AngelaR. 1997 Assessment

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This is the third annual report produced by the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) assessing the progress of the Arkansas Department of Human Services (DHS) Division of Children and Family Services (DCFS) in meeting the requirements of the Angela R. Settlement Agreement which took effect January 1, 1995. Compliance is to be achieved over a five year period through the development and implementation of annual plans which specify the tasks DCFS is to accomplish in order to meet the standards set by the Settlement Agreement The Center for the Study of Social Policy was asked to conduct an annual evaluation of the State's performance in (1) meeting the child welfare standards set by the Agreement; (2) meeting the performance and outcome measures established by the State Standards Committee; and (3) achieving work plan milestones established in the DCFS annual plan.

CSSP's first annual assessment (covering agency practice between January 1 and June 30, 1995) was intended to establish the baseline against which future progress could be measured and performance goals could be created. The second annual assesssment covered agency practice during the period from January 1 through June 30, 1996. This report covers agency practice during the period between January 1 and June 30, 1997. Where possible, comparisons are made to the 1995 baseline data. In some cases, methodological changes require a comparison with 1996 data and for some other data elements, information was newly collected in 1997.

The report which follows is based on (1) a review 6f approximately 1,000 cases active during the six-month period between January 1 and June 30, 1997; (2) an assessment of documentation and data provided on achievement of DCFS workplan milestones; and (3) visits to four counties across the State (Clay, Garland, Jefferson and Polk) during which CSSP staff interviewed family services workers, supervisors, foster parents, judges, Office of Corporation Counsel (OCC) attorneys, law enforcement officers, service providers, and others about the child welfare system.

It should be noted that a case record review is, by definition, dependent on the documentation in the case file. In other words, if an activity - such as a home visit - took place but was not written down in the case file, there is no way of knowing that it occurred; thus, the agency does not "get credit" for the activity. Failing to record activities in the case files is a problem not only because it affects agency evaluations such as this one but also because this information is used by caseworkers, attorneys and judges to make very important decisions about children's lives. Sometimes, a child's case file can even become the only source of longitudinal information about the child and his/her history. In addition, the accuracy of the information in a child's case file is crucial given the reality of staff turnover; ideally, a new caseworker should be able to pick up a case file and know everything there is to know about a case. Indeed, DCFS policy requires and child welfare practice standards demand that all activities be recorded in a timely manner.

Site visits to counties are a second essential part of the methodology because they provide a real world context for understanding and interpreting the case review findings. During May and June, 1998, teams of CSSP staff conducted site visits in four counties: Clay, Garland, Jefferson and Polk. The purpose of conducting these site visits was to hear first-hand the perspectives of those on the front lines of the child welfare system and to translate this information into useful program, policy and practice recommendations. Interviews in each of these counties were held with social workers, supervisors, family support specialists, area managers, program specialists, foster parents, police officers, OCC attorneys, county administrators and judges.

Key Findings

This report presents the findings from an assessment of the child welfare system after three years of a reform plan to comply with the Angela R. Settlement Agreement. While it was expected that full implementation of the agreement would take five years, it was hoped that there would have been significant progress in meeting most standards by the end of the third year. Unfortunately, the 1997 case record review found many areas in which practice is not much improved from prior years, despite serious efforts by state and county administrators to build the capacity among staff throughout the agency to provide high quality child welfare services. While there are some areas of improvement which should not be overlooked, overall, DCFS remains far from meeting the standards established by the Settlement Agreement and far from even meeting the interim performance goals set by the State Standards Committee for 1997. This is surely a disappointment for the many administrators and staff who have worked hard over the past few years to improve services for children and families.

1DCFS has indeed commented that some of the statistics in this report may underestimate performance due to lack of case file documentation.

Table I-1 on the following pages provides a summary of DCFS' performance on the goals established by the State Standards Committee. Included in this table is a column indicating whether or not DCFS met the established numerical targets; however, it should be noted that findings presented here have a statistical margin of error of between seven and eight percent and conclusions as to whether DCFS met or did not meet the targets should be viewed within this range.

Table I-1 and the entire report provide statistical data on numerous indicators. Here, however, we have tried to take a step back and look more broadly at each of the specific practice areas to assess what has substantively improved and what requirements seem to be the most resistant to change.

