California Permanency for Youth Permanency Strategies in Emergency Response

1. California Permanency for YouthPermanency Strategies in Emergency Response William Ortiz and Jeff Griffin County of Orange

2. CPYP Vision: • To achieve permanency for older children and youth in California so that no youth leaves foster care without a lifelong connection to a caring adult.

3. ~ What is Permanency? ~ • Permanency is both a process and a result that includes involvement of the youth as a participant or leader in finding a permanent connection with at least one committed adult who provides: • A safe, stable and secure parenting relationship • Love • Unconditional commitment • Lifelong support in the context of a legal arrangement when possible • The opportunity to maintain family ties and emotional bonds with siblings and important persons who will sustain connections with their culture • Simply stated: Permanency is when a child and an adult have a safe, stable, sustainable and committed relationship across time and circumstance.

4. ~Where does Emergency Response, CAST and the Child Abuse Registry fit into CPYP? ~ • Child Abuse Registry (C.A.R.) • Emergency Response/CAST • Intake/Closure • VFS

5. Creating Family Connections (ICS/Multi-Team Treatment Services) • Orange County Children and Family Services (CFS) joined in partnership with Canyon Acres Children’s Services to bring the Creating Family Connections (CFC) program to Orange County. Creating Family Connections was an innovative project designed to thoroughly seek out any existing family members for youth that were previously thought to have little or no caring adults in their lives. Catholic Community Services of Western Washington (CCS) provided training in the areas of intensive family searching and engagement. CCS trained both CFS and Canyon Acres staff in the use of Internet search databases to actively search for and locate family members.

6. Orange County CPYP ProjectCPYP Project Goals 1. Increase connections for youth 2. Increase the number and engagement of supportive family members to enhance service provision 3. Increase the ability of youth to successfully emancipate from dependency 4. Expand the success of family finding and engagement strategies into other areas of CFS and expand the agency’s definition of permanency. 5. Assess models of family finding and engagement to determine their usefulness in CFS.

7. ~ Child Abuse RegistryStatistics - 2005 ~ Source: http://www.ssa.ocgov.com/Agency_Services/Children_and_Family_Services/CFSStats/CFSStats.htm

8. ~ Types of Reports Received ~ January 2006 through March 2006

9. ~ Referrals by Zip Code (OC) ~

10. ~ Zip Codes and Regions (OC) ~

11. ~ Counts of Children with one or more Referrals for October 1, 2004 to September 30, 2005 ~ ~ 35% -->11-18 y.o.

12. ~ How It’s Done . . . ~

13. ~ What happens next . . . ~

14. ~ Program Highlights ~ • Child Abuse Report receives an average of 2,654 reports per MONTH • Emergency Response/CAST make an estimated 2,219 NEW assessments every month • An average of 155 Applications for Petition (blues) are filed per month • CAST interviews an average of 44 children per month • In 2005, the average “End of Month” caseload for Voluntary Family Services was 781 cases

15. ~ Emergency Response Statistics ~ - -Referrals by Allegation Type - - Source: Center for Social Services ResearchUniversity of California at BerkeleyCounts of Children with one or more Referrals for October 1, 2004 to September 30, 2005

16. ~ 2nd Shift ~ • Implemented December 2004 • 12 Senior Social Workers • 1 Senior Social Services Supervisor

17. 53% of cases where joint police/Emergency Response assessments were completed - decision was to leave children at home ~ Field Response Protocol ~ • This project is known as the Field Response Protocol for the Protection of Children and puts in place an expedited response process to bring social workers to the police officer in the field to conduct joint assessments and exploration of placement alternatives • Participating jurisdictions include Santa Ana, Tustin and Anaheim • Implementation date: September 2005 • Outstationed Workers: Anaheim, Costa Mesa, Cypress, Fountain Valley, Fullerton, Garden Grove, Irvine, Orange, Santa Ana, Tustin, and Westminster • Cities of Orange, Westminster and La Palma will be participating in PRP in the near future • By 2008, whole county will use PRP

18. ~ Orangewood Response ~ • When law enforcement calls OCH to advise that they are transporting a child to the First Step Assessment Center, OCH Intake staff will collect from the law enforcement officer any pertinent information required for admission • Implementation Date: February 2004 Approximately 32% of these assessments resulted in releasing children to their respective caretaker

19. ~ Overnight Delay Immediate (ODI) ~ • For some immediate response referrals, it may be in the best interest of the child and the investigation to request authorization for an overnight delay in contacting the victim child(ren). When making this determination, the immediate safety of the child(ren) will be the primary consideration. Other factors to be considered are: • Time of day/night • Type of setting needed for the interview • The nature of the allegation(s) • Previous child abuse and/or neglect history • Age/vulnerability of the child • Protective ability of non-offending parent(s) • Availability of medical personnel

20. ~ Immediate Response (I’s) ~ On referrals determined to be immediate, the child is considered at imminent risk and the expectation is that the worker will respond immediately.

21. ~ Level III (10-day) ~ Level IIIs require a response within 10-calendar days of the date of the referral. The date of the referral is considered the first day of the ten-day period.

22. ~ Voluntary Family Services ~ • Children and their families are referred for Voluntary Family Services • 1) when there is evidence that a child has been abused, neglected or exploited but there is insufficient evidence for court action, and there is a high probability of reoccurrence of that abuse, neglect or exploitation if family maintenance services are not offered to the family, and the parent(s) is willing to accept voluntary family maintenance services or, • 2) petition for dependency action has been dismissed pursuant to Welfare and Institutions Code Section 330 and the parent(s) is willing to accept family maintenance services.

23. ~ Team Decision-Making ~ • TDM Permanency Meetings will be held to identify progress toward, and barriers to timely reunification. Support and resources needed to facilitate this goal will also be identified. Additionally, when significant barriers to reunification are noted, other permanency options will be explored.

24. ~ Child Abuse Registry’s Role ~ • Child Abuse Registry worker will attempt to gather as much information regarding relatives and extended family members when report comes in (phone).

25. ~ Emergency Response/CAST ~ • Role of Emergency Response worker will be to collect as much family data as possible as soon as child is placed under protective custody • New information is to be placed on top of transfer file so that the continuing case-carrying worker will have immediate access to it

26. ~ Form to be Used ~ This is a “work in progress”. As such, no decision has been made as to when it will be implemented. This is only a draft

27. Goals: • Assess Safety and Risk Factors to keep children from coming into dependency • Keep or find a permanent home for each child • Beginning of data collection to assist case-carrying worker with family finding

28. References • Lighting the Fire of Urgency: Families Lost and Found in America’s Child Welfare System. Kevin Campbell. Catholic Community Services of Western Washington • Resource Documents, January 2005. • The National Resource Center for Family-Centered Practice and Permanency Planning at the Hunter College School of Social Work http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/socwork/nrcfcpp/about-us.html • Who Am I? Why Family Really Matters. Barbara Boisvert, Gina Brimner, Kevin Campbell, Don Koenig, Mary Stone-Smith. Catholic Community Services of Western Washington. www.ccsww.org/preservation/articles/article6.php. • F.A.S.T. Family Assessment and Stabilization Team. Catholic Community Services of Western Washington. - www.ccsww.org • California Permanency For Youth Project.http://www.cpyp.org/ • Permanence for Young People: Framework. National Resource Center for Foster Care and Permanency Planning at the Hunter College School of Social Work.