web-based applications HZA has developed for OCYF, she has contributed to the conceptual design of the various applications and their reporting features.

Prior to her arrival at HZA, Ms. Arthur provided guidance to counselors responsible for case management of work release probationers and parolees and worked as a counselor to victims of sexual assault. Ms. Arthur holds a M.S. in Psychology of Investigation from the University of Liverpool and completed the full range of coursework at the Master’s level in the area of Criminal Justice at Pennsylvania State University.

From Pennsylvania Data Gathering, Analysis, and Reporting; Technical Assistance and Training Proposal – October 2012

Erin Arthur, M.S., M.A.

Analyst

Since joining HZA in 2008, Erin Arthur has assisted Mr. Zacks in producing the county data packages for OCYF’s Needs-Based Planning and Budgeting process, as well as analyzing the information and helping counties understand and interpret it. She has been an active member of the Commonwealth’s committee charged with developing a protocol for assessing county performance in improving case practice and thus outcomes for children and families. She has participated in these case reviews, which are required by the Commonwealth’s PIP, interviewed caseworkers, supervisors, community stakeholders and clients and analyzed the quantitative and qualitative data. Ms. Arthur is responsible for drafting the county and statewide reports.

Ms. Arthur is also a key member of the firm’s system development team. She conducts comprehensive navigation and regression testing, ensuring case management systems and survey tools designed by HZA are user-friendly, capture data preserving the integrity of the input and reports provide accurate and meaningful data. Her efforts in this regard have helped Mr. Zacks automate many of the processes used to create the products HZA provides for OCYF.

Ms. Arthur has also played a role in other engagements, expanding her knowledge of child welfare and performance measurement. She assisted in HZA’s Oklahoma Department of Human Services Performance Audit, conducting interviews with key stakeholders and case record reviews to examine the organizational structure of the department in general and the implications of that structure for management and performance of the child welfare program in particular. More recently she assisted in an Administrative Case Review in Arkansas where data collected from case records and interviews with workers were used to identify the elements of the casework process most closely correlated to achieving successful outcomes, as well as barriers to providing quality casework and the achievement of successful outcomes. In 2011 she was involved in a special study of a single county in Arkansas where placements had skyrocketed and come to represent one in every six placements in the state.

Prior to her arrival at HZA, Ms. Arthur provided guidance to counselors responsible for case management of work release probationers and parolees and worked as a counselor to victims of sexual assault. She holds an M.S. in Psychology of Investigation from the University of Liverpool and an M.A. in Criminal Justice from Pennsylvania State University. She has been using SPSS for the past five years, writing, modifying and debugging SPSS syntax.

From PA OCYF Data Analysis Re-bid – May 2012

Erin Arthur, M.S., M.A.

Research Associate

Prior to her arrival at HZA, Ms. Arthur provided guidance to counselors responsible for case management of work release probationers and parolees and worked as a counselor to victims of sexual assault. She holds an M.S. in Psychology of Investigation from the University of Liverpool and an M.A. in Criminal Justice from Pennsylvania State University. She has been using SPSS for the past five years, writing, modifying and debugging SPSS syntax.

From NJ Production of Longitudinal Data Analysis and Reporting Proposal – April 2012

Erin Arthur, Analyst

Since joining HZA in 2008, Ms. Arthur has devoted most of her time to analyzing county child welfare data for Pennsylvania’s annual needs based budget and planning process and working with that state’s child welfare agency on CFSR and PIP activities. In addition, she has participated in a legislatively sponsored audit of Oklahoma’s child welfare system, several reviews of agency performance in Arkansas and an evaluation of behavioral health programs in Nebraska. She is also part of HZA’s training team, instructing Pennsylvania county staff on how to interpret data and facilitating small group discussions about strategies for addressing program improvement.

Relevant Experience

Technical Assistance, Needs Based Planning and Budgeting and CFSR Support Pennsylvania Office of Children Youth and Families (OCYF)

2008 – Present

Ms. Arthur works closely with Mr. Zacks in producing the semi-annual data packages which are used by the state’s 67 county child welfare agencies to measure performance on safety and permanency. These packages consist of Excel workbooks with separate sheets for each descriptive and outcome measure, breaking down the data by age, race, gender, reason for removal and most recent placement setting. There is also one sheet devoted to graphs of several of the measures. Both the graphs and the tables cover five-year periods divided into six-month segments.

Corresponding to each Excel file, HZA produces a Word document with content mirroring that of the Excel file, as well as a summarizing PowerPoint presentation for use by county administrators. Aside from assisting in the details of the production, Ms. Arthur is responsible for conducting an exhaustive quality control review of the county packages prior to their release. She also assists Mr. Zacks in training regional and county staff on the contents and interpretation of the data, and in using the data to respond to ad hoc data requests.

