Arkansas has reduced the number of children in foster care by 21% since 2016 and taken other steps that put the state on track to meet the objectives of a 2018 federal child-welfare law, a top state official said Wednesday.
During a news conference that marked the release of the Division of Children and Family Services' annual report, division Director Mischa Martin touted her agency's progress in overhauling foster services, doing more to prevent child mistreatment and neglect, and better supporting caseworkers.
Along with reducing the foster care population, the agency has increased the percentage of children placed with relatives from 23.4% to 30.3% and the percentage placed in "family-like settings" from 77.6% to 86.9%, according to the report, "Family First Fits Us."
The agency's progress has put it on track to align with the goals of the federal Family First Prevention Services Act of 2018, Martin said.
The law emphasizes family foster homes over group settings, penalizing states that keep children in group homes too long. The law also allows states to use Title IV-E dollars on preventive services to help children stay with their parents or relatives. Previously, states could use the money only for foster care maintenance, administrative costs and training.
"We immediately recognized that that legislation aligned with our goals and values and the foundation that we had already laid in each of these annual reports, which is truly a focus on placement of children with family if they are already in foster care and then a focus on prevention," Martin said.
The division's first annual report after Martin became its chief in 2016 was titled "Moving Beyond Crisis."
"We were really in crisis," Martin recalled.
The 2016 report's introduction pointed out that there were about 5,200 children in foster care and that the division "lacks the right placement options for abused and neglected children and adequate prevention programs to help struggling families."
In August, the number of children in foster care was down to 4,285, according to the report.
"That's been a safe reduction," Martin said. "We track in our annual report card recurrence of maltreatment and have seen no increase in recurrence of maltreatment ... We can say that we've successfully reduced the number of children in foster care both by a focus on making good decisions on removals as well as increasing our discharges so that children in foster care are only in there for the amount of time that they need to be in there."
The division kicked off a "targeted permanency initiative" in August, which involves reunification of families, adoption, subsidized guardianship and placing youth in another permanent planned living arrangement, according to the report.
Officials will work with community groups to expedite the bureaucratic part of the adoption process -- tasks such as gathering medical records, birth certificates and educational documents, Martin said.
Martin also said the state has worked to encourage families to take in more children ages 10 to 17.
"That's a huge undertaking because in 2016, we really had a crisis message that we needed any foster family, but as we really have looked at what our needs were, we have had a more targeted message," Martin said.
The division will also ramp up efforts to keep children out of foster care in the first place. Some of these programs began as early as 2017, according to the report.
The Baby and Me program, a partnership with the Arkansas Department of Health, started in 2018 to provide parenting lessons at each of the state's 14 Women, Infants and Children clinics. Lessons focus on safe sleep for babies, parent-child connection and informing parents on resources.
A 2018 study from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that about 3,500 babies die each year in sleep-related deaths.
Martin said it's too early to tell if there is a correlation between a decrease in sleep-related deaths among Arkansas babies and the program, but added that the division hopes to enroll more families in it over the coming months.
Over the next year, officials plan to identify places in Little Rock labeled "high-risk" for child maltreatment and fatalities by mapping address-level data with information about past maltreatment, deaths, crimes and other risk factors.
Predict Align Prevent, a Texas-based nonprofit, will combine the data with the locations of "positive supports" such as churches and child care centers to figure out areas of need, according to the report.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation, a Baltimore-based research and advocacy group, is working with the state to test a fresh version of a program called Team Decision Making in the northeastern corner of Arkansas.
The program brings everyone involved in a child-welfare case together to provide courts with more information to decide whether separations from family should be temporary, permanent or should occur at all.
The division plans to make SafeCare, which began in 2017 in Pulaski County, a statewide program by Jan. 1. The program gives in-home, skill-based interventions to parents already involved with the state's child protective services.
Other in-home service programs will continue to expand. Families can receive intensive services for four to six weeks in one program and longer in another, according to the report.
"We are already seeing amazing results," Martin said.
The number of division caseworkers has increased by 187 over the past 2½ years, and average caseloads have gone from 28 in 2016 to 19 per worker in August, according to the report. The state is working to increase support for those workers by offering training at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and Northwest Arkansas Community College.
The National Child Welfare Workforce Institute is funding the program at UALR. The school gets $150,000 each year for five years to cover the training and administrative costs. Sixty-five percent of the funds must go directly to the stipend for training costs, Human Services Department spokeswoman Marci Manley said.
Arkansas was one of two states and eight jurisdictions to receive the grant.
The training provides leadership development for supervisors and middle managers. It will also conduct an assessment to identify workforce gaps within the division, the report says.
The community college is developing a caseworker career path in its Child Advocacy Studies Program. It's part of a separate stipend program, Manley said.
Since 2016, the number of child maltreatment investigations that aren't completed within 45 days are down from 721 to 104 this August, the report shows.
The department has also reworked its mileage reporting system, reassigned some vehicles and purchased five multipassenger vans to transport sibling groups. The savings for fiscal 2019 will be over $1 million, Martin said.
It's also updating its reporting technology -- called the Children's Reporting and Information System -- to be in line with 2016 federal regulations that required certain designs and data standards, according to the report.
Martin said she hopes the contract will be finalized by the middle of next year.
"It's been a lot of work to implement Families First, and we are one of the first in the nation and I am very proud of our team," Martin said. "... While I still think we have a lot of work to do, what we have accomplished in this year to get us ready and how we have made sure that we put the kid first when it came to qualified residential treatment and prevention services, I'm really proud of the team."
A Section on 10/17/2019