Over the past couple of months, the Resource Center has gathered information from 13 states about court and agency collaboration on the CFSR and the PIP.
The specific question we asked these states is: What are the strategies, if any, that states across the nation employ with their respective family courts to work collaboratively on behalf of children in care?
Below are some examples of trends that we found in many states, as well as unique activities and pilot projects that only a state or a couple of states are pursuing. The examples are categorized by topic area and by state. In addition, the full summaries are available for your information.
Collaboration on the CFSR
In Arizona, surveys were sent to all Juvenile Court Judges, Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASAs), and AGs, statewide, and to123 attorneys and guardians ad litems (GALs) representing children and parents in dependency cases.
In Kansas, a juvenile judge was a team member of the CFSR preparation team and personally participated in the CFSR. This worked very well, as the judge brought first-hand knowledge to the table, as well as judicial expertise. The judge reviewed case files, and participated in evening meetings to prepare for the CFSR.
Ongoing collaboration
In Arizona, the AOC conducts a biannual statewide audit of each juvenile court. The AOC has included the CFSR lead in revising this evaluation process. The workgroup has discussed how CFSR related outcomes and indicators might be included in the evaluation process.
Open Court Pilot Project. The agency and courts are collaborating on an Open Court Pilot in Maricopa County, Arizona that may soon expand to other counties. This pilot is a mechanism to ensure public accountability and promote due process, while safeguarding privacy rights.
Internal CFSR process. In California, DSS and the courts have been working closely together on a number of important initiatives before and after the PIP. For example, as a result of legislation, there is a parallel statewide CFSR-like process for each county, which is set to begin formally by January 2004. There has been an AOC representative on the working group that developed this system. Each county must prepare a self-assessment with subsequent site visits, which will include peer review. As in the CFSR, the courts are among the processes to be reviewed and their involvement in all phases of the county level review is encouraged. There will also be county-level PIP and data analysis using the SACWIS data system (which has been fully implemented in California for several years now).
Court delays. A new pilot project in Fulton County, Georgia began where adoption jurisdiction is delegated to the Juvenile Court. Unfortunately, it is uncertain if this delegation of jurisdiction has helped save time between TPR and adoption. The Office of the Child Advocate and the CIP have asked the Governor’s office to assist with expanding this pilot to a few more counties. Both entities plan to follow up, but have not done so yet.
Delinquency. The courts and agency in Indiana worked together to write interagency agreements to provide better services for delinquent children. These agreements have been implemented in most, if not all counties. The Juvenile Justice Improvement Committee of the Judicial Conference of Indiana, comprised of ten judges, worked on this area of the PIP.
Concurrent planning. In Indiana, here are five pilot projects on concurrent planning, which are intended to ensure that a variety of options are considered for a child. Included is a Family Centered Risk Assessment Tool, which serves both as a guide to gathering information about the family, as well as assessing the risk that may exist to children within the family. The agency has trained court personnel in all five pilot counties, and the project started on October 1, 2003.
Court processes. The Kansas Supreme Court Task Force on Permanency Planning (SCTFPP), which includes SRS representatives, worked together to evaluate the impact of standardized forms and procedures implemented by the state’s Court Improvement Program (CIP). This is an ongoing, internal evaluation. In addition, Taskforce members review the recommendations and findings from the evaluation. Standardized forms can be downloaded from http://www.kscourts.org/formsndx.htm.
Management. In Kansas, the Office of Judicial Administration (OJA) is in the process of implementing the Child in Care Information Management System that notifies court staff when permanency hearings are due. A committee of judges has met to discuss how implementation should take place. The Taskforce, including agency representatives, will review the judges’ recommendations. Once the system is finalized, it will be piloted in one or more districts, and then offered statewide. The system should be up and running by the end of 2004.
