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Texas Strives for Early Permanency for Children
Jim Hine, Executive Director of Texas Department of Protective and
Regulatory Services (PRS) interviewed by: Ann Sullivan, CWLA Director
of Adoption Services
Sullivan: What factors caused you to take on an adoption initiative?
Hine: In recent years the State of Texas has made several efforts to
improve service delivery in all areas of the Child Protective Services
system. Children were staying in substitute care too long, waiting too
long for permanency to be achieved. The wait for special needs children
to be adopted was excessive.
Sullivan: Who were the key players in this systems change initiative?
Hine: Under the direction of Governor Bush, an Adoption Task Force was formed
to look at the barriers to adoption. This led the way to state legislative
changes, increased judiciary involvement, and increased use of private
adoption agencies. All of these efforts were aimed at decreasing the
time it takes to achieve permanency for children in the child protective
service system.
Sullivan: What did the agency do?
Hine: Every aspect of service provision was reviewed in light of how it supported
or hindered achieving permanency for children effectively and expeditiously.
Here are some of the policies that helped PRS achieve our objectives:
In response to state legislation requiring that a final legal order
be issued within 12 months of initially taking custody of a child, PRS
instituted the requirement for pre-removal/postremoval staffings. These
staffings evaluate the best agency response for addressing the safety
and permanency needs of the child. Program directors, as well as caseworkers
and supervisors, are involved in these staffings and approve the initial
plans for assessing the child and family. This allows more experienced
staff to give input on cases early on in the process, preventing delays
caused by inadequate case planning. PRS revised contracts with service
providers to assure that services, especially assessments and evaluations,
are scheduled to start within 14 days of the child's placement. This
change was based on our recognition that achieving permanency within
12 months requires early decision-making. Services must be delivered
to the family as soon as possible, so we can determine if they will
be able to benefit from them. Additionally, services must be family-centered,
culturally competent, and community-based.
PRS has followed the state legislative directive from 1995 in developing
Swift Adoption Teams. These are staff throughout the state who have
been given the specific responsibility for identification and resolution
of barriers to achieving permanency for children.
Increased focus has been given to the PRS in-house case review process,
called the Permanency Planning Team (PPT) staffing, and to the role
that the PPT conveners take to ensure that permanency issues are addressed.
At least once every six months, these conveners, along with all of the
significant parties who want a voice in planning case goals, including
caseworkers, supervisors, parents, caregivers, relevant attorneys, CASA
volunteers, and older children, staff all the cases in their region
where children are placed outside the home.
PRS has increased emphasis on placing children in dual-licensed foster/adoptive
homes. This is consistent with the ASFA directive to use concurrent
case planning, and it reduces the number of moves for children whose
plan is adoption.
There are other activities that are contributing to the more effective
movement of children to permanent homes and final resolution of their
legal status:
- Regional staff are conducting intensive reviews of children who are in long-term care with PRS to try to find an alternative case resolution.
- PRS is contracting with private agencies to conduct home studies for families wishing to adopt or foster.
- Specific staff have been appointed to conduct diligent searches to locate parents and relatives for court notification and placement possibilities.
- Some areas are involving families and children in Family Unity Meetings early in the process (from the New Zealand model), to allow the extended family the opportunity to resolve the case.
- One Church One Child programs assist us in recruiting adoptive families for children.
- Regional Adopt-a-Caseworker Programs provide support to caseworkers by allowing them to meet the needs of their families and children with the support of a specific church or business,
- Seminars for youth in long-term care who have refused to consider adoption as a permanency goal provide them an opportunity to assess the ramifications of the choice they have made.
Sullivan: You also initiated several special projects, didn't you?
Hine: That's correct. Beyond basic policies that have helped head us in the
right direction, there have been special projects focused on bringing
the larger community into helping our agency meet the needs of children
and families. ASFA also provided direction in this area by encouraging
cross-jurisdictional placements.
PRS has enhanced adoptive recruitment efforts by use of the Internet.
