Independent Living Program - Florida's Center for Child Welfare

Report No. 10-30Progress Reportyoung adults. 9 DCF will conduct twoadditional reviews that will focus on whether17-year-old youth in out-of-home care areprepared to exit foster care and the quality ofpre-independent living services assessmentsand services provided to 13- to 16-year-oldyouth.The department has broadened the scope of itscontract monitoring reviews. We previouslyreported that the department’s contractmonitoring tools did not examine keyprogram elements and were limited toassessing whether lead agencies accuratelydetermined eligibility for Road toIndependence program recipients age 18 andolder. Specifically, the monitoring tools didnot address whether young adults receivingaftercare and transition services met eligibilityrequirements for those services or whetherlead agencies complied with federal and staterequirements for services provided to 13- to17-year-old youth.In response to our recommendation, thedepartment has broadened the scope of thesereviews to include new assessments of theIndependent Living Program. Specifically,the department established six monitoringtools that assess whether lead agenciescomply with statutes and rules whenproviding services, three tools that assessservices for 13- to 17-year-old youth, andthree tools that assess lead agency compliancewith requirements for young adults over 18.DCF continues to lack information aboutthe adequacy and quality of lead agencyindependent living programsDCF’s data system continues to lack accurateinformation on independent living servicesprovided to 13- to 17-year-old youth. DCFdoes not require lead agencies to report on9The report provides six recommendations, including arecommendation for the department to establish corerequirements in the lead agencies’ contracts for the program’sstructure and service delivery.5these services, and it is not monitoringwhether lead agencies meet minimumcontract standards for the services. DCF alsohas not established outcome measures for theprogram as required by law.DCF’s data system lacks accurate informationon the services provided to 13- to 17-year-oldyouth. Florida statutes require the departmentand lead agencies to provide an array ofindependent living services for 13- to-17-yearoldfoster youth. Our prior report noted thatDCF could not determine whether fosteryouth were receiving these services due tolimitations in its own and lead agencies’ datasystems. While DCF’s data system couldidentify the number of 13- to 17-year-oldyouth in licensed foster care who were eligiblefor independent living services, the systemcould not track the number of youth whoreceived these services or what services wereprovided.DCF has not sufficiently addressed thisproblem. Although DCF added data fields toits case management system in August 2009 toenable lead agencies to enter data onindependent living services provided to eachfoster youth, it has not required lead agenciesto use these data fields. In practice, leadagencies typically do not enter data on youththat could be used to determine the numberserved and the types of services they receive.As a result, in February 2010, the department’sdata system only contained information on25% of the 13- to 17-year-old youth in licensedfoster care who were eligible for independentliving services.Research shows that teaching independentliving skills to foster youth at an early age canlead to more effective results over time.Accordingly, it is important for DCF to collectreliable information on whether lead agenciesare addressing the needs of eligible 13- to17-year-old foster youth. 1010A November 2009 interim report by the Florida Senate’s