Children’s Justice Initiative. The Children’s Justice Initiative (CJI) is a partnership between the Minnesota Supreme Court and the Department of Human Services. The partnership involves facilitating training and processes for locally-based reforms. With the assistance of Minnesota’s Court Improvement Program (CIP), there is an assessment of court-agency practice in selected counties. Following the assessment, the local CJI partners develop and implement a plan to improve practices identified in the assessment. The CJI key partners are the judge and county director. The judge is in a significant leadership role and convenes a local CJI committee that is comprised of all major stakeholders.
The CJI assessment in each county primarily focuses on court-related improvements, including agency cooperation in those improvements. The outcome goals for CJI include meaningful permanency decisions in a reasonable amount of time (which is defined as within a year; less for children under eight, except where parents are making a good faith effort towards reunification). The CJI process began with 27 counties in 2001-2002. The remaining 60 counties will begin participation in Fall 2003. CJI is linked to the PIP in that timely permanency decision-making is included in the PIP and is a key focus of CJI.
CJI has sponsored centralized training to help launch the county initiatives. The first such court-agency sponsored training occurred in 1999, and another training took place in 2002. The Chief Justice has been a champion of CJI, both in principle and through court resources.
The agency also supports CJI both in principle and through agency resources, primarily through Title IV-B, Subpart 2 funds. These funds have helped to add new staff to work on CJI, including a county attorney and a social services administrator to help organize activities.
Public/private adoption initiative. Eight private adoption agencies work with the county child welfare agencies in Minnesota to improve the timeliness of adoption. The courts are not directly involved, but the agency has shared information with the courts. It has done this through sending bulletins, fact sheets, and press releases to CIP. In addition, some courts involved in this initiative monitor state wards (post-TPR children) and generate state ward reports every 90 days. If there isn’t any movement, a judge can hold the agency accountable.Alternative response program. With federal money and a foundation grant, Minnesota’s alternative response program has been piloted in 20 counties for four years. In these counties, some cases receive early services and assessments, while others get investigations. For example, when there is a report of egregious harm, there will be an investigation, but eventually for over 50% of cases, there will be an assessment rather than a traditional investigation.
In pilot counties, these programs are discussed with judges, who mostly view alternative response as a way to help families resolve their problems and prevent the need for court involvement. The agency plans to request statewide legislation to authorize a continuum of responses and interventions when there is a report. Responses depend on the severity of safety and risk issues.
Adoption. The Adoption Task Force in Oregon, which has both agency and court representation, developed recommendations for streamlining the adoption process. Those recommendations included development and implementation of a Progressive Family Assessment and training CASAs to gather medical and genetic history and obtain birth certificates. CASAs have been trained in two counties to do so.
Case Management Protocol. Almost immediately after Vermont’s PIP was approved, a subcommittee was formed to establish a case management protocol for abused and neglected children in out of home care. The subcommittee, which included both court and agency representatives, met for a year and a half to draft and gain approval of a Case Management Protocol. In Spring 2002, this Protocol was piloted in two courts, and in November 2002, it was launched statewide. A one-day training was conducted, attended by family court judges and court staff, agency caseworkers and supervisors, attorneys, GALs, and service providers. The Vermont Supreme Court Justice and the SRS Commissioner made the conference opening remarks. Agency management was part of the conference planning committee.
The same subcommittee is now meeting to assess the effectiveness of the protocol as a means to reduce court delays. This assessment will occur in conjunction with Vermont’s CIP reassessment and findings will be summarized in a report by March 2004.
Trainings:
In California, by funding the AOC’s Judicial Review and Technical Assistance Project (JRTA), DSS has made major contributions to the training of judges and other court personnel for a number of years. The PIP has called for continuation and expansion of these activities, to include training on the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). While DSS largely funds this work, court employed attorneys and others outside of DSS provide this training. AOC attorneys have the job of helping the state comply with Titles IV-B and IV-E and, thus, to help ensure that the state will pass the IV-E audit and do well with the CFSR. These court attorneys provide hands on, on site training in all juvenile courts throughout the state, for judges and others.
