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Child Welfare in Georgia: How Effective Are We?

Explore the effectiveness of child welfare efforts in Georgia, focusing on safety, family support, foster care, and workforce training. Learn about measurement challenges, outcomes, and the need for independent evaluation. Discover the state's Child and Family Services Reviews (CFSR) and the critical role of statewide practice consistency. Compare Georgia to Illinois, analyze trends, and address recent tragic events like Caleb Woods' case. Advocate for independent accountability and continued improvement in child welfare practices.

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Child Welfare in Georgia: How Effective Are We?

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  1. Child Welfare in Georgia:How Effective Are We? Andrew Barclay, Barton Child Law and Policy Clinic (Founder), Emory University School of Law

  2. Major Points • Measuring outcomes in child welfare is hard • Staff have an inherent conflict of interest; we must have independent evaluation • Case practice across the state is extremely inconsistent • Pay attention to the trends over time

  3. How effective are the state’s efforts to ... … keep children safely in their homes? … identify and support families at risk for abuse? … recruit and train foster parents? … meet the educational needs of children in care? … involve parents in case planning? … train its child welfare workforce? … consult with external community stakeholders? • Georgia’s 2001 Federal Child and Family Services Review (CFSR) asked these questions again and again. Again and again, the answer was: We don’t know.

  4. Shouldn’t we know? • The CFSR measures the implementation of the 1997 Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) • Effectiveness is often difficult to measure • Technical advisors to the CFSR have all tackled difficult measurement problems • Safety Example: • How do we know a child is safe at home? • Since 1992 we have had the data to measure the 6 month recurrence of substantiatedmaltreatment • Prior to the 2001 CFSR this had not been calculated • About 4-6% of Georgia’s children who are abused are abused a second time within 6 months

  5. Outcomes That Change Children’s Lives • Outcomes, the things that make real change in children’s lives, are, generally, difficult things to measure. • The child protection balancing act: Balancing our collective need to keep families together against the child’s need to grow up in a safe, permanent home. • We need simple outcome measures that help us all to understand, appreciate, and participate in the tough choices that someone has to make to protect children from abuse. • Does the State do anything more important?

  6. Outline • Basic DFCS Process • Simple Measurement Framework • Inconsistency of Practice • Time Trends • Case for Independent Evaluation

  7. Foster Care Court Assessment Foster Home Services (13,000) Reunify (3,600) Other Permanency (1,100) Big Picture View:Case Process Child Protective Services (CPS) AbuseReport (127,000) Screening (70,000) Investigation Assessments (24,000) Removal (4,500) CPS Ongoing

  8. Big Picture View:Functional Framework CPS Keep the child safe at home with the family, remove if necessary Foster Care Temporarily care for the child, try to fix the family Permanency Reunite or put the child into another family

  9. A Measurement Frameworkfor Child Welfare • Simple • Based on what we already report • Useful only if we understand the process and recognize the data limitations • Safety • Recurrence, Reunification, Re-entry, Fatalities • Foster Care & Permanency • Children in care, stability, adoption speed

  10. Georgia - Safety, the 3 R’s:Recurrence, Reunification, Re-entries

  11. Illinois - Safety, the 3 R’s:Recurrence, Reunification, Re-entries

  12. Georgia - Foster Care/Permanency:Children in Care, Speed of Adoption

  13. Illinois - Foster Care/Permanency:Children in Care, Speed of Adoption

  14. State-to-State Comparisons:Georgia to Illinois • State-to-state practice differences make comparisons problematic, so look at time trends, trajectories. • Illinois had the worst performing child welfare system in the country in 1996, but it has made more progress than any other state, the “Illinois Miracle”. • Georgia’s trajectory over the last 6 years isn’t good, but there are some real bright spots in our 159 counties. • The state office needs to get organized to follow their lead, and standardize around best practices.

  15. Statewide Practice Variation:Rates of Sexual Abuse

  16. Statewide Practice Variation:Speed of Reunification

  17. Statewide Practice Variation:Foster Care Expenditures

  18. Temporal Practice Variation:Removals into Foster Care

  19. Temporal Practice Variation:Douglas County Case Openings • Tie this to current events … • Caleb Woods died in Douglas County on July 12, 2003. • Major news coverage of Caleb’s death came on August 15, 2003 with the death of Kyshawn Punter in DeKalb County.

  20. Final Numbers ... • 51 children died of abuse in 2002. • We heard about 2 of them: Alexis & Rhiannon. • DFCS deals with tragedy daily, but when 1 or 2 are publicized, it sways a whole lot of public opinion. • This type of information is a volatile substance -- bottle it up and it will explode.

  21. Independent Accountability • Barton: 3 years on the child protection budget, now accountability. • Professionals who know the territory, have a plan, and know how to implement it will welcome honest, independent measurement of the agency’s performance and the children’s outcomes. • The alternative is our de-facto accountability system: press, investigate caseworkers, heads roll.

  22. Major Points • Measuring outcomes in child welfare is hard • Staff have an inherent conflict of interest; we must have independent evaluation • Case practice across the state is extremely inconsistent • Pay attention to the trends over time

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