STATE OF NEVADA - Division of Child and Family Services

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another state. DCFS is suggesting permissive language to allow (but not mandate) local finalization of adoptions of children in the custody of a Nevada agency that provides child welfare services when the petitioners do not reside in Nevada. Allowing local finalization of adoptions of children in the custody of a Nevada agency that provides child welfare services would eliminate delays that our local agencies have no ability to control. This would eliminate unnecessary delays; improving permanency outcomes for children as well as CFSR Adoption measures. This will help to expedite the finalizations of adoptions and may assist in our CFSR outcome related to adoption. Agency Level Policy: On an agency level, there was also implementation of local policies and procedures related to permanency. WCDSS and the DCFS – Rural Region did not report any agency level policy development or revision related to permanency for this past fiscal year. However, CCDFS has been engaged in a variety of policy activity related to the area of permanency. In June 2008, CCDFS developed work groups that included all levels of staff from different programs to develop new policies and procedures. In September of 2009, training was provided to all permanency staff based on the new permanency policies and procedures that were developed in the initial agency workgroups. The new policies provided timelines, documentation requirements and practice guidelines to improve the services provided to children and families. The policies implemented in Clark County changed practice in the following ways: • When children are removed from their home as a result of safety threats that cannot be mitigated, the permanency worker is assigned within three weeks of the removal. Prior practice was to transfer the family to the permanency worker at adjudication which could be anywhere from 60 days or even a year after removal. • Permanency workers are now required to complete the North Caroline Family Assessment System (NCFAS) on all families to assess family functioning prior to developing the formal case plan, which must be completed within 45 days of the removal. • Permanency workers must utilize the NCFAS to develop the initial case plan, and to monitor the families’ progress and update the case plan at a minimum of every 6 months. • The policy and procedure provided clear direction for the required frequency of contact for children, parents, care providers and service providers. • The policy and procedure provided clear direction for what information must be gathered and documented as a result of the contact with children, parents, care providers and service providers. • Assistant Managers are required to review cases where the child has been out of the home for 10 months and they have not held a reunification Child and Family Team; they have not referred to the District Attorney to terminate parental rights; or they have not referred to the District Attorney to complete a guardianship. A positive outcome from the development of CCDFS local policies and procedures has been that families are receiving services to support reunification much earlier than then did previously. Case plans are being developed and measured to address behavioral changes and not just compliance with treatment services. Workers have standardized tools to evaluate parent progress. CCDFS reports that they are consistently above 90% for child contacts every 30 days and the quality of the documentation for these contacts has improved. Assistant Managers are tracking how long children have been removed from their homes and are reviewing those cases and 10 months to ensure that they are moving toward a clear and appropriate permanency goal. A downside of this process is that caseload sizes have prohibited CCDFS from implementing all of the policies and procedures effectively. Helping staff to embrace and understand the change from compliance driven case plans to plans that are based on observable and demonstrated behavioral change has been challenging. It is also sometimes a challenge to train all the appropriate external stakeholders on the new policies and procedures, as is collaborating across agencies and with the family courts. Training CCDFS and Casey Family Programs provided training to CCDFS’ out-of-home supervisors with a focus on the continuum of assessing safety throughout the life of a case using the tools described in the Initiatives section above. The training also focused on skill building with supervisors on how to review the new tools with their staff during on-to-one supervision. Supervisors and Assistant Managers then provided training to their individual units through the Month of June 2009. After in-house training was completed, training was then provided to the Nevada Care Provider Association and the Foster Parent Association on the implementation of the Out-of-Home Placement Safety Check. Nevada APSR – SFY 2010 Page 26 of 108
CFSP Goals and Objectives for Permanency In the 2010-2014 CFSP, each performance indicator was given an overall goal and one or more objectives. Each of the objectives are to be assessed through the development of data reports from the UNITY system or through qualitative means such as surveys or qualitative case reviews. This process is under development and will not be finalized until the new Program Improvement Plan is approved. UNITY reports are under development and are not planned to be completed until the spring of 2011. Therefore, for the purposes of the SFY 2010 APSR report, the data from the CFSR conducted in August 2009 is being used to show performance on each performance indicator as a whole. Where reports do currently exist, those reports are also included to address individual objectives. Unless otherwise noted, all objective reports are under development at this time. Figure 10 shows a brief graph of how Nevada rated statewide