Improving Time to Permanency for Children in Out-of-Home Care

1. Improving Time to Permanencyfor Children in Out-of-Home Care OFCS Strategies Presented by Renee Hallock – Director –CFSR December 1, 2010

2. Data Driven • NYS Performance on National Standards (3/31/10) • Timeliness and permanency of reunification • National Standard – 122.6 + NYS 96.7 Rank 40/47 • Timeliness of Adoption • National Standard – 106.4+ NYS 69.2 Rank 41/47 • Permanency for children in foster care for extended period of time • National Standard – 121.7+ NYS 119.5 Rank 19/51 • Placement Stability • National Standard – 101.5+ NYS 108.8 Rank 9/51

3. Child and Family Services Review Data • Statewide Performance on Permanency (1/31/10) • Rate of First Placement (2007) – 2.2 Children per 1,000 • 55% of children who entered care in 2007 exited within two years • 43% exited to reunification • 10% exited to relatives • 2% exited to adoption • Median length of stay 18.4 months

4. Permanency Data Continued • Permanent Exits for Children in Care on 12/31/07 • 43% of children in care on 12/31/07 exited to a permanent exit within two years • 23% exited to reunification • 3% exited to relatives • 17% exited to adoption

5. From Data to Self Assessment • Encourage stakeholder participation • Review of the data to note strengths and areas of need • Guided Questions • What are the baseline levels and historical trends, are things getting better or worse over time? • What factors or conditions contribute to our performance? • What subgroups of children or families are of the greatest concern; are these families in a particular geographic location? • What services or resources exist in the community to respond to the needs identified; are the services culturally appropriate, are they family friendly? • What work are we currently engaged in to improve this?

6. Logic Model • Needs and Strengths from Self Assessment • Identify underlying conditions for performance • Identify strengths in the community to ameliorate or prevent the conditions • Prioritize those that need to be addressed first • Identify strategies to implement

7. Logic Model • Strategies • What activities can be undertaken to address the needs and to build on the strengths identified • Some may be new strategies • Some may be enhancements to existing strategies • Strategies may include: • Products – educational materials or technological tools • Services, such as mental health treatment or parenting • Infrastructure changes – organizational alignment • Changes to or enhancements to a specific practice

8. Outputs/Process Measures • How will we know whether the strategies were implemented as planned • Number of families served • Number of staff trained • Number of meetings held

9. Outcomes • What initial changes (within six months) are expected to occur as a result of implementing the strategies? • Improvements in staff and/or client knowledge, skills, attitudes • What intermediate changes (six to 18 months) are expected to emanate from the initial outcome • Improvement in staff or client practices or behaviors • What are the long term outcomes • Reducing the length of stay in out-of-home care

10. Local Strategies • Family Engagement • Family Meetings • In a Family Meeting, parents, children if age appropriate, and relevant extended family or others identified as important to finding solutions, come to the table to plan for protecting the children and keeping them safe. • These meetings will help ellicitinformation from the family which will be used in making better safety decisions and risk assessments both initially and on an ongoing basis. If out of home placement becomes necessary, the focus of the Family Meeting will include addressing the child’s permanency and well being.

11. Locating and Engaging Fathers • Fathers are an essential resource to their child, not only psychologically but also as a resource for helping a caseworker make better safety and risk assessments as well as being a potential permanency resource. • Engaging fathers may begin with locating an absent father. Bringing the father into the case planning process, requires sensitivity to complex family dynamics. • Once engaged, the father may be able to develop a meaningful relationship with his children, provide a safe home for them, and can model effective parenting to his children. Consideration of not only the father, but his entire extended family.

12. Coaching Family Visits • Coached visiting focuses on the presenting issues that brought the child into care, and may include practicing a skill, developing awareness of child developmental needs, or healing a wounded relationship. • An individualized visitation plan is a key part of the overall case plan to support the child’s permanency goal.

13. Child Centered, Family Focused Practice • Engage the parents in developing a plan to return the child home, including identifying an alternative placement resource in the event the child is not able to return home. • The caseworker must work concurrently, not sequentially, with the parent and with the identified alternative placement resource.

14. County and Court Collaboration • OCFS and the Office of Court Administration (OCA) are committed to improving permanency outcomes for children in New York State. • OCFS and the OCA Child Welfare Court Improvement Project (CWCIP) will work together to build effective collaboration between the Family Court and the social services districts with the highest foster care populations in the State through the Model Court Initiative.

15. Other OCFS Initiatives • Permanency Panels • Review of individual cases of children in care. • Seven categories • Casework practice within the first six months of placement • Children in care who are separated from siblings in care • Level of care - % of children in congregate care • Children who have been in care for extended period of time (over two years) • Stability of Placement • Children placed with relatives under an Article 10 • Children feed with a goal of adoption, but not adoptively placed

16. Adoption Grant • A Parent for Every Child Project • A diligent recruitment project with the goal of providing permanency through kinship care, adoption or guardianship for children whose parental rights have been terminated and who spent several years in residential care without a viable family resource • Permanency Specialists develop intensive, individual recruitment strategies to assist in finding families

17. A Parent for Every Child Project • Identified families receive training and support in meeting awaiting children who match their profile • Parents receive assistance in completing all state adoption certification or other legal requirements • Adoption Navigators, experienced adoptive parents, are assigned to families to support them in their journey through the adoption process.

18. So how does this apply to OMH? • Children are not in foster care • What role do parents play • What role does OMH staff play • What strategies should be put in place • When should the strategies be implemented