Final Report - RI Department of Children, Youth & Families

CHAPTER 6: PERFORMANCE MEASURES AND OUTCOMES
data collection and analysis capability must be incorporated into state budget
appropriations for the Departments within the Children’s Cabinet. An overview of the
five year phase-in plan and implementation process lays out the expectations for the
critical work that will be necessary to achieve this first recommendation over the five
year project period. (See Appendix K)
2. $ DCYF must develop and implement a work plan that is geared to measure:
! progress in system of care development and
! the effectiveness of the interventions ascribed to the system.
The information gathered must also be distributed to identify problems, make
adjustments to improve system design and to ensure public accountability.
The Department of Children, Youth and Families has established five goals to guide
its system of care capacity development. These broad goals reflect the Department’s
emphasis on community-based, family-centered services to ensure greater capacity for
necessary placements close to the child’s home/community. An overview of the
workplan for DCYF System of Care Capacity Development and Performance Measures
provides a five year approach identifying the key objectives necessary to achieve the
goals. (See Appendix K)
The priority reform performance measures in the system reform are:
! Eliminate night-to-night placements
! Eliminate medically unnecessary days in psychiatric hospitals
! Reduce out-of-state placements
All of the performance measures, however, identify key data elements being tracked
for the Department’s operations in promoting continuous quality improvement in Child
Welfare, Children’s Behavioral Health, Juvenile Corrections, and Independent Living
program functions.
3. $ Rhode Island KIDS COUNT should continue to track child abuse and neglect,
out-of-home placement, children’s mental health, education, and juvenile justice
indicators to measure results such as trends in numbers of out-of-state placements
and foster care.
The foremost public policy principle for the State is that, unless there is reason for a
child to be removed from the home due to abuse or neglect, significant mental or
behavioral health needs requiring out-of home care, or juvenile delinquency, the needs
of a child or youth are best met by maintaining them in their home with their
family and providing the necessary support services to make this work. However,
when it is necessary to remove a child and place them in out-of- home care, it is the
desire of the state that this substitute care be in the setting that is least restrictive and
most effectively meets that individual child’s needs. In this regard, the data collected
by RI KIDS Count will assist the state in measuring what proportion of children and
youth are in foster care vs. therapeutic foster care vs. congregate and institutional care.
The expectation is for this data to show that a greater proportion of children and youth
System of Care Task Force Report (January 2003) 52