In 2021, the Supreme Court of Ohio and the Ohio Department of Children and Youth funded six county-based programs to pilot variations of multidisciplinary parent representation (MDR). Over the next four years, the programs served more than 450 families with over 1,000 children. Each program provided parents involved (or at risk of involvement) with the child welfare system with multidisciplinary teams that included attorneys, social workers, and parent advocates. Some pilots emphasized pre-petition advocacy, others focused on truancy cases, and one pilot worked with families only after the filing of an abuse/neglect petition.

This final report synthesizes four years of evaluation and includes lessons learned for designing and implementing MDR programs, as well as recommendations for Ohio stakeholders to consider. The report builds on Action Research's prior work on models of parent representation and complements our work with Los Angeles, New York City, and the Family Justice Initiative.