May 2009 These are just some of the changes being made to the child welfare system to ensure the safety of the child while reducing the need for removal due to neglect and abuse reports. Following is the latest bi-monthly status report on the progress of the Foster Care Redesign project. Previous reports may be accessed via the links at the end of this report. January 2009
The Foster Care Redesign team has made progress in a number of areas resulting in a
54.6% reduction in the number of children in care in
changes include:
What We Did Over the Past Three Months:
The Foster Care Redesign managed to make front page news in a good way two times this quarter. It is heartwarming to see success stories instead of just child welfare "failures." By the way, we respect the press and their right to examine any case. Our new policy on transparency has made us able to share even more information with the press and the community.
Here are some highlights of our work:
Phase I implementation is being quality checked by the Department and Family Support Services at child's entry into the system, Diversion Program FAST and prevention program STEPS. Part of the vision of the Foster Care Redesign is to enhance the quality of services, so this quality check is extremely important. We have forged an even closer
relationship with the Child Protection Team to assure quality decisions are being made.
The Northeast Region submitted a disproportionality plan to the state designed to evaluate data, policies and procedures on disproportionality. Many DCF and Family Support Services workers were trained on cultural competency.
Family Support Services started meeting on its oldest cases and teen cases to put a new set of eyes on getting permanency for these kids before they leave the system at 18 years of age.
Youth Crisis Center started a program for our teens, to develop life skills. Youth Crisis Center and Children's Home Society will be opening up great, new facilities for our teens by the end of the year.
Cultural changes continue at the Department of Children and Families and Family Support Services. Instead of the agency who "snatches your kids," we aspire to be the agency that practices CPR with your family. CPR is "Constant Positive Regard." We will respect the family and its strengths and work to make the family even stronger. Of course, child safety is our first priority, and we will have to take some children into care. We are especially concerned about making good decisions on our infant population, and are working with the Child Protection Team even more closely on this group.
The Integrated Practices Team (IPT) is fully staffed, with employees from Family Support Services, Child Guidance, Gateway Community Services, River Region, DCF (Protective Investigators and ACCESS), Hubbard House, University of Florida, etc. The housing person, Van Snead, was a recent addition who is certainly bringing value. The silos have been broken down and all agencies are working together at the front end of the process to improve services. One member acts as a family advocate. Some members are ad hoc, depending on the case: Agency for Persons with Disabilities, Department of Juvenile Justice, JASMYN.
More silo busting; DCF has collocated with Jewish Family Community Services. The sexual abuse unit of investigations has joined JFCS sexual abuse case unit.
Linda Lanier from the Jacksonville Children's Commission trained staff on the City disproportionality data, including DCF, Department of Health, Department of Juvenile Justice, etc.
Phase II Team is working on the total design, has researched best practices and created a vision. We are beginning a small pilot of current foster parents, who are interested in mentoring the family as well as housing the child.
The second Neighborhood Center identified in New Town Success Zone. The Schell Sweet Center (with a current adult program and clinic) will add WorkSource, food stamps, counseling, etc. We expect much progress this quarter on the Center.
Family Support Services supported the Mental Health and the Black Community conference to get the community input on the New Town Neighborhood Center.
The Children's Home Society worked with the duPont Foundation to get a grant to provide prevention services and to have the redesign evaluated by Dr. Scott Ryan, from Florida State University.
Staff at DCF and Family Support Services is being trained in family-centered practice and clinical interviewing skills. Clinical interviewing skills, a gap in our system, was taught by Julia Jean Francois, from the Family Center in Brooklyn. The Casey Family Programs arranged the training and provided a co-trainer.
RESULTS:
As of May 31, we are at 52% reduction of children in foster care. Our goal is 50%
The removal rate per 100 reports is down to 5.67 from 18.42 in December 2007 - a 69.2% improvement.
We have served 1,139 families and 2,545 children in our prevention programs this year.
We have diverted 180 children to our FAST program for intensive services.
We completed Phase I of the redesign with all ideas implemented, including the Integrated Practices Team (IPT). We will spend 2009 perfecting the Phase I system, providing more training and moving more consistently to a Family Centered Practice Model. As of 12/31, Family Support Services has reduced the kids in out of home care by 44.5%
The IPT has staffed some very complex cases and with the perspective of domestic violence counselors, substance abuse counselors, our nurse, our education specialist, our family advocate, our housing specialist, and our Master's level social worker, is coming up with incredibly creative safety plans and solutions to very complex cases.