Table I-1:DCFS' Compliance with 1997 Performance Goals

Perfomance Goal	1997 DCFS Performance (per cent of cases)	1997 Performance Goal	1997 Performance Goal Met (Yes/No)	Direction of Performance from 1995-1997* (Improved/Same/Declined)
Child Maltreatment Assessments
**All children associated with report (subject children and those living in the household) are seen during assessment of alleged maltreatment.	83.9%	95%	No	Same (1996)
The Central Registry is queried for prior reports on the child and family associated with child maltreatment assessments.	90.8%	70%	Yes	Improved
Children are seen within 24 hours in 70% of all reports.	34.5%	70%	No	Same (1996)
*Children are seen within 24 hours in 80% of Priority I reports.	38.6%	80%	No	Same (1996)
*Children are seen within 72 hours in 80% of Priority II reports.	53.1%	80%	No	Same (1996)
**Subject children are interviewed outside the presence of the person accused of abuse or neglect.	71%	75%	No	Improved (1996)
Parents/Caretakers are interviewed during assessments.	94%	95%	No	Same
Families are visited in their homes during a child maltreatment assessment.	84.6%	75%	Yes	Not previously measured
**Child maltreatment assessments (Priority I and II) shall be concluded, and a determination made within 30 days of the report.	46.9%	85%	No	Declined
Priority I assessments shall be concluded within 45 days.	57.9%	95%	No	Declined
Priority II assessments shall be concluded within 60 days.	92%	95%	No	Same
Special Investigations Unit
All children associated with a report (subject and those living in the household) are seen by the worker within 24 hours of SIU reports.	48.9%	70%	No	Same
*Children are seen by the worker within 24 hours in 80% of Priority I SIU reports.	43.2%	80%	No	Same
SIU assessments completed within 30 days of the report.	28.7%	80%	No	Declined
Protective Services Cases
**A Uniform Family Needs Assessment (UFNA) shall be completed during the child maltreatment assessment and documented in the case records for protective services cases.	79.4%1	75%	Yes	Improved (1996)
Family preservation services shall be provided to families with open protective services cases for whom FPS is an appropriate service.	68.4	50%	Yes	N/A Sub-sample too small
Open protective services cases shall include a current case plan (developed with the family and approved at a case staffing).	61.2%	85%	No	Declined
Visits by a social worker with children in protective services cases shall occur weekly, or less frequently as specified in approved waivers.	9.5%	70%	No	Improved
A staffing is held before a case is closed.	52.4%	70%	No	Improved
Foster Care Cases
Foster care cases shall have current case plans.	73.8%	80%	No	Improved
Foster care cases shall comply with the requirement of judicial reviews every six months.	89.2%	95%	No	Same
Appropriate parties - including birth parents, foster parents and children over age 10 - participate in case plan development (attendance at staffings).	Parent 45.3% Foster Parent 37.7% Children 10+ 24.5%	60%	No	Same
A new case plan is developed for children who have been in three placements within 12 months within 15 days of the child's third placement.	0%	75%	No	Not previously measured
Children in foster care have worker visits every two weeks during the first three months of placement.	46.3%	75%	No	Same (1996)
Children in foster care are visited monthly by their caseworker.	57.6%	100%	No	Same (1996)
**Children in foster care with a goal of return home have visits with their parents at least every two weeks.	31.7%	75%	No	Same (1996)
Children with a permanency goal of reunification shall have visits with their parents at least monthly.	35.9%	85%	No	Declined (1996)
**Children in foster care who are separated from their siblings should visit with their siblings at least every other week.	13.6%	50%	No	Same
14 to 18 year olds in foster care will participate in activities designed to increase independent living skills.	36.1%	75%	No	Declined (1996)
16 to 18 year olds in foster care will be evaluated every six months to determine his/her progress in acquiring independent living skills.	30.0%	75%	No	N/A Sub-sample too small
**Children with siblings in foster care are placed in the same home as one or more of their siblings.	66%	80%	No	Same
In cases in which change in placement is proposed, adequate notice is provided to parents, foster parents, Guardians ad litem, and children aged 10 and older.	Parents 11.4% FP 32.4% GAL 8.1% Child 40.0%	50%	No	N/A methodology change
Children entering foster care receive the required initial health screen within 24 hours.	36.9% of cases opened since 7/1/96	95%	No	N/A methodology change
Children in foster care receive the required comprehensive health exams within 67 days.	52.9% of cases opened since 7/1/96	95%	No	N/A methodology change
75% of children in foster care receive follow up treatment services as indicated in health exams.	(see footnote)2	60%	Yes	UTD
Evaluation/Approval of Family Foster Homes
Foster homes are re-evaluated annually.	64.6%	95%	No	Same
Active DCFS foster parents have received required pre service training.	93.4%	95%	No	N/A3
Active DCFS foster parents meet the required in-service training requirement.	48.6%	80%	No	Improved
Adoptions
All adoption cases have current case plans.	58.6%	75%	No	Same (1996)
Parental rights are terminated for children with a goal of adoption.	84.7%	90%	No	Same (1996)
The time is reduced between termination of parental rights and finalization of adoption.	average 19 months	average 16 months	No	Same (1996)
Children are placed in adoptive homes with siblings.	55.8% of foster children placed with all to their siblings 18.9% of foster children placed with only some of their siblings	70% placed with all siblings 25% placed with some of their siblings	No	Same (1996)