Ms. Arthur participates in the committee OCYF has established to ensure continuous improvement in the performance of the Commonwealth’s child welfare system. Beyond offering her advice on data and measurement issues, she participates actively in some of the activities, particularly the Quality Service Reviews. She has developed validation checks to ensure the consistency of the data derived from those reviews, and she authors many of the county-specific reports coming out of the reviews, as well as the annual statewide report.

Court Involvement

From Michigan 17-Year-OldAdult Court and Correctional Systems Cost Study Proposal – February 2017

Erin Arthur, M.S., Research Associate

Office Location: Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Dedicated Hours: 160

Erin Arthur was the Qualitative Analysis Lead on the Disproportionate Minority Contact research that HZA conducted for the Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement between 2012 and 2015. Ms. Arthur actively participated in the collection of data at the parish level to quantify DMC at nine contact points along the juvenile justice continuum and met with clerks of court, district attorneys and juvenile probation officers to identify data available to measure the extent to which DMC exists in the Louisiana Juvenile Justice System.

From 2008 to 2009, Ms. Arthur participated in the case record reviews of sexually and physically abused children in Connecticut to identify gaps in service needs, assisting with the data analysis including that of the state’s Statewide Automated Child Welfare Information System (SACWIS). She participated in HZA’s workload study in Minnesota between 2008 and 2011whichwas designed to measure resource need based on the ability of the state and its counties to achieve positive safety and permanency outcomes for children served in the child welfare system.

As a Research Associate with HZA, Ms. Arthur’s primary focus has been developing planning data for the Pennsylvania Office of Children and Youth Services’ annual budget and planning process, which she has performed on an ongoing basis since 2008.She also assists with the ongoing production of statewide and county automated reports used to measure the New Jersey Department of Children and Families' rates of achieving successful outcomes for children and families in response to a ModifiedSettlement Agreement in the case of Charlie and Nadine H. et al. vs. John S. Corzine.Ms. Arthur has also been an active participant since 2013 in the evaluation of the six initiatives designed to improve safety, placement stability of youth and permanency of children known to the Arkansas Division of Children and Family Services as part of that State’s award of Title IV-E Waiver grant monies.

Erin Arthur was the Head State Counselor at Capital Pavilion/Firetree Ltd. in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for three years prior to starting with HZA, a position in which she provided leadership and guidance to counselors, assisted in case management while adhering to Department of Corrections, Bureau of Prisonsand Pennsylvania probation and parole regulations,maintained reports and files and submitted sanctions to regulation violators, created a catalogue of research proposals, and traced success rates of client services. She was also a Teaching Assistant in the Criminal Justice Department of Pennsylvania State University and earlier, a Sexual Assault Coordinator for the Newton County, Iowa, Domestic Violence Alternatives/Sexual Assault Center where she attended court proceedings while working hands-on with police and judicial officials,chaired the Sexual Assault Task Force, and assisted victims of sexual assault and domestic violence.

Ms. Arthur earned her B.A. in Criminology and Psychology in 2002 from Auburn University and went on to earn her M.S. in Psychology of Investigation from the University of Liverpool in 2005.

Juvenile Justice

From Connecticut DMC Evaluation Proposal – January 2015

Erin Arthur, M.S., Data Analyst, has been an integral part of the assessment of DMC in Louisiana. She also interviewed key stakeholders to identify available data sources and learn how each parish defines each contact point in relation to OJJDP’s definitions. Ms. Arthur led a series of follow-up site meetings to present the results of the RRI calculations and identify potential contributing mechanisms. Ms. Arthur has also demonstrated use of the automated tracking tool developed for the parishes to test their hypotheses and monitor the impact of intervention efforts on an ongoing basis.

Ms. Arthur is actively engaged in developing data for Pennsylvania’s annual budget and planning process for its child welfare programs. She serves on the committee charged with measuring the change in performance of counties in keeping children safe, achieving permanency and providing for their well-being. As local case reviews are completed, Ms. Arthur conducts the quantitative and qualitative analyses. Interviews with caseworkers, supervisors, community stakeholders and clients have been instrumental in identifying factors which influence local performance.

From Virginia Cross Systems Assessment Proposal – May 2014

Erin Arthur, M.S., M.A.

Ms. Arthur works closely with Pennsylvania’s Office of Children Youth and Families (OCYF) to identify strengths and areas needing improvement in the safety and permanency for abused and neglected children using quality assurance tools and methodologies. For the assessment of dually-involved youth in Virginia, Ms. Arthur will conduct analyses of data extracts obtained from local case management systems and statewide sources to examine demographic characteristics, placement setting or living situation data and identify differences of juvenile justice youth based on contact point for the three populations. (IV.B.2.b, first bullet, IV.B.2.b, third bullet)