We named the Phase II design team:
Diane Seymore - DCF Co-leader
Lee Kaywork - FSS Co-leader
Gail Biro - Neighborhood to Family
Pattie Medlock - Protective Investigations
Julie Beasley - Full Service Schools
Melissa Bright - Youth Viewpoint
Ricky Wallace - PSI
Chuck Young - Family Support Services
Susan Bell - Special Advisor
Paul DiLorenzo (Casey) Special Advisor
The team will launch on February 20 with a special visitor, Julia Jean Francois, co-Director of the
We had discussions with Dr. Bruce McIntosh and Valerie Stanley from Child Protection Team (CPT) to better use CPT input on our most vulnerable 0 - 5 children to make sure we are making the best risk assessments possible.
We thank the Jacksonville Children's Commission for their incredibly well done report on disproportionality with our kids in
WorkSource has agreed to support our neighborhood centers to assist our family's in gaining employment.
Five more former/current foster kids have been hired by DCF. Some of our kids have gone from temporary status to full time state workers in the Food Stamp office.
We arranged for parenting courses to be scheduled in our jails. This had stopped awhile back (a grant ended) and it was never replaced. We are now working on a "jail curriculum." The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office is very anxious for more courses in the jail.
RESULTS:
The number of child abuse cases is staying about the same or declining slightly. The number of removals ranged from a high of 138 in August 2007 to a low of 53 in December of 2008.
The number of adoptions is at 167, ahead of target. With Phase I just implemented, we know we will hit a 50% reduction of kids in Out of Home Care, soon. Under Phase II we will get to unprecedented levels of prevention.
In the past two months, we have finished implementing Phase I of the foster care redesign:
On September 26, we held a community seminar to keep the community informed on Phase I and get community suggestions for Phase II. (Phase I of the redesign featured everything we could do under the current system to safely reduce the number of kids in care. Phase II will be a total redesign of the system and a look at racial disparity.)
The session was energizing and included legislators, school system representatives, mental health experts, adoptive parents, foster parents and service providers.
Lots of great themes emerged: Services need to be provided with a sense of urgency and delivered as a team approach; we need to develop the redesign of the system with a holistic approach to providing services to the family; and continue with community partnerships.
Mediation - started submitting cases on 10/1. These cases work like pretrial intervention. Our plan is the only one in the state that is prearrangement, the case only goes to Court if the parent does not follow the mediation agreement.
Integrated Practices Team - We are creating a team to advise on all complex child abuse cases, to improve our quality of decision making. The team will serve protective investigators and case managers.
Team composition:
3 Casey-funded Master Social Workers
4 Substance Abuse Experts
1 Domestic Violence Advocate
1 ACCESS (cash assistance/food stamps/Medicaid) worker
1 Housing Expert
1 Nurse
1 Education
1 Mental Health Expert
1 Family Advocate
This team will be vital to excellent decision making to keep our kids safe and develop plans to strengthen families.
to get resources and services in the home to keep a child with his or her family.
Jewish Family Services became our sexual abuse hub. We will move the sexual abuse PI
team to Jewish Family Services to work with our families.
Casey Family Foundation held a 1 1/2 day technical assistance on neighborhood centers for Duval and
We will be working with our existing services providers, including the Full-Service Schools.
Results
Could we have a drumroll, please? Since January 2007, Family Support Services has safely reduced the number of kids in care by 34%! Record adoptions exited kids in the system and new prevention programs keep kids out of the system.
The number of kids in foster care dropped from 989 in July, 2007 to 530 in September 2008. The total caseload (including relative placement and "in-home") reduced from 2,919 to 1,888 in the same period.
Success Story
Quadrika Robinson was a single mother struggling with many challenges. She had just lost her job and was unable to find new employment for several months. She was facing several bills. And then she heard from the Department of Children and Families.
"The Department received a false abuse call. I took them through my house. I took them
through my refrigerator. I took them everywhere, because anybody who knows me knows I'm a great mom. I love my children. Once they investigated, they found out that my family really needed services to help," said Quadrika.