1 Includes fully and partially completed UFNAs.

2 UAMS reports that, based on their monitoring samples, 80-90% of children are receiving appropriate follow-up care. CSSP did not gather data to directly answer this question. Unmet health needs were found for 8.3% of children.

3 Comparison can not be made to prior performance due to a change in the sample selection methodology.

*Unless otherwise noted, change in performance is from 1995 to 1997. If comparison was made to 1996, 1996 appears in parentheses.

**One of the Twelve Core Components of Case Work Practice identified by DCFS.

• Child Maltreatment Assessments

Child maltreatment assessments are investigations of child abuse and neglect allegations. Very few of the performance goals related to child maltreatment assessments were met. The major problems appear to reflect an inability to meet the required time frames for initiating and completing assessments. While there have been positive changes in assessment practice over the past few years - e.g., insuring that every child in the household is seen during the course of an assessment and insuring that all children are interviewed outside of the presence of their caretakers - the timeliness with which investigators are getting out to families and the timeliness of the completion of child maltreatment assessments has not improved. In fact, performance on completion of assessments within 30 days declined in this past year. Further analysis is needed to determine whether the failures to meet time frames reflect management failures, staffing deficiencies or both. In the counties visited by CSSP, staffing problems were clearly a contributing factor in deficiencies in child maltreatment assessments, but there were other factors noted as well, including the need for additional training on how to assess risk and increased cooperation with local law enforcement It will be important to look more closely at county-specific performance on these indicators during the next year.

Timeliness of child maltreatment assessments is critically important to insure child safety; failure to meet deadlines is a serious problem. For the most part, however, case reviewers agreed with the findings made during an assessment, although in about 10 percent of cases, documentation in the case file was insufficient to enable reviewers to make those substantive judgments. Case readers disagreed on a decision to remove a child in only one case; disagreed with the assessment finding in only 4 percent of cases and disagreed with the decision about whether or not to open a case in 8 percent of cases. Approximately 70 percent of assessments were judged to be either excellent or adequate, although some inadequacies in the conduct and practice during an assessment were noted in 28 percent of cases. In these instances, readers noted failure to interview all children, failure to contact necessary collaterals, failure to initiate services, and in some cases, questioned the quality of the decision-making. Again, local site visits confirmed that understaffing and high caseload pressured may in some cases contribute to less comprehensive assessments.

Overall, however, it is CSSP's view that the quality of assessment practice is better, with room for continued improvements, but that DCFS is primarily failing on the standards of timeliness. Initiating and completing child maltreatment investigations on time is not a minor point, but it should be susceptible to management, supervision and staffing reforms.

Performance on assessments by the Special Investigations Unit was similar to overall assessment performance. Again, the most glaring deficiencies relate to the timeliness of initiating and completing the assessments. It should be noted that one fourth of all SIU assessments involved maltreatment allegations against school personnel, usually involving cases in which parents alleged that school staff had physically abused their children. Many of these cases involve decisions about whether the school properly adhered to corporal punishment guidelines and about 80 percent of these cases were unsubstantiated. One question raised by the large proportion of staff time devoted to these cases is whether there is a more efficient way of assessing the validity of these complaints within the context of what is permissible within State law.

• Protective Services

Protective services cases are opened in situations in which there has been a determination of maltreatment, but the case is not severe enough to warrant the immediate removal of the child(ren) from the home. A protective services case is opened to monitor the family while providing services to ameliorate those factors placing the child(ren) at risk.