PRS was the first state, agency to place a photo listing of our children
awaiting adoption on the Internet. One aspect of our Internet photo
listing is the capability for interested families to send inquiry forms
directly to the contact person for that child. Since then we have added
audio files of some of the waiting children. Each step has greatly increased
the number of inquiries from licensed adoptive families nationwide.
For the period from September 1997 to February 1998, PRS received 2291
inquiries from the Texas Adoption Resource Exchange Web site.
The Court Improvement Project made recommendations that have helped
increase cooperation between the CPS agency and the court to bring early
resolution to many cases. Some of the activities related to this effort
include:
- Meetings at the local level between child protective staff and the court system to analyze and improve case flow;
- Conferences offering training on permanency legislation, best practices, and child development for judges;
- Originating the "Cluster Court" concept, which allows a judge with expertise in child abuse cases to cross jurisdictional lines and hear such cases in locations that are overloaded or lack the needed expertise;
- Successfully piloting the use of court "masters," which has resulted in increased judicial personnel hearing CPS cases.
The Children's Justice Act had additional benefits, such as:
- Grants to allow the use of mediation by all the parties to reach legal resolution of cases in nine Texas counties.
- Grants for approximately ten training seminars annually to better educate attorney ad litems regarding the needs of children in conservatorship; and additional support for the Model Court Project in El Paso started by the National Conference of Juvenile and Family Court Judges.
Children in PRS conservatorship continue to receive substantial support
from Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA), who are now available
in 44 counties and are being founded in four more.
Sullivan: What did you identify as the major barriers to permanency?
Hine: Our agency faces some obstacles which may be common to many other
agencies, such as:
- Caseloads that are higher than the Child Welfare League of America recommended averages;
- Staff turnover, which presents a barrier due to the time it takes to properly train new staff and the resulting lack of experienced staff;
- Lack of tools such as outdated automation equipment.
Sullivan: What results have you achieved to date?
Hine: There has been a significant increase in adoptions consummated. PRS
went from 746 consummated adoptions in Fiscal Year 96 to 1548 in FY
98. This means we more than doubled adoptions in two years.
By better utilizing foster parents as adoptive parents, PRS has been
able to decrease the time from adoptive placement to consummation. Staff
reduced this time frame from 7.2 months in FY 95 to 5.5 months in FY
98. This accomplishment allows children to feel a sense of resolution
and permanency nearly two months faster than previously. In FY 97, foster
parent adoptions represented 51% of total adoptions.
The number of PRS children placed for adoption by private agencies
has been doubled in each of the last two years. The private agency placements
went from 73 in FY 96 to 305 in FY 98 (Year to Date figures).
Sullivan: What are you planning for the future?
Hine: Other initiatives in which PRS has engaged in the area of special-needs
adoptions, and some of those that are planned for the future include
the following:
- In FY 95, PRS changed the contracting process with in-state private
adoption agencies to allow "open enrollment." This effort eased the
contracting procedures for the private agencies so they only had to
contract with one region in the state to place children throughout the
state. While it took a little time for this effort to bear fruit, the
doubling of adoptive placements by private agencies in each of the last
two years shows we are moving in the right direction.
- The private sector was provided with CWLA's Parent's Resource for
Information, Development, and Education (PRIDE) curriculum, a foster/adoptive
parent training and assessment model, at no cost other than printing
fees.
The Management Analysis division of PRS studied and produced a report
on the PRS Foster and Adoptive Home Recruitment program. Two work groups
are in the process of refining the recommendations from this report,
which include:
- Improving our computer software placement-matching capabilities to
better match prospective families based on their abilities to meet the
children's special needs.
- Working more closely with private adoption agencies to develop legal
risk, foster and adoptive homes.
- Collaborating with private agencies in training of staff and prospective
foster and adoptive parents.
It takes leaders with vision and a commitment to families and children
to make a positive change. In Texas, we are fortunate to have a Governor,
state legislation, a responsive state legislature, a cooperative court
system, and devoted staff that are giving increased attention to families,
children, and permanency issues.
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