The Educational Division of the Judicial Council also conducts training, which occurs at off-site judicial institutes. While this training is not funded by DSS, DSS sometimes contributes presenters.
Besides the training described above, JRTA provides technical assistance, including hands on help with court forms, court orders, and other needed advice. To prepare California for current and future federal reviews, JRTA provides help with data collection, training and educating the courts, social service departments, and probation departments (which handle delinquency cases) to ensure compliance with Title IV-E and IV-B.
In Florida, the agency and courts work together closely throughout the year in planning the annual Dependency Court Improvement Summit (DCIP_. This summit is the primary venue for disseminating important information to dependency court and agency stakeholders. This summit includes over 60 presentations every year. The focus of local circuit planning sessions incorporates many of the issues raised in the PIP. For example, during the DCIP in 2002, members of the judiciary were trained on the merits of concurrent case planning and case plan conferencing.
The courts are also undertaking a new evaluation of how dependency cases are judicially processed in Florida. This effort is part of the federal DCIP grant requirements. Study questions derived from the PIP will be included in the research design. The courts will seek input from the agency as the project proceeds.
Legislation:
In terms of reducing lengthy time periods to finalize adoptions, a legislative attempt to reduce the time to achieve adoption was somewhat successful. Georgia Senate Bill 192 was passed which allows for uncontested adoption petitions to be heard as soon as possible but not later than 120days. Statutory changes regarding post termination reviews were not sponsored during the last legislative session. However, post termination requirements are now included in the Case Plan Reporting System.
Earlier this year, the CIP in North Carolina recommended changes to the state’s juvenile code (H.B. 1048, passed in June). The CIP juvenile statutes subcommittee, an established work group, drafted the recommended changes, and were able to get an member of the state House to sponsor the bill for introduction on the floor of the General Assembly. Members of the work group included agency representatives. The group engaged in phone and email correspondence, as well as face-to-face and conference meetings. Although the court requested agency participation late in 2002, the agency did not fully participate, including providing feedback on suggested changes in the state laws, until late March, weeks before the cut off dates for submission of proposed legislation. Therefore, the court had to resolve any disagreement with the agency within one month’s time.
New legislation was passed in Oregon which requires that if the case plan for a ward is independent living, at the time of the permanency hearing, the court must make findings regarding whether (1) the plan is adequate to ensure the ward’s successful transition, (2) the agency has offered appropriate services under the plan, and (3) that the agency involved the ward in the development of the plan.
In West Virginia, for every abuse and/or neglect case, a multi-disciplinary team (MDT) is formed, which includes the agency caseworker(s), the attorneys, and the family (the parents, and when appropriate, the child). This team makes recommendations to the court about a specific child’s placement and services, for example what reunification efforts should be employed. The court reviews every pending case on a quarterly basis; a team representative must be present at each of these reviews. This requirement exists through the permanency planning review stage.
Before the 2003 legislative change, a judge could simply ignore the recommendations of the MDT. This is because it is ultimately a judicial decision as to where a child should be placed and what services the child should receive.
In 2003, the agency successfully pursued a change in state law to require a judge who does not agree with the MDT’s recommendations to hold a hearing to consider evidence from the team as to its rationale for the proposed service plan. If the judge still does not agree with the MDT, the judge must make specific written findings justifying the decision not to adopt the MDT’s recommendations. This tends to be an issue in status offense/juvenile delinquency cases more so than in abuse/neglect cases. Judges are more likely to have a difference of opinion from the MDT when it comes to placing and providing services to a status offender or juvenile delinquent. The main rationale behind this legislative change is to make judges more accountable for their decisions.
In addition, court and agency representatives are forming a legislative work group that will craft various legislation, including providing a monitoring agency to address statewide systemic issues, and expanding MDT membership to include school personnel. The goal is to draft this legislation in time for the upcoming legislative session that starts in January.
Policies
In Oregon, the agency has a draft face-to-face contact policy. This policy outlines expectations for child-caseworker and parent-caseworker contact, and requires contact at least once every 30 days. Court personnel reviewed and provided input on this policy. The CRB will develop a monitoring system.