Two of the five established performance indicators for protective services cases were met, including completion of a Uniform Family Needs Assessment and the provision of intensive family preservation services (IFS) to families with open protective services cases for which IFS is an appropriate service. Performance indicators not met include having a current case plan, adhering to requirements for weekly visitation by workers (or less frequent visitation when approved by a waiver) and convening case staffings prior to case closure. Current case plans were found for approximately 61.2 percent of cases compared with a goal of 85 percent.

The most glaring failure of child protective services practice is compliance with worker visitation requirements. Although there was an improvement from 1996, performance remains abysmally low, with visitation requirements met in only 9.5 percent of the cases reviewed. There are two critical reasons for requiring frequent visitation by workers in child protective services cases. The first is to insure that children remain safe in their own homes. There is no way to determine that without visiting a child's home on a regular and frequent basis. The second reason is to implement the case plan and provide casework and supportive services to ameliorate the conditions in the family that prompted the complaint. This too cannot be accomplished without regular and frequent contact between a trained worker and the child and family. Indeed, the lack of compliance with visitation may be contributing to the fact that in almost one third (28.8%) of cases, children in protective services cases were eventually removed from their homes and placed in foster care or another out of home placement This is an increase from 1996 and raises many questions about the quality and intensity of services provided to children and families with open protective services cases. In addition, approximately 20 percent of all maltreatment reports were on families with previously open protective services cases. New strategies for providing assistance to some of these families may be warranted in order to prevent a continual recycling of families through the system.

In terms of qualitative assessment of case practice, CSSP judged that about a third (36%) of the case plans in protective services cases fully reflect the actual circumstances of the family. About half (54.4%) were judged to partially reflect family circumstances and 5.9 percent did not reflect family circumstances at all. In some of the cases in which reviewers judged case plans to only partially or not at all reflect family circumstances, reviewers noted that the plans appeared to be very rote and generic; some case plans were even photocopies of previous plans with changed dates. Fifteen percent of cases had no case plans at all, which is totally unacceptable. One way to improve the quality and relevancy of case planning may be to increase the involvement of families and extended families in their initial development and implementation beyond just signing the plan; this is a key element of family centered casework.

In terms of actual service provision, the record review found that families are receiving more services from DCFS. Case records document the availability and provision of family preservation services for many families who need this resource and most families who need medical care, mental health care, information and referral, transportation and referral for AFDC, SS1 and Food Stamps received them. However, there are service areas in which shortages clearly exist. Less than 50 percent of families judged to need substance abuse, homemaker services, parenting education, employment and domestic violence services received these services. The lack of sufficient service resources was a consistent theme in the site visits. Particular gaps noted were enough IFS to really intensively serve families in their homes, counseling, resources for parenting education and substance abuse treatment.

Most protective services cases are short term, that is, less than a year in duration. But as mentioned previously, the high percentage of cases which return to the system suggest that a more careful look ought to be given to case closure activities and decisions. Indeed, in one of the counties visited, there was great concern about recidivism of families once the short-term IFS intervention ended. CSSP case readers judged about half of the case closure decisions to be appropriate based on the documentation in the case files. The other half were either inappropriate or the case reader could not tell given the information in the file. In fact, 71 percent of the closed cases failed to have a case closure summary.

Finally, 10 percent of the protective services cases reviewed were opened as a result of FINS (Families In Need of Supervision) petitions. This percentage is double what was found in 1996. FINS cases generally involve families with teenagers with behavioral and emotional problems, and not child maltreatment, per se and there are scarce resources throughout the state to deal with this population. The increase in FINS cases in the DCFS caseload point to an unresolved state policy issue about who needs to assume responsibility for serving troubled teens and what the service system should look like. In the absence of a policy decision and plan, DCFS may likely continue to experience increases in FINS cases. One promising initiative in Garland County resulted in a dramatic reduction in FINS cases by out-stationing a DCFS worker to local schools to receive and intervene on juvenile referrals before they come to Court. Unfortunately however, despite the unanimous local support for this pilot approach and its clearly demonstrated effectiveness, no slots or fluids have been made available by central DCFS to continue the position after June 3O, 1998.

• Foster Care

Foster care practice and case management has improved since 1996, although none of the performance goals set by the Standards Committee were met.

About three quarter of the cases had current case plans compared with a goal of 80 percent This is a significant improvement from 1995 when only about half of cases had current case plans. In general, case readers found the case plans to be thorough and comprehensive. The weakest parts of the case plans were those that asked for specific actions to be taken by parents, children and foster parents and the family visitation plan. Sixty-one percent of case plans were judged by case readers to fully reflect case circumstances.

