Department of Human Services

222 South Warren Street
Trenton, NJ 08625

FURTHER INFORMATION
Contact: Laurie Facciarossa
Ed Rogan
Andy Williams
(609) 292-3703

RELEASE: February 18 , 2004

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Plan To Reform DYFS Would Cut Caseloads Significantly, Boost Help to
Foster Families, Increase Substance Abuse Programs
DHS Acting Commissioner Calls It an Historic Effort to Rebuild New Jersey’s Children’s Services

Caseloads of Division of Youth and Family Services (DYFS) workers would be dramatically reduced to among the lowest in the nation, the monthly rate for foster parents would be increased by nearly 25 percent, forensically trained investigators will respond to all allegations of abuse or neglect within 24 hours, and millions will be poured into the creation of a vast array of local support services for at-risk families, under a plan submitted today by the Department of Human Services to the New Jersey Child Welfare Panel.

DYFS will be completely re-engineered so that it concentrates only on safety, wellbeing and permanency of children who have been abused and neglected while two separate divisions will be created to focus on children’s mental health services and child abuse prevention, according to the plan. Moreover, the plan calls for an unprecedented level of cooperation and partnership with local communities to lift up struggling families, before they become part of the DYFS caseload.

To accomplish the ambitious goals set forth in the plan, the Department of Human Services would add nearly 1,500 new staff at DYFS over two and half years and would load millions of additional funding into community-based substance abuse, mental health, domestic violence and housing services, requiring the added expenditure of $15 million this year, $125 million in fiscal year 2005, and $180 million in fiscal year 2006.

“I am very optimistic about this plan,” said Governor James E. McGreevey. “It touches on all elements of the child protection system. I made it quite clear that I was dissatisfied with the state of our child welfare system, and we needed to make drastic structural changes like the ones outlined in this plan.”

“This is the day that we begin to put the never-ending crises behind us and seize the opportunity to reinvent ourselves as an outstanding agency committed to protecting children and healing
broken families,” said Department of Human Services Acting Commissioner James M. Davy.

“Today we advance a revolutionary vision that sets in motion events that will forever change the lives and health of countless tens of thousands of New Jersey’s children for generations to
come. Together with our partners in the community, we have developed a blueprint for the future of children in New Jersey that is ambitious, specific and complete,” he said.

The plan, entitled “A New Beginning: The Future of Child Welfare in New Jersey,” was submitted as part of the June court settlement of a class action suit filed on behalf of foster children by Children’s Rights Inc. in 1999. Five weeks ago, the Governor’s Office negotiated a 30-day extension with the court-appointed Child Welfare Panel and the plaintiffs, when the plan was obviously not going to be ready to meet the deadline. At that time, Lisa Eisenbud, the Governor’s Deputy Chief of Management and Operations stepped in as the chief architect of the plan.

The plan outlines major changes in the areas of recruiting, retaining and supporting resource families; programs for adolescents; use of institutional programs; case practice; expanding core services; community partnerships; the workforce, accountability and quality assurance.

Jerry W. Friedman, executive director of the American Public Human Services Association applauded the scope of the plan.

“We are pleased that the plan addresses important critical markers of success including increased staffing with on-going training and building on local community resources and partnerships to deal with complex child welfare issues,” he said.
“ Of critical importance, DHS has recognized the value of resetting the organizational culture and the role of accountability and continuous learning in this rapidly changing environment.”

Melvin D. Miller, president of Legal Services of New Jersey said, “This plan represents the most important and comprehensive new vision for child welfare in New Jersey in the last 30 years with many critical proposed initiatives. While we still have some recommendations for enhancements in areas where we think it does not go far enough, we very much look forward the state to secure its implementation.”

The plan calls for the hiring of 1,463 new DYFS staff between now and the end of fiscal year 2006. The new hires would be made up of: 1,000 direct care employees and 463 support staff.

“ One of the fundamental problems of this system has been that caseloads were simply too high,” said Davy. “That leads to bad decision making, mistakes and failures in the system.”