The help Quadrika needed from the STEPS (Strengthening Ties and Empowering Parents) program included financial assistance and help with finding a new job. Quadrika was so proud of how she was helped by the program that she spoke to CBS 47 News and Fox 30 News in
"The number of children in foster care in Duval county is 35 percent lower that it was
four years ago, " reported Mike Tolbert of CBS 47 News. "Foster Care Redesign is now
being studied as a model for the entire state. They teach adults how to be good parents.
They do regular checkups, and build healthy homes."
Department of Children and Families Northeast Regional Director Nancy Dreicer was also featured in the report. "It's not the foster parents. It's the system itself. They (children in foster care) lose time inschool. They actually have higher rates of crime. It's the number one predictor of homelessness. We want to save that child from trauma, and leave them with their family that they're bounded to."
As Quadrika got ready to start her new job, she told CBS 47/Fox 30 News about what the
program meant to her. "I don't know where we would be if I hadn't gotten into this program," she said.
The community support for our project has been amazing. I am sure you noticed the incredible collaboration between agencies. Our aim is not to duplicate any resources, but utilize existing resources.
July 2008
We promised we would keep the community informed on the foster care redesign. As you recall, we are safely trying to keep many children in their homes with appropriate wrap-around services, working with children and parents to keep the family together instead of removing children and putting them in a completely foreign environment. Of course, we remove children who cannot safely stay with their families and thank our wonderful foster parents for their nurturing and commitment.
The redesign has many partners: Family Support Services, Department of Children and Families, Casey Family Foundation, Hubbard House, Gateway, Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, FCCJ, Jacksonville Children's Commission, Jewish Family and Community Services, PSI, daniel, Children's Home Society, Child Protection Team,
WHAT WE DID OVER THE PAST TWO MONTHS:
- Redesigned our response to domestic violence, including best practice help from the Casey Foundation and training from David Mandel who has done extensive work with the State of
Connecticut. The new model includes a domestic violence advocate from Hubbard house co-located with prevention and CPI staff, including 22 specially trained domestic violence experts working with famiies experiencing domestic violence. These are not "new staff" but newly trained and focused staff. - Designed a mediation process, similar to pretrial intervention to pilot in Judge Gooding's court with
Mental Health Resource Center starting in August. - Refined Cassat House (our first neighborhood prevention house) and launched a neighborhood outreach at
Eureka Gardens to acquaint residents of the services. The outreach was designed by Family Support Services and supported by Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, Hubbard House, Gateway, Girls Scouts, this Department and countless others. Pizza, snow cones and tours of Cassat House were available. Planned video for Jacksonville Sheriff's Office police, so they can make referrals to Cassat House. - Duval
County (Family Support Services and the Judiciary) set a state record of adoptions, 520, which gave our children in foster care permanent forever families and reduced the number of kids "in the system." - Reduced case counts by reunifying successful families early, after the case worker feels the family is successful.
- Partnered with FCCJ to assist with GED's for at risk parents and our teens.
- Piloted a system to increase the technology of finding relatives, so kids can be placed with family instead of foster care.
- Increased team work between Family Support Services, the Department, the Judiciary and all of our partners.
We continue to have success with reducing the number of kids coming into care, and increasing the number of kids coming in to care who go to relatives. In June 2006 we detained 169 kids, in June 2007 we detained 121 children and in June 2008 we detained 74. Our processes are working. . .next, we will carefully watch our data to evaluate our recidivism rate.
RESULTS: The number of kids removed from their homes and put in foster care has reduced by 30%. The number of abuse calls has risen slightly.
What's coming up? We have implemented the bulk of Phase I of the project and will continue to work the action plan.
On September 26 at 9:00 AM at the Department of Children and Families headquarters on Arlington Expressway, we will be starting Phase II. We are having a professionally facilitated "visioning" session to gather community input on a bolder design, using learnings from Phase I. You are all, of course, invited - - just call Judy Schenck at 723-2050 x 12 to RSVP.We are also working with Jacksonville Journey to open another neighborhood center in the "New Town Success Zone." (A similar model to the Harlem Children's Zone.)
We will be evaluating kids coming into care to see if our prevention efforts are effective.
We value your comments, inputs, concerns and insights. Thanks for taking the time to be involved with our project. If you have suggestions, email us at info@fostercareredesign.org.