in the 2009 CFSR on individual performance indicators for permanency. Figure 10: Statewide Permanency Performance Indicator Scores vs. 90% goal Statewide Permanency Performance Indicator Scores from 2009 CFSR CFSR Goal of 90% Item 05 92% Item 06 65% Item 07 63% Item 08 71% Item 09 6% Item 10 43% Item 11 100% Item 12 100% Item 13 59% Item 14 76% Item 15 64% Item 16 39% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Source: Nevada CFSR 2009 Federal Report Permanency Outcome 1: Children have permanency and stability in their living situations Item 5: Foster care re-entries Goal: To assess whether children who enter foster care at a given point in time are re-entering within 12 months of a prior foster care episode. To meet this goal, the State must make concerted efforts to prevent re-entry episodes for children who are in the foster care system and appropriately document these efforts in UNITY in a minimum of 90% of cases. Table 12 below shows that as a State, this is a strength. In the most recent CFSR review, only Washoe County fell below the required goal of 90%. Nevada APSR – SFY 2010 Page 27 of 108
Page 1 and 2: STATE OF NEVADA Department of Healt
Page 3 and 4: SECTION V: CHILD AND FAMILY WELL-BE
Page 5 and 6: SECTION I: INTRODUCTION Nevada Demo
Page 7 and 8: Title IV-E, Title IV-B, Subpart I (
Page 9 and 10: District provides services to Carso
Page 11 and 12: Legislative Activities Nevada’s l
Page 13 and 14: 4. Review and Improvement of Existi
Page 15 and 16: particular strengths that CCDFS is
Page 17 and 18: Figure 06: Number of Total Removals
Page 19 and 20: In addition, WCDSS individually con
Page 21 and 22: Table 08: CFSR Data Profile Informa
Page 23 and 24: Relatives who care for their kin ty
Page 25: etween standard of care concerns an
Page 29 and 30: Table 14: SFY 2010 Data for Item 7
Page 31 and 32: Figure 11: Average Months to Adopti
Page 35 and 36: eport. Compliance with this require
Page 37 and 38: SECTION V: CHILD AND FAMILY WELL-BE
Page 39 and 40: Agency Level Policies: In addition
Page 43 and 44: Caseworker-Child Contact report is
Page 45 and 46: SECTION VI: SYSTEMIC FACTORS Each o
Page 47 and 48: Another objective under this goal i
Page 49 and 50: Item 27: Permanency hearings Goal:
Page 51 and 52: This item refers to quality standar
Page 53 and 54: multidisciplinary processes and rec
Page 55 and 56: charged with developing a standard
Page 57 and 58: A third objective for this item is
Page 59 and 60: Table 37: Advanced Foster and Adopt
Page 61 and 62: Intensive Family Services staff, wh
Page 63 and 64: • Case management services for fa
Page 65 and 66: community assets to make significan
Page 67 and 68: to provide safe, quality care to ab
Page 69 and 70: meeting occurred on December 2, 200
Page 71 and 72: • SAPTA (Substance Abuse Preventi
Page 73 and 74: as well as foster parents, are trai
Page 75 and 76: programs: $244,633 was allocated to
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Overall the DR program has been wel
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development of the brain for Indian
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IV-E or IV-B funds, including IV-E
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Item 45: State use of cross-jurisdi
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Figure 19: ICPC Number of Incoming
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APPENDIX A: Child Abuse Prevention
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Substantive Changes There are no su
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1) Child Protective Service (CPS) p
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designated to be the Chafee recipie
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Presented NYTD to two annual Youth
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Specialist by telephone, mail, or e
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APPENDIX D: Health Care Services Pl
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ATTACHMENT A: Citizen Review Panel
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TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
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During 2009, the Statewide Panel’
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with regular and ongoing updates of
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Additionally, DCFS Policy 0511.0, R
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Visitation Recommendation 4: Statew
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UNITY Data System Changes Recommend
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about referrals and services. To ad
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Results of the study identified sev
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Meeting Dates and Activities During
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The Division of Child and Family Se
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amount in the future. Therefore, it
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Establishes a Legislative Committee
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Emergency shelter for a child. The
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APPENDIX C: PANEL MEMBERS Statewide
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Southern CAC Members Member Affilia
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Division will be collaborating with
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• UNITY’S positioning as a case
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SAFF SB SWA TALCIT TANF TPR UNITY U
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B. Children’s Justice Act Task Fo
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ATTACHMENT D: Assurances and Certif
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STATE OF NEVADA - Division of Child and Family Services

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