Under the plan, two new types of caseworkers would be created: child protection workers and permanency workers. Child protection workers would specialize in investigations of child abuse and neglect, receive special forensic training and would be limited to a caseload of eight new investigations per month. Permanency workers would provide the ongoing services to children and families and have a maximum caseload of 15 families or 10 children in out of home placement.

Other Elements of the plan include:

Foster Care/Resource Families

Resource families, that is foster families, adoptive families, kinship families are a cornerstone of a successful child protection system. More aid and support must be provided to existing resource families and more resource families must be developed. The plan calls for:

	Increasing foster care rates and other supports to foster families. The rates paid to foster and kinship families would be equalized. Currently kinship families in which children are placed with relatives receive $250 per child per month, while foster parents rates range from $420 to $500 per month depending on the age of the child.
	In addition, over the next two years, all rates would be increased by a total of 25 percent making the New Jersey rate 100 percent of the United States Department of Agriculture standard of costs to raise children in the urban Northeast part of the country.
	Recruiting at least 1,000 new resource family homes by June 2005
	Hiring resource family workers, a new group of workers who will work out of district offices and be responsible for recruitment, training support, home studies and providing ongoing support for up to 35 resource families from the same geographic area.
	Streamlining the process of becoming a resource family from 12 months to 90 days from application through training and licensure
	Focusing attention to recruiting families for special needs and difficult to place children
	Establishing a resource family recruiter in each DYFS office.
	Allocating $1 million annually for home repairs
	Setting up a 24-hour Resource Family Hotline

Expanding Core and Preventive Services

Some of the major factors connected with child abuse and neglect are: substance abuse, domestic violence, mental illness, lack of housing and health care services. The plan calls for increasing resources in these areas:

	The Department of Health and Senior Services Division of Addiction Services will move to the department to facilitate and coordinate delivery of those services to DHS clients
	As the first step of a five year initiative, $10 million was included in the current fiscal year budget to treat drug- and alcohol-abusing parents who are involved with the state child welfare system. The funds will be used to create 862 new treatment slots, including outpatient, long term residential, and assisted partial care beds for drug- and alcohol-abusing parents who are in danger of losing their children. It is estimated that the influx of treatment dollars will serve about 2,500 families in the coming year. The $10 million boost in funding for DYFS-involved parents represents a 33-percent increase in the roughly $30 million spent each year to provide addiction services through various DHS divisions, including DYFS, Mental Health Services, and Family Development, which oversees public assistance programs.
	At the end of five years, a total of $58 million will be invested to expand these substance abuse treatment services providing an additional 2,300 slots across various types of treatment.
	Peace: A Learned Solution (PALS), a program to help children heal from the effects of domestic violence will be added to four counties next year and expanded to all the state’s counties over four years. The program provides assessment, child care, summer camp, education and therapy for the non-offending parent
	Community based mental health services will be expanded to serve about 4,000 families by February 2005. An additional 75 treatment homes will be added to by June 2005 to accommodate the needs of children stepping down from congregate care. The Division of Child Behavioral Health Services will be established in the Office of Children’s Services and have responsibility for children’s mental health services.
	The department will continue to phase out fee for service health care coverage for will be for foster and adoptive children and aggressively seek to enroll children into HMOs.
	Through collaboration with the Department of Community Affairs a homeless prevention program will be established for DYFS families; permanent affordable renting housing will be established; more Section 8 housing will be made available and a fund will be initiated to develop housing for youth who are too old for DYFS services.

Reforming Case Practice

	Creating a centralized hotline for the reporting of child abuse and neglect. This will establish consistency in the handling of cases.
	Separating the investigative function from the casework function and dedicate some staff solely to investigating allegations of abuse and neglect. Those workers, child protection workers, would receive training in forensic interviewing, gathering and maintaining evidence and extensive use of risk and safety assessments – their target caseload is 8 new cases per month.
	Initiating an investigation and seeing the child in less than 24 hours.
	All investigations must be completed within 60 