Case staffings to review case plans and case progress were found for 61 percent of cases. However, attendance by parents, foster parents and children at these staffings was lower than is desirable and failed to meet the standards committee goal of 60 percent for their participation. While DCFS is clearly doing a better job of scheduling and holding case staffings, more effort needs to be directed toward facilitating the participation of key stakeholders. Research and practice wisdom support the importance of not only convening such groups but insuring that the family and extended family, as well as all other people important in a child's life, participate in planning for their future. Case progress is also monitored by judicial reviews and DCFS came close to meeting the performance goal for their conduct. 89 percent of cases had current judicial reviews compared to an established goal of 95 percent.

Similar to protective services cases, DCFS is far from meeting performance expectations for supervision of placement by family service workers. The DCFS policy requirement for weekly visitation of foster children by workers (or less frequent visitation when approved by a waiver) was met in less than one-third (31.6%) of cases. Although this is unacceptable, it represents a significant increase from 1995 when no cases met this expectation. Since weekly visitation seemed an foster care be visited by a worker at least monthly. However, this requirement was met in only 57.6 percent of cases.

Visitation between children in foster care and their parents and siblings was also unacceptably low. About 35 percent of children with a goal of reunification has monthly visits with their parents compared to a goal of 85 percent. Slightly more than 30 percent of children had bi-weekly visits with their parents compared to a goal of 75 percent. Only 13.6 percent of children separated from their siblings had bi-weekly visitation with their siblings, compared to a performance goal of 50 percent.

Since the implementation of the Angela R. Decree, there has been steady improvement in the provision of services to children in foster care although there remain deficiencies, particularly with regard to the availability of services to foster children's birth families and foster parents. The majority of children needing mental health care/counseling, transportation and information and referral assistance received them. In addition, the percentage of children receiving heath assessments, psychological assessment and mental health care improved from 1996. The services most commonly needed by birth parents were mental health counseling, parenting education, substance abuse treatment, information and referral assistance and transportation. With the exception of transportation, which was provided to over 90 percent of the families needing it, a significant minority of families who needed services did not receive them. Service provision to foster parents improved with about 85 percent of foster parents who needed child care receiving it and 70 percent of those needing respite care receiving it.

Teens in foster care need to be provided with activities and services designed to increase their independent living skills. The case review found that too many teens in foster care are not being adequately prepared for independence. Less than one-third (30%) of teens had a required evaluation of their Independent Living Skills, compared to a goal of 75 percent. Similarly, 36 percent of teens were engaged in independent living skill building activities, compared to a performance goal of 75 percent. The lack of placement and service resources to teens was a critical problem in every county visited.

• Adoptions

The biggest challenges facing the adoptions program are the recruitment of a sufficient number of adoptive homes to place all waiting children and the length of time it takes to move from termination of parental rights to legal adoption. The Standards Committee set several goals related to expediting the legal activities necessary for adoption; they included achieving termination of parental rights for 90 percent of children with a goal of adoption and reducing the length of time between TPR and adoption to 16 months. DCFS failed to meet either of these standards. Only half of the children with a goal of adoption were "available", meaning that their parents' legal rights had been terminated and the mean length of time between TPR and adoption remained at 19 months.

Slightly more than half of the children in the adoption sample were waiting for placement in an

adoptive home. Of the remaining children, 17 percent were adopted between 1/1/97 and 6/30/97 and 30 percent were in pre-adoptive homes awaiting the completion of legal activity. For children waiting for an adoptive placement however, there were inadequate recruitment efforts documented in the case files. For 59 percent of these children, there was in fact no documented recruitment activity. Further, nearly 60 percent of the children did not have an adoption summary in the file which is a necessary prerequisite for child-specific recruitment.

• Evaluation/Approval of Foster Homes

None of the performance standards related to the evaluation and approval of foster homes were met, although DCFS practically met the requirement that 95 percent of foster parents received require pre-service training (93.4% achieved) and 83.9 percent of new foster homes had initial evaluations which were reasonably comprehensive and thorough. Sixty-five percent of existing homes were found to have current evaluations, which is about the same percentage as 1996 and still short of the goal of 95 percent current evaluations. Continued problem areas include the provision of in-service training to foster parents, which although improved from 1995 is still far from the Standards Committee goal.

