The Oklahoma Pinnacle Plan - Oklahoma Department of Human ...

The Oklahoma Pinnacle Plan:
An Improvement Plan for Child Welfare Services
March 2012
***The average of OCA Totals for CY 2009 and 2010 was used to recalculate the Safety in Out-of-Home Care
rate. In other words, the calculation was based on the assumption that there would have been an estimated 117
victims in each year, for FFY’s 2008, 2009, and 2010.
Another method for ensuring safety of children is to visit them regularly and ensure an open
line of communication is established with children. Although OKDHS has a strong history of
visiting children in their placements, improvements can be made in the quality of visits and
continuity of the same CWS visiting the child.
Some Native American children, found to be abused or neglected, are served by tribal child
welfare programs in Oklahoma. In order to ensure these children are safe, tribes have
requested access to child welfare history maintained by OKDHS in order to ensure placements
are safe. OKDHS will request statutory language to allow child welfare history to be made
available to any federally recognized tribe seeking to approve individuals as placement
resources or appointed as legal guardians.
INITIATIVES FOR PINNACLE POINT 6:
Year One (SFY 2013)
1. OKDHS will implement changes in the investigative process that ensures the safety of
children in out-of-home care to ensure consistency in screening, prioritizing,
investigating, and reporting findings to the federal government regardless of the level
of care.
a. Centralize the screening process at the Hotline. All referrals are screened the
same day they are received.
b. Conduct all alleged victims’ interviews in accordance with CPS policy regardless
of level of care. Alleged victims’ interviews are attempted the same day as the
report.
c. Clarify the child’s assigned worker is monitoring the child’s safety for all levels of
care and ensure they receive information about the final report/finding. Add
guidance to Instructions to Staff (ITS).
d. Request rule changes to OCA policy to conform to CPS substantiation protocols
for children in OKDHS custody. The burden of proof is some credible evidence.
e. Complete all investigations in accordance to CPS policy timeframes, which is 30
days from the date of the referral for all out-of-home investigations.
f. Until such time the data is entered into the KIDS system, manually track the
data for reporting purposes.
2. By June 30, 2013, revise the PP policy to include more clear guidelines regarding the
visitation schedule. Policy will require the CWS to visit children more often during the
first two months and when the child is placed in contiguous counties. This will require
changes to OKDHS rule and ITS. Implementation will need to be phased in with specific
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