STATE OF NEVADA - Division of Child and Family Services

programs: $244,633 was allocated to Family Resource Centers (FRC’s) to provide baseline support for FRC’s statewide;
$100,000 was allocated to the Institute of Applied Research of St. Louis, MO, to provide an evaluation of the Differential
Response (DR) program; $50,000 was allocated to the Division of Child and Family Services to support the Domestic
Violence program of the Nevada Outreach Training Organization in Pahrump, NV; and $26,815 was allocated to Positively
Kids to provide respite care for families with medically fragile children. Each grantee is required to submit a Quarterly
Report with information about their program’s progress on their goals and objectives, the number of unduplicated
participants in their programs, and results of “client satisfaction” surveys. In addition, two organizations were awarded
funds for statewide programs. These included the Area Health Education Centers of Southern Nevada, which is the
Nevada Chapter of Prevent Child Abuse America and the Washoe County District Health Division which coordinated a
statewide media campaign for child abuse awareness and prevention.
Grants require a collaborative efforts and leveraging of funds. All of the grantees that received CTF grants used the funds
to enhance and/or expand existing programs. Seven of the organizations used CTF monies for specific programs they
would otherwise not have been able to provide. The 12 CTF grants awarded through the competitive process expended
96% of the funds awarded for in SFY 2009. Final expenditures for SFY 2010 will not be available until July 2010. Most of
the grantees met or exceeded their stated goals and objectives.
In SFY 2010 grantees who received funds to provide parenting programs were required to use the Protective Factors
Survey (PFS) for pre/post assessments. The PFS was developed by FRIENDS National Resource Center in collaboration
with the University of Kansas Institute for Educational Research and Public Service. The PFS is a standardized tool that
contains 20 statements. Respondents rate how often each statement is true. The PFS indicates areas of improvement in
family function, nurturing and attachment, emotional support, and concrete support. Each of the protective areas have
been researched and determined to be valid measures of child protection and family well-being. PFS has an
accompanying database that allows grantees to house their own data and easily transfer quarterly data information to the
GMU. The use of the PFS will allow the grant administrators to get the same information from all the grantees who are
presenting parenting programs.
Because of a CBCAP grant requirement for grantees to be part of a statewide network, all CTF funded programs are
required to participate in Prevent Child Abuse Nevada meetings, which are videoconferenced four times a year. In SFY09
many of the CTF grantees participated in the planning and implementation of the “Pinwheels for Prevention” campaign in
April. A goal for SFY10 was to have all the grantees take an active role in their communities. To accomplish this goal, the
grant managers continued work with grantees to ensure the goals and objectives were measurable and the reporting
accurately reflects the funded program.
Differential Response: This program has been in operation since February 2007. Differential Response began in two
service zones in Clark County and has now been implemented in areas of the state where over 98 percent of residents
live. The percent of maltreatment reports referred for a DR family assessment response is low but rising—about 9% for
reports received in 2009. The Nevada DR model, which involves Family Resource Centers (FRC) in all DR family
assessment cases from start to finish, is unique among states that have implemented DR. Ten Family Resource Centers
and the Children’s Cabinet in Washoe County provide DR services in 11 Nevada counties. Table 40 shows the total
number of DR locations statewide, as well as the total number of staff employed in these programs. In the few months of
operation in SFY 2007 there were two programs in Clark County with four staff. This has grown each year until 2009 and
is now stable. There are currently 12 DR programs statewide with 23 community based staff.
Table 40: Nevada Differential Response (DR) Program Report
Number of DR programs
SFY 07
2/28/07 –
6/30/07
2
(Las Vegas)
SFY 08 SFY 09 SFY 10
Current Status
7
(4 Las Vegas, 2
Washoe, 1 Elko)
12
(5 Las Vegas, 2
Washoe, 5 Rural)
12
(5 Las Vegas, 2
Washoe, 5 Rural)
Number of Community Based DR Staff 4 16 23 23
Source: Nevada Differential Response Report 02/28/07 through 02/28/10
As of February 28, 2010, there were 251 open DR cases statewide. From SFY 2007 to SFY 2010 at the same time there
has been a 670% increase in the number of families referred to DR from CPS. Over the past three years, a total of 2,057
cases have been referred. 13.9% of these cases have been returned to CPS, and 73.4% of cases have been closed.
Cases have been returned to CPS for the following reasons: 1) Unable to locate family or family has moved; 2) Family
Nevada APSR – SFY 2010
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