STATE OF NEVADA - Division of Child and Family Services

5. In cases of alleged sexual abuse, visitation is conducted in strict compliance with statewide practice
guidelines such that visitation decisions are guided by a child therapist or expert evaluator, and
visitation is done within the context of therapy and guided by a therapist or caseworker with
knowledge in the field of child sexual abuse. The Panel recommends that this particular directive
be mandated for inclusion in state and county policies.
DCFS Response: The more frequent and consistent the visits, the more positive the outcomes are for
children and families. In addition the greater the understanding of the importance of visits to all involved in a
child welfare case, further supports the engagement of children and families.
Family reunification remains the goal for the majority of children in foster care and parent-child visits are
considered to be the primary intervention for maintaining and enhancing the development of parent-child
relationships necessary for successful family reunification.
A request has been made to the Deputy Administrator to reattach the Practice Guidelines, Quality and
Frequency of Visits between Children, Their Siblings and Parents to the 0205 Caseworker Contact with
Children, Parents and Caregivers policy. As this is a statewide collaborative policy, this recommendation will
need to be agreed upon by all three child welfare agencies. A recommendation has also been made on behalf
of the CRP to write a separate statewide policy that specifically addresses Parental/Sibling Visitation. Creating
a statewide visitation brochure, referred to above, would fall under the purview of that policy workgroup. These
efforts would assist in meeting this recommendation.
Additionally, insufficient efforts to ensure visitation with mother/father/siblings was noted as an area of key
concern during Nevada’s most recent CFSR, therefore this recommendation is consistent with the federal
review and will be an area needing additional exploration and revision.
Recommendation 5: Caseworkers need to complete timely data entry through the visitation windows in
UNITY in order to provide consistent case documentation of visitation frequency and outcomes.
DCFS Response: The solution to this recommendation is two-fold: The first is to more clearly articulate in
Statewide policy where and how data regarding visitation plans is entered into UNITY; the second is to ensure
that the policy is fully emphasized and supported by all three child welfare agencies. WCDSS and CCDFS
have implemented agency specific policies regarding parent/child/sibling visitation, however DCFS uses the
Caseworker Contact with Children, Parents and Caregivers policy which does not articulate parental visitation
guidelines to the extent the other agencies have in their internal policies. Similar to Recommendation 4, a new
policy that specifically addresses Parental/Sibling Visitation would assist in further clarifying this concern.
UNITY Data System Changes
Recommendation 6: DCFS should consider changes to UNITY such that data entry requirements more
closely match the flow of casework.
DCFS Response: The State is aware of the enhancements needed for UNITY. In 2009, a contract with
Integrating Factors, Inc. (IFI) was initiated to complete an analysis of UNITY. Among IFI’S findings were the
following:
• Time spent on an appropriate level of case documentation far exceeds and is disproportionate
to the time spent on client facing tasks.