Texas Department of Family and Protective Services

1
Texas Department of Family and Protective Services

• The Impact of Youth Permanence Initiatives on
  Reducing Racial Disproportionality and Disparity
• Presented by
• Debra Emerson CPS Director of Policy and
  Program
• Vicky Coffee-Fletcher CPS Division
  Administrator for Family Focus
• Carolyne Rodriguez Director, Texas State
  Strategy, Casey Family Programs
• 2006 National Convening on Youth Permanence

2
Desired Outcomes for Today

• Establish the shared vision of Casey Family
  Programs and Texas Child Protective Services
  specific to systems improvement to address
  disproportionality and outcome disparities
• Identify Texas Child Welfare Reform/Renewal
  legislative mandates impacting youth permanence
• Present Texas data describing the
  disproportionality in the Texas child welfare
  system for each stage of CPS service
• Discuss initiatives and activities targeting
  permanence of older children and youth
• Explore challenges, opportunities and lessons
  learned in addressing the permanency needs of
  older youth of color in the child welfare system

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A Shared Vision . . .

• In May of 2004, Casey Family Programs and
  DFPS entered a collaborative relationship,
  committed to concentrating resources and energy
  to establish an intensive planning and
  implementation process to reduce
  disproportionality in the Texas child welfare
  system.
• Texas was chosen in part because of
• its large child population
• its potential for significant program and policy
  impact on a statewide level, and
• its long-established working relationship with
  Casey Family Programs in a systems improvement
  collaborative called the Texas State Strategy

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Texas State Strategy System Improvement Efforts

• Development of tools and identification of
  evidenced-based practices
• Consultation and provision of technical
  assistance
• Shared facilitation of state-focused, strategic
  partnerships
• Joint collaboration in addressing systemic racism
  in child welfare

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Texas Department of Family and
Protective Services (DFPS)

• Children First, Protected and Connected!
• The Child Protective Services (CPS) program of
  DFPS is designated to receive alleged reports of
  child maltreatment and to investigate reports of
  suspected abuse and neglect.
• The total child population for the state of
  Texas is estimated to be 6,277,205.
• The goal of CPS is to ensure child safety and
  to provide services that promote the integrity
  and stability of the family.

6
CPS Leading Change

• CPS is committed to addressing
  disproportionality through its vision of Children
  First, Protected and Connected, and ensuring
  alignment with CPS values of
• Respect for culture
• Inclusiveness of families, youth and community
• Integrity in decision making
• Compassion for all
• Commitment to reducing disproportionality
• Strategies include
• Implementing legislative changes and mandates
• Adopting promising practices and tools
• Improving use of data
• Increasing the cultural competence of CPS staff
  at all levels
• Facilitating community-led solutions

7
Texas Legislative Mandates

• Senate Bill 6, passed by the 79th Texas
  Legislature and signed by Governor Rick Perry,
  laid the groundwork for comprehensive reform of
  Child Protective Services in Texas.
• Resources and direction were put into place to
  transform the programs charged with protecting
  children from abuse and neglect.
• These sweeping reforms have yielded tremendous
  improvement in the services that protect the most
  vulnerable Texans.

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Texas Legislative Mandates

• Outsourcing Community centered delivery of
  substitute care and case management services to
  improve services and outcomes for children and
  families and achieve timely permanency for
  children in out of home care
• Child Placement/Kinship Every effort must be
  made to identify and locate non-custodial
  parents, relatives or other kinship caregiver
  willing and suitable to care for child to divert
  child from the foster care system
• Family Group Decision Making Development and
  implementation of family group conferencing as a
  strategy to promote family preservation and
  permanency for children
• Educational Portfolio To be created for every
  child in DFPS conservatorship, to remain a part
  of agency records, to enhance educational
  outcomes for children in foster care by ensuring
  school records follow the child

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Texas Legislative Mandates

• Preparation for Adult Living Improvement in
  discharge planning, increase availability of
  transitioning planning conference, extend
  Medicaid with a single application, enter into
  agreements with work force boards that will
  benefit foster care youth in the area of
  employment
• Disproportionality Analysis of removal rates
  and other enforcement actions to determine the
  existence of disproportionality. DFPS also
  required to
• Provide cultural competency training to all
  service delivery staff
• Increase targeted recruitment for foster and
  adoptive parents to meet needs of children
  waiting for homes
• Target recruitment efforts to ensure diversity
  among child welfare staff
• Develop collaborative community partnerships to
  provide culturally competent services to children
  and families of every race and ethnicity.

10
Texas Legislative Mandates

• Analysis of disproportionality provided to the
  legislature on January 1, 2006
• Development and implementation of remediation
  plan reported to the legislature on July 1, 2006
  available on agency website
  http//www.dfps.state.tx.us/Documents/about/pdf/
  2006-07-01_Disproportionality.pdf

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Expected Outcomes

• To reduce, and ultimately to prevent, the
  disproportionate representation of and disparate
  outcomes for African-American children in the
  Texas child welfare system, in order to enhance
  safety, permanency and well-being for all
  children and families

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Starting with the Data
13
Compelling Facts About Disproportionality

• There is great difference between races in the
  likelihood that a child will be removed from home
  and placed in foster care
• Children of color enter the system at
  disproportionately high rates as compared to
  Anglo children
• African American children are 4 times more likely
  to be placed in care
• African Americans are no more likely to abuse
  their children than any other race
• Unadjusted data indicate African American
  children are overrepresented in the Texas CPS
  system and the level of disproportionality
  increases at each stage of service

