Progress in foster care seen for state

Agency: 6 of 11 goals completed

Two and a half years after announcing a planned course of action in response to a critique of the state's overburdened foster care system, Gov. Asa Hutchinson said last week that he gives the Division of Children and Family Services more credit than it gives itself for fulfilling the "intent" of the report's recommendations.

The report by consultant Paul Vincent was released in 2015. It was commissioned by Hutchinson after the story broke about a state legislator who "re-homed" his adopted children to a man later convicted of sexually assaulting one of them. The legislator accused child service workers of failing to aid him after he said he had trouble with the girls' behavior.

The Vincent report included 11 recommendations, from appointing a staff member in the governor's office to coordinate with Children and Family Services (goal listed as completed), to addressing the challenge of placing children with foster families or relatives (listed as "in progress.")

Hutchinson pledged to comply with each of the recommendations, a promise he repeated in September after hosting his second Restore Hope Summit, which highlighted the work done to improve the foster care network.

The most recent assessment by Children and Family Services, released in September, listed six of the 11 recommendations as completed:

• Hire a staff member in the governor's office to work with the division.

• Build capacity to partner with stakeholders.

• Improve the working relationship between the Administrative Office of the Courts, and Children and Family Services.

• Expedite the process for filling staff vacancies.

• Develop a three-year plan to reduce caseloads to 20 per family service worker.

• Determine responsibility for implementing recommendations.

"I think I had a few more checked off as completed, but I'll take their analysis on that," Hutchinson said in an interview last week.

For example, Hutchinson said the recommendation for a "principle-based" operating strategy at Children and Family Services had been fulfilled by implementing the best practices of other states. He said the agency has made "tremendous progress," but has to be cautious of lapsing back.

In its September report, Children and Family Services listed that recommendation as "in progress," with a goal for completion for fiscal 2018. The current fiscal year started July 1, 2017.

"It's always a work in progress," Hutchinson said. "I give them a little more credit where that's a milestone that's been achieved."

Another unfinished recommendation falling under the authority of the governor's office was the creation of a County-Central Office Task Force to study administrative flexibility. Hutchinson said the "intent" of that goal had been achieved through "massive reorganization" at the Department of Human Services, the agency that oversees Children and Family Services.

One of the chief legislative critics of the state's child services, state Sen. Alan Clark, R-Lonsdale, said he couldn't disagree with the governor's claims of successes.

"It would have been hard for them to accomplish as much as they did" in 2017, Clark said Friday. "This year is where the rubber's going to meet the road."

The governor and Children and Family Services have touted their actions taken in response to the report. Shortly after it was released, Hutchinson got quick approval to spend $1 million in "rainy day" surplus funds to hire 40 caseworkers, and more have been added since. Earlier this year, Children and Family Services announced that it had doubled the percentage of children entering the foster care system who are placed with relatives, though the rate is still below the national average.

Other statistics compiled by Children and Family Services show the agency making gains in areas where it had identified a need for improvement, even if not quite reaching its goals.

In one key metric, the average caseload per family service worker, fell more than 20 percent in the year leading up to the governor's most recent summit in September.

The month before, the average caseload per worker fell to 22.4, close to the Vincent report's goal of 20 cases per worker within three years. But in the months since, that number has risen again, to 24.9 in December. That rise may be attributable to school getting back in session, and teachers reporting more cases to the state abuse and neglect hotline, said Children and Family Services Director Mischa Martin.

The recent increase in cases followed a period of several months of decline in the number of children in foster care, which grew past 5,000 for the first time in 2016, putting a strain on services. The total number of children in the system in December, according to Children and Family Services, was 4,998.

"If we would have been able to stay constant with the number of children going into the foster system, with the increased caseworkers we added, we would have already met that goal," Hutchinson said.

"But regretfully, while we've improved our services and caseworkers, the number of children going into foster care increased also. ... That was a surprise that was thrown in our direction that we did not expect. Hopefully, that will not continue in the future," he added.

Vincent, a private consultant and director of the Montgomery, Ala.-based Child Welfare Policy and Practice Group, did not respond to several phone calls seeking comment last week.

Clark said he still sees "pockets of resistance," where county offices and juvenile-court judges were pushing back against the changes implemented at the top of the system. In particular, he said some officials are against placing children taken in by the system with relatives.

The number of foster family homes in the state is another measure by which the past several months have not kept pace with the preceding year. After reaching a high of 1,821 in August, just before the governor's summit, the number has remained stagnant, even dipping slightly.

That may be the result of a recent push by Children and Family Services to finalize the adoption of children who had their cases pending. In three months -- including November as National Adoption Awareness month -- Martin said 270 adoptions were finalized. In those same months, 63 foster homes closed because of adoptions, she said.

Martin also said the agency's recruitment message has shifted focus to finding homes for older youths, which she said is harder.

The Call, a Christian religious nonprofit that recruits more foster families than any other private group, plans to launch an effort in five new counties in 2018: Grant, Hempstead, Miller, Newton and Woodruff, according to Lauri Currier, the group's executive director. The group now operates in 44 counties.

A governor's spokesman said the budget for fiscal 2019, which begins July 1, includes money to hire 67 more caseworkers at Children and Family Services. The agency currently has 541 caseworkers, an increase of 109, or one-fifth more, under the governor's administration.

When unveiling his initial response to the Vincent report in 2015, Hutchinson said the state would need another 200 caseworkers. His spokesman, J.R. Davis, said the next year's planned hires -- raising the total of new hires to 176 -- are part of the governor's ongoing plan to hire such workers over time.

"All of those are lofty goals that will take years to complete," Martin said of the state's progress addressing the report. "We didn't set goals that could be completed in three months."

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