WRMA

Walter R. McDonald & Associates, Inc. (WRMA), has extensive experience supporting national, state and local human services agencies to improve outcomes for the children and families they serve. Since the firm's founding and incorporation in 1980, WRMA has conducted more than 475 customized, time-limited projects. The WRMA approach is to engage in extensive interaction with the client, the participating agencies, and the communities in which each project operates. As a result, WRMA is able to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the needs and achievements of the programs, services, and strategies being studied, and can arrive at clear conceptions of target populations, outcomes, and strategies for achieving project goals. WRMA maintains corporate offices in California, and the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, as well as project offices in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Oregon, and Pennsylvania.

Organizationally, WRMA has four major consulting areas, headed by Vice-Presidents, who report to the President and the Executive Vice-President. The consulting areas are: Research and Evaluation, National Data Reporting Systems, Information Technology and Knowledge Management, and Strategic Organizational Improvement Studies.

Professional Staff

WRMA's greatest strength is it's professional staff. We have successfully assembled a highly qualified team, bringing extensive experience in assisting large, complex public sector agencies throughout the United States. They have assisted in the development of viable, stakeholder-influenced, results-oriented strategic plans; technology-based outcome evaluations; and public and private sector policies and practices; as well as the design, development and implementation of information technology systems.

WRMA has nearly 30 years of nationally recognized work in programs that service children, youth, and families, especially in the areas of child protection, permanency, outcomes, and social services information systems. Their work has included federal, state, and foundation clients including the Children's Bureau, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and such states as California, Washington, and New York, as well as the city of Philadelphia. WRMA has assisted states in the development and implementation of child welfare information systems.

Examples of work in this area include:

• Quality Improvement Center on Differential Response in Child Protective Services (QIC-DR)
• National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS)
• Policy and Program Studies for the Administration of Children, Youth, and Families
• Washington Child Welfare Workload Study
• Statewide Automated Child Welfare Information Systems (SACWIS)
• National Study of Child Protective Services Systems and Reform Efforts
• Social Services Block Grant (SSBG)
• Families for Kids Initiative, Policy Analysis and Cluster Evaluation
• California Family Preservation Evaluation

WRMA has corporate offices in Sacramento, California, Denver, Colorado and in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, as well as a number of project offices across the country.

For more information about Walter R. McDonald & Assoc., visit www.wrma.com