About half of active foster parents met the in-service training requirements, compared to a goal of 80 percent. In general however, case readers judged that most foster homes appeared to be appropriate providers of care; 5.2 percent were judged to be inappropriate for providing foster care and some of these homes were ultimately closed by DCFS. About 5 percent of the foster homes in the sample had maltreatment complaints against them. These complaints were found to be true for 3 cases. Shortages of local foster homes were noted in every county visited, particularly homes that can serve teenagers and children with emotional and behavioral problems.

A particular problem for the annual assessment has been an inability to measure compliance with the Angela R. placement standards (e.g., numbers and ages of children in each foster home) through the Case record review. This is because, even though foster home files are supposed to include current information on the children placed in each home, they frequently do not. Again this year, CSSP did not have confidence in the accuracy of placement data derived from those files. A new way to retrieve this information and measure compliance will need to be established in the future.

Additional Findings from County Site Visits

As noted above, site visits to counties help provide a real world context for understanding and interpreting the case record review findings. During visits to Clay, Garland, Jefferson and Polk counties, CSSP found several similarities in terms of the improvements that have been made in recent years and the problems and challenges they continue to face. The following improvements were noted:

• Case Practice has become more family-centered. For the most part, staff are focusing on working with families in their homes rather than in the DCFS offices. However, in all counties visited, there is a shortage of community-based resources for children and families.
• The local cash accounts are an extremely important and convenient resource for DCFS staff and the families they serve. Staff indicated that these funds are critical to preserving families and that it is very helpful to be able to access them quickly and easily at the county level rather than having to go through the DCFS central office in Little Rock.
• There is a greater emphasis on meeting the health care needs of children in foster care and almost all informants report that access to health care resources for assessments and basic needs has improved.
• Staff are generally better trained. Most staff spoke highly of the OJT (on-the-job training) component of the pre-service training. In-service training opportunities are more accessible to staff, though the more rural counties may have to travel farther to get training and some staff report that caseload pressures make it difficult for them to free up time to attend training.
• The implementation of flex-time has been beneficial to both DCFS staff and clients. Several of the county offices have extended their hours and allowed workers to shift their schedules to better meet the needs of staff and clients.
• Caseloads have decreased but they are still in excess of Angela R. requirement and are exacerbated by high staff turnover.
• E-mail facilitates excellent communication among staff, both within and between county offices.
• The Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) is reportedly having a positive affect on permanency planning. DCFS staff, OCC attorneys and others believe that children are moving to permanency more quickly as a result of the requirements of the new law.

Areas in which problems were noted and improvement is needed include the following:

• The start-up and implementation of CHRIS has been difficult for workers and staff need more training and readily available technical assistance. Problems with using CHRIS were cited in all four counties visited by CSSP and staff believe that the county "report cards" being generated by CHRIS are largely inaccurate. Most staff recognize that CHRIS will ultimately enhance case practice, but, during this transition, expressed concern that the requirements of CHRIS are actually hindering their work. In addition to more training and technical assistance on CHRIS, staff requested clerical support to assist with data entry into CHRIS, lap top computers so CHRIS can be taken into the field and more printers. Staff reported that CHRIS is often "down" so that system improvements can be brought on line. In the meantime, they are delayed in completing their work.
• Staff turnover is still a big problem. The effects of staff turnover make it very difficult to stabilize improvements in county office functioning. When staff leave, a vacancy is created causing remaining workers to increase their caseloads and/or focus only on crisis cases. Staff turnover also created problems with the courts, the police and other community partners who are frustrated by the time and resources that go into training and acclimating new staff. One judge was particularly concerned about the continual turnover in OCC attorneys and the impact of this frequent change on assuring permanency for children.
• Many counties have severe shortages of foster care and other placement resources causing children to (be) placed far from their homes and increasing staff time and burden to visit children and arrange for children to visit their parents.
• More service and placement resources are needed for teenagers and more Supports need to be put in place for foster parents who are serving teenagers. The absence of programs to serve teenagers and particularly those who enter foster care under FINS petitions is a critical problem in most counties.
• The capacity to provide Intensive Family Services (IFS) needs to be expanded. All of the counties visited either did not have IFS at all or did not have enough IFS capacity to work with all families needing the service.
• The level of support provided to foster parents varies. Foster parents' indicated that the support they receive varies by the assigned worker. However, foster parents generally indicated that they receive adequate support from workers in their own county but that it is "more difficult" when children are placed in their homes from other counties.
• Most people interviewed, including both DCFS staff and law enforcement representatives knew little about the planned transfer of responsibility for investigation of severe (Priority I) cases to the State Police. Those interviewed were aware that it is going to happen but did not know any of the details of exactly how the process would work and what the nature would be of the relationships between DCFS and state and local law enforcement.