14
Texas Data - FY 2005Summary of Statewide Data
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Successful Models Family Focus

• The objective of the Family Focus initiative
• Improve the services delivered to families
  receiving Family Based Safety Services and
  children, parents and extended family members
  involved in the foster care system
• Formally integrate a family-focused philosophy
  throughout CPS training, policy and contract
  processes
• Enhance safety, permanency and well being for
  children through the provision of direct and
  support services to their caregivers whether
  biological or through affinity

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Family Group Decision Making (FGDM)

• Expand FGDM statewide for decision-making and
  case review for all ongoing services cases and
  implement in pre-removal stage of service
• Adopt the values and philosophy related to FGDM
  and ensure incorporation into all aspects of
  program and policy
• Incorporate changes in the family assessment and
  increase parent participation service planning
  processes
• Plan for reduction of PPT meetings
• Expand Circles of Support for youth transitioning
  out of care

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Kinship Care

• Expand the Kinship Caregiver Program statewide
• Allow parents to identify relatives/fictive kin
  for potential placement of children at the time
  of removal
• Develop informational manual for caregivers
• Improve completion of background and criminal
  history checks, home assessments of relatives for
  potential placement
• Extend resources and support to kinship families
  to help meet financial demands

18
Education

• Develop and implement educational portfolio
• Ensure education records of children in care
  follow them to the next placement
• Ensure children are placed in the correct grade
  and receive any identified education services for
  which they are eligible

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Transitioning Youth Services/Preparation for
Adult Living (PAL)

• Ensure discharge planning to assist young person
  in identifying a caring adult (Circles of
  Support)
• Expand supportive services transition centers,
  Texas Work Force
• Extend foster care eligibility and transition
  services to age 22
• Extend paid foster care to age 21
• Continue Medicaid coverage for young people 18
  21 years of age

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Operation PUSH

• Placing Us in Safe Homes (2005) Ensure that
  tasks were completed to move children to adoption
  finalization
• Provide for CPS state office oversight and
  monitoring
• Promising results show consummation of 3173
  adoptions, with increase of 661 adoptions from
  previous year

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Operation HOME

• Help On Matching Every Child- Focus attention
  on finding adoptive homes for older children who
  have a goal of adoption, but are not in permanent
  placements
• Utilize existing data bases to search for
  families who may be a match for a waiting child
  or sibling group
• Enhance recruitment efforts, improve placement
  practices and lessen the time children wait for
  an adoptive home

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One Church, One Child

• Contract to increase child specific recruitment
  of adoptive parents for African American children
  and sibling groups
• Recruitment program reaches out to the African
  American community and faith communities to
  recruit, train and license adoptive families for
  children in the Dallas, Houston and Austin areas.
• Collaboration will expand efforts to increase the
  adoption of African American children between
  ages 5 - 15

23
CPS Leadership Development

• Ensure leadership readiness to lead internal
  cultural change to a family-centered practice
  approach
• Support CPS leadership through a values-based
  development approach
• Ensure that leadership development is a core,
  ongoing component of initiatives implementation

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Undoing Racism

• Ensure that all CPS leaders are trained in the
  principles and operational components of
  anti-racist practices
• Begin implementation of a plan to train other
  levels of staff in undoing racism practices and
  principles
• Ensure that anti-racist principles are reflected
  in CPS vision and values

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Statewide Accomplishments

• San Antonio and 28 surrounding counties
  selected as first region to outsource case
  management and substitute care services
• Austin Region was added as a pilot site for
  DFPS to address disproportionality
• Grant was received from Amon Carter Foundation
  to support disproportionality work in Tarrant
  County
• All regional directors, program administrators
  and all state office directors, division
  administrators and some program specialists have
  attended Undoing Racism training, along with
  various community partners and constituents
• Family group decision making staff partnering
  with disproportionality staff to better
  understand the cultural needs of families served

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Statewide Accomplishments

• Disproportionality staff and new FGDM
  coordinators are being trained to conduct FGDM
  conferences
• All youth in foster care over the age of 16
  are being offered Circles of Support
• As of July 2006, 3,625 FGDM conferences have
  been conducted and continue to be offered in 57
  counties
• Education Portfolios distributed for all
  school-aged children in care
• Austin region was added as a pilot site for
  DFPS to address disproportionality
• Over 1,000,000 to assist caregivers in
  providing for the essential needs of children in
  kinship care

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Challenges and Opportunities

• Challenges
• Public sentiment
• Political will / support
• Practice issues
• Elevating the voice
• Supporting child welfare leadership
• Opportunities
• Strong community engagement
• Anti-racist principles in all aspects of CPS and
  other systems embedded
• Constituents engaged in an in-depth way
• Impacting public policy through legislative
  engagement
• Bar will be raised for all children, youth,
  families communities
• Chance for a collaborative evaluation with
  university partners
• Strong impact for sustainable change through
  legislative mandates

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Benefits for African-American Youth and Families

• More youth and family engagement
• Fewer youth in the foster care system
• Fewer out-of-home placement moves
• Less time in foster care placement
• More youth placed with kin
• More foster and adoptive homes
• More community commitment, involvement, and
  resources
• Improve educational outcomes for foster youth

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The Right Thing to Do
We should dream of and plan for a day when
fewer children require foster care. But until
that day comes, we have a moral responsibility
to prepare young people leaving foster care to
become whole adults who can fulfill their
potential and build bright and promising
futures. -President Jimmy Carter, 2004