Data Sharing
In Georgia, This information is now captured in a shared electronic data system between the courts and the agency. The next step is to be to develop a data quality team to get reliable and quality data. Currently, there are only two staff trainers for the 2500 people who enter data. The court has had several meetings with the Executive branch to request more trainers, but it seems to be low priority for them. Additionally, caseworkers have had increasing caseloads, some have been fired recently, and there has been a high child death rate this year. All these factors contribute to the delay in getting more data quality and training assistance for the data system.
The North Carolina courts and agency are working to develop a computer data system. Agency representatives work with the courts in this process. The state agency has had their own information system for a while. The goal of the current project is to create a system that will coordinate the court and state agency system, and make it easier to access and share information.
The agency and CIP in Vermont are working together for the first time to combine data on outcomes for children and time lines for court decisions. It is expected that agency data will be routinely provided to the court to combine with "Data Warehouse" reports. The reports will provide quarterly data to the courts regarding timeliness of court decisions and permanency.
Title IV-E Review
The Kansas courts and SRS have collaborated on the Title IV-E audit. For the initial audit done in 1999, the courts were not involved. The state did not pass due to factors such as non-documentation. After this initial failure, the courts and agency decided to partner up for the next audit, which took place in 2002. First, they pulled files to determine what the feds were seeing when they gave the state a failing grade. Then, to address the problems, the courts and agency conducted joint trainings. Also, there are SRS representatives on the judicial taskforce that conducts a range of activities, including drafting mandated court orders used in juvenile cases. In addition, a court representative was on-site during the 2002 audit in case any questions or problems arose.
In West Virginia, there has been agency and court collaboration to provide a set of Title IV-E form orders for judges to use in child protection cases. Downloadable software that provides abuse and neglect form orders is available at http://www.wvjanis.com. Once all of these forms get final approval from the state Supreme Court, they will all be available online, hopefully by the end of this year. Juvenile delinquency and status offender form orders are not part of Janis yet, so they are not available online yet.
BY STATE
Arizona
The AOC conducts a biannual statewide audit of each juvenile court. The AOC has included the CFSR lead in revising this evaluation process. The workgroup has discussed how CFSR related outcomes and indicators might be included in the evaluation process.
Open Court Pilot Project. The agency and courts are collaborating on an Open Court Pilot in Maricopa County, which may soon expand to other counties. This pilot is a mechanism to ensure public accountability and promote due process, while safeguarding privacy rights.
California
Internal CFSR process. DSS and the courts have been working closely together on a number of important initiatives before and after the PIP. For example, as a result of legislation, there is a parallel statewide CFSR-like process for each county, which is set to begin formally by January 2004. There has been an AOC representative on the working group that developed this system. Each county must prepare a self-assessment with subsequent site visits, which will include peer review. As in the CFSR, the courts are among the processes to be reviewed and their involvement in all phases of the county level review is encouraged. There will also be county-level PIP and data analysis using the SACWIS data system (which has been fully implemented in California for several years now).
Through funding the AOC’s Judicial Review and Technical Assistance Project (JRTA), the agency has made major contributions to the training of judges and other court personnel for a number of years. The PIP has called for continuation and expansion of these activities to include training on the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). While DSS largely funds this work, court employed attorneys and others outside of DSS provide this training. AOC attorneys have the job of helping the state comply with Titles IV-B and IV-E and, thus, to help ensure that the state will pass the IV-E audit and do well with the CFSR. These court attorneys provide hands on, on site training in all juvenile courts throughout the state, for judges and others.
The Educational Division of the Judicial Council also conducts training, which occurs at off-site judicial institutes. While this training is not funded by DSS, DSS sometimes contributes presenters.
Besides the training described above, JRTA provides technical assistance, including hands on help with court forms, court orders, and other needed advice. To prepare California for current and future federal reviews, JRTA provides help with data collection, training and educating the courts, social service departments, and probation departments (which handle delinquency cases) to ensure compliance with Title IV-E and IV-B.