Moving Forward to Comply with the Angela R. Settlement

The State now has less than two years left to achieve compliance with he Angela R. settlement Agreement. Based on this year's assessment, there is much that still remains to be done: It is our view that achieving compliance will not occur unless there is a willingness and a capacity to take a hard look at some of the most glaring problem areas and to come up with new and in some instances, unconventional solutions.

In some areas, particularly the failure to meet time frames for maltreatment and SIU assessments; failure to timely reevaluate foster homes, and the low compliance with visitation requirements in both protective services and foster care cases, it is not entirely clear if the problems are primarily workload issues (e.g., not enough staff to do the work in a timely way), training deficiencies, inadequate supervision, management problems or some combination of the above. Departmental policy is clear about these expectations, yet performance remains unacceptably below established standards. Some of the problems are county specific. Pulaski County, for example, which accounts for a significant percentage of the caseload, is not functioning in ways that would enable the provision of high quality child welfare services. Staffing levels are about 50 percent of the numbers of positions required and staff turnover there is as high as anywhere in the State. There are other counties that also may share the same characteristics as Pulaski -high staff turnover; large numbers of vacant positions; low staff morale; less than adequate supervision and insufficient worker supports and accountability mechanisms. Work should occur to identify these low performing counties and they should be targeted for intensive management and service reviews leading to the development of very specific and time-sensitive corrective action plans. Providing the resources necessary to implement these plans and continuously monitoring compliance with them ought to be a major responsibility of the State agency and must receive priority attention.

For other problem areas, statewide strategies are needed. For example, there remain large numbers of children awaiting adoptive placement. The State ought to seriously pursue efforts to engage private agencies in stepped up adoption recruitment and placement activities. Another problem that has been resistant to change is the slow pace of moving toward legalization of adoptions. This requires a conscious statewide strategy of working with the judicial system to streamline the legal processes. The State also ought to implement a better process of concurrent planning - working toward family reunification while simultaneously considering and preparing the legal case for adoption as an option for the child should reunificatidn efforts fail. A plan should be developed to train lawyers, social workers and judges across the state in how to effectively engage in concurrent permanency planning.

It is important to recognize that DCFS working alone probably cannot produce compliance with the Settlement Agreement, no matter how hard the staff works. In fact, some of the areas in which modest success has been achieved are those where there are structured partnerships with other organizations and disciplines (e.g., the Training Partnership and the relationship with UAMS for conducting and following up on health assessments). What is also needed is the development and implementation of community and neighborhood partnerships for the protection and support of children. New alliances need to be created to work with high risk families - those families that comprise the 40 percent repeat hotline reports and the 20 percent of hotline calls that involve families with a previous or current protective services case. Efforts also need to be made to intensify and improve services to families with open protective services cases in order to reduce the high percentage of children from that caseload who eventually end up in foster care. The case review found that more than one-fourth of children in foster care had previous protective services or supportive services cases. Making inroads with these populations will require that DCFS work in new ways with neighborhood organizations, schools, families and extended families, religious leaders and congregations as well as a range of formal and informal supports than can be brought together to insure children's safety.

Finally, the State must implement a mentoring strategy for middle managers, supervisors and front-line workers. Counties that are achieving compliance ought to be identified and rewarded and they ought to serve as mentors for counties experiencing less success There is no substitution for hands-on mentoring, training, technical help and monitoring. It is time-consuming and expensive but it may be the only way to transfer successful strategies and approaches to this work.

