The services provided to 120 children (62 experimental and 58 control)
by state welfare agencies were followed for six years. When identifie
d initially, all of the children were in out-of-home placements. After
a 12-month follow-up of an experimental 90-day intensive in-home, fam
ily-based intervention, 75 percent of the children in the experimental
group were reunified with their families, compared with 49 percent of
the children in the control group who received routine child welfare
services. Over six years, using state computer databases, it was deter
mined that the children in the experimental group required less superv
ision time, lived at home longer, and were in less-restrictive placeme
nts than those in the control group. At the time all public agency inv
olvement was terminated, two-thirds of the experimental families were
classified as ''stabilized,'' compared with approximately one-third of
the control group. The experimental treatment had a substantial effec
t on families, which continued throughout the six-year follow-up perio
d.