Florida
The agency and courts work together closely throughout the year in planning the annual Dependency Court Improvement Summit (DCIP). This summit is the primary venue for disseminating important information to dependency court and agency stakeholders. This summit includes over 60 presentations every year. The focus of local circuit planning sessions incorporates many of the issues raised in the PIP. For example, during the DCIP in 2002, members of the judiciary were trained on the merits of concurrent case planning and case plan conferencing.
The courts are also undertaking a new evaluation of how dependency cases are judicially processed in Florida. This effort is part of the federal DCIP grant requirements. Study questions derived from the PIP will be included in the research design. The courts will seek input from the agency as the project proceeds.
Georgia
Court delays. A new pilot project in Fulton County began where adoption jurisdiction is delegated to the Juvenile Court. Hopefully, this delegation of jurisdiction saves time between TPR and adoption, but the results are unclear. The Office of the Child Advocate and the CIP have asked the Governor’s office to assist with expanding this pilot to a few more counties.
As an outgrowth of the Georgia PIP, Georgia Senate Bill 192 was enacted to reduce delays in finalizing adoption. The Act provides that uncontested adoption petitions are to be heard as soon as possible but no later than 120 days.
Information is now captured in a shared electronic data system between the courts and the agency. The next step is to develop a data quality team to get reliable and quality data, as currently, there are only two staff trainers for the 2500 people who enter data.
Indiana
Delinquency. The courts and agency worked together to write interagency agreements to provide better services for delinquent children. These agreements have been implemented in most, if not all counties. The Juvenile Justice Improvement Committee of the Judicial Conference of Indiana, comprised of ten judges, worked on this area of the PIP.
Concurrent planning. There are five pilot projects on concurrent planning, which started on October 1, 2003. The agency trained court personnel in all five pilot counties. The project is intended to ensure that a variety of options are considered for a child. Included is a Family Centered Risk Assessment Tool, which serves both as a guide to gathering information about the family, as well as assessing the risk that may exist to children within the family.
Kansas
A juvenile judge was a team member of the CFSR preparation team and personally participated in the CFSR. This worked very well, as the judge brought first-hand knowledge to the table, as well as judicial expertise. The judge reviewed case files, and participated in evening meetings to prepare for the CFSR.
The courts and agency have collaborated on the Title IV-E audit. For the initial audit done in 1999, the courts were not involved. For the 2002 audit, they pulled files to determine what the feds were seeing when they gave the state a failing grade. Then, to address the problems, the courts and agency conducted joint trainings. In addition, a court representative was on-site during the 2002 audit in case any questions or problems arose.
Minnesota
Children’s Justice Initiative. The Children’s Justice Initiative (CJI) is a partnership between the Minnesota Supreme Court and the Department of Human Services. The partnership involves facilitating training and processes for locally-based reforms. With the assistance of state’s Court Improvement Program (CIP), there is an assessment of court-agency practice in selected counties. Following the assessment, the local CJI partners develop and implement a plan to improve practices identified in the assessment. The CJI key partners are the judge and county director. The judge is in a significant leadership role and convenes a local CJI committee that is comprised of all major stakeholders.
The CJI assessment in each county primarily focuses on court-related improvements, including agency involvement in the court process. The outcome goals for CJI include meaningful permanency decisions in a reasonable amount of time (which is defined as within a year; less for children under eight, except where parents are making a good faith effort towards reunification). The CJI process began with 27 counties in 2001-2002. The remaining 60 counties will begin participation in Fall 2003. CJI is linked to the PIP in that timely permanency decision-making is included in the PIP.
CJI has sponsored centralized training to help launch the county initiatives. The first such court-agency sponsored training occurred in 1999, and another training took place in 2002. The Chief Justice has been a champion of CJI, both in principle and through court resources.