Beyond the general recommendations discussed above, we believe the following recommendations ought to be reflected in the fourth year Ange1a R. Implementation Plan:

Specific Recommendations for Improvement

• DCFS must attempt to get executive and legislative approval for more staff positions in order to meet caseload requirements and to provide an appropriate and effective level of service to children and families. Workers continue to carry caseloads in excess of Angela R. requirements; this forces them to do crisis casework and reduces their effectiveness with families. In addition, while some promising new functional positions have been created - such as the health and independent living specialists - there aren't enough of these positions to make a major impact on casework. A full staff complement will likely help with the problem of worker turnover. Full staffing is critical to Arkansas' efforts to achieve compliance with the Settlement Agreement by the year 2000.
• DCFS should implement a staff retention plan which includes advanced educational opportunities (e.g., graduate school), merit pay increases and performance bonuses. The current personnel system does not allow managers to reward good staff performance.
• DCFS should develop a mentoring program in which veteran staff are paired with new hires to provide on-going on-the-job training as well as greatly needed emotional support.
• DCFS should decrease the workload of the Area Managers so they can focus more closely on a smaller number of counties. Several of the Area Managers oversee an extremely large number of counties, making it difficult for them to devote a significant amount of time and attention to any one of them. The Area Managers have proven to be a management and technical assistance resource. However, to be successful, the Area Managers should have a workload that enables them to monitor county implementation plans and to allow them to help with the development and implementation of plans for community-based resource development in their areas and counties.
• DCFS needs to provide more technical assistance and support to the counties in the implementation of CHRIS. The creation of the technical assistance (FIT) teams was a good idea, but they do not have enough staff to meet the counties' needs. While CHRIS is still in a transitional phase, there needs to be clear policies and procedures about where and how to document case information and ongoing help to counties in learning how to use the system efficiently.
• DCFS needs to develop more foster care, therapeutic foster care and adoption placement resources through county-based, targeted recruitment plans focusing on schools, churches, hospitals and other community-based organizations. DCFS should consider moving recruitment in-house in some counties or assigning DCFS staff to partner with the recruitment contractors. DCFS may also want to consider developing an "enhanced" foster care program which is less intensive than therapeutic foster care but provides more services and support than regular foster care.
• DCFS needs to develop more placement resources for teenagers and provide intensive supportive services to foster parents serving teenagers. Services for foster parents caring for teenagers could include foster parent support groups (specifically for foster parents serving teens), information, recreational and social gatherings for foster parents serving teens, a 24-hour hotline for information and emotional support and regular respite care.
• DCFS should increase its capacity to provide Intensive Family Services (IFS), either in-house or through contracts with private providers.
• DCFS should continue to expand its relationship with the schools through out-stationing staff to provide preventive services to children and families before they enter the child welfare and court Systems.
• DCFS should work with other public agencies to develop funding for the creation of local community collaboratives to assist in resource development and direct service provision. Local community collaboratives may consist of private providers, schools, churches, grass roots organizations, neighborhood leaders and residents. Community collaboratives are currently being developed in other jurisdictions such as the District of Columbia, Louisville, Kentucky and St. Louis, Missouri. These collaboratives are working with the public child welfare agency to develop neighborhood-based family preservation and support services.
• The implementation of the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) requires that DCFS develop a focused initiative to train workers. attorneys and judges on concurrent permanency planning. DCFS must think creatively about adoptive home recruitment, perhaps involving neighborhood collaboratives in educating communities about adoption and supporting families who do adopt. DCFS must also develop strategies to decrease the length of time it takes to move from termination of parental rights to adoption; this may require hiring more attorneys, establishing regular communications with judges (as at least one Area Manager has done) and providing legal and technical assistance to adoptive parents who are petitioning for adoption. In addition, DCFS may want to conduct a focused review of all cases that have been in the foster care system for a long period of time and determine what actions can be taken to achieve permanency for these children.
• DCFS should work with the state and local police to determine their respective responsibilities with regard to investigations of allegations of severe child maltreatment (Priority I cases). It is essential that all staff receive clear instructions and relevant policies and protocols for handling investigations of severe child maltreatment and that consistent lines of communication are established between DCFS and law enforcement.
• The development of county-specific reform plans to meet the requirements of the Angela R. Settlement Agreement is an excellent idea; however, the reform plans need to move beyond data collection and tracking strategies and address resource development and other case practice issues. In the four counties visited, the reform "plans" were, essentially plans to collect and track data on the Angela R. performance indicators. While it is extremely important to develop the internal capacity to monitor performance locally against the established standards, the reform plans also need to identify gaps in services and supports for children and families and develop creative strategies to begin to fill those gaps, e.g., partnering with the schools, developing neighborhood collaboratives, increasing IFS capacity. In addition, the reform plans should include strategies to increase families' involvement in case planning. Otherwise, the counties will simply be developing a system to better measure performance indicators without putting any additional resources in place to improve case practice and outcomes for children and families.

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