The agency also supports CJI both in principle and through agency resources, primarily through Title IV-B, Subpart 2 funds. These funds have helped to add new staff to work on CJI, including a county attorney and a social services administrator to help organize activities.
North Carolina
Earlier this year, the Court Improvement Program recommended changes to the state’s juvenile code (H.B. 1048, passed in June). The CIP juvenile statutes subcommittee, an established work group, drafted the recommended changes, and were able to get an member of the state House to sponsor the bill for introduction on the floor of the General Assembly. Members of the work group included agency representatives. The group engaged in phone and email correspondence, as well as face-to-face and conference meetings.
The courts and agency are working to develop a computer data system. Agency representatives work with the courts in this process. The goal of the current project is to create a system that will coordinate the court and agency systems, and make information easier to access and share.
Oregon
Adoption. The Adoption Task Force, which has agency and court representation, developed recommendations for streamlining the adoption process. Those recommendations included development and implementation of a Progressive Family Assessment and training CASAs to gather medical and genetic history and obtain birth certificates. CASAs have been trained in two counties to do so.
New legislation was passed which requires that if the case plan for a ward is independent living, at the time of the permanency hearing, the court must make findings regarding whether (1) the plan is adequate to ensure the ward’s successful transition, (2) the agency has offered appropriate services under the plan, and (3) that the agency involved the ward in the development of the plan.
The agency has drafted a face-to-face contact policy. This policy outlines expectations for child-caseworker and parent-caseworker contact, and requires contact at least once every 30 days. Court personnel reviewed and provided input on this policy. The Citizen Review Board (CRB) will develop a monitoring system.
Vermont
Case Management Protocol. Almost immediately after Vermont’s PIP was approved, a subcommittee was formed to establish a case management protocol for abused and neglected children in out of home care. The subcommittee, which included court and agency representatives, met for a year and a half to draft and gain approval of a Case Management Protocol. In Spring 2002, this Protocol was piloted in two courts, and in November 2002, it was launched statewide. A one-day training was conducted, attended by family court judges and court staff, agency caseworkers and supervisors, attorneys, GALs, and service providers. The Vermont Supreme Court Justice and the SRS (agency) Commissioner made the conference opening remarks. Agency management was part of the conference planning committee.
The same subcommittee is now meeting to assess the effectiveness of the protocol as a means to reduce court delays. This assessment will occur in conjunction with Vermont’s CIP reassessment and findings will be summarized in a report by March 2004.
The agency and CIP are working together for the first time to combine data on outcomes for children and time lines for court decisions. It is expected that agency data will be routinely provided to the court to combine with "Data Warehouse" reports. The reports will provide quarterly data to the courts regarding timeliness of court decisions and permanency.
West Virginia
For every abuse and/or neglect case, a multi-disciplinary team (MDT) is formed, which includes the agency caseworker(s), the attorneys, and the family (the parents, and when appropriate, the child). This team makes recommendations to the court about a specific child’s placement and services. The court reviews every pending case on a quarterly basis; a team representative must be present at each of these reviews. This requirement exists through the permanency planning review stage.
Before the 2003 legislative change, a judge could simply ignore the recommendations of the MDT. This is because it is ultimately a judicial decision as to where a child should be placed and what services the child should receive.
In 2003, the agency successfully pursued a change in state law to require a judge who does not agree with the MDT’s recommendations to hold a hearing to consider evidence from the team as to its rationale for the proposed service plan. If the judge still does not agree with the MDT, the judge must make specific written findings justifying the decision not to adopt the MDT’s recommendations.
There has been agency and court collaboration to provide a set of Title IV-E form orders for judges to use in child protection cases. Downloadable software that provides abuse and neglect form orders is available at http://www.wvjanis.com. Once all of these forms get final approval from the state Supreme Court, they will all be available online, hopefully by the end of this year.
Please click on a state below for the full summary.
Arizona
California
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Indiana
Kansas
Minnesota
North Carolina
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Vermont
West Virginia
Center on Children and the Law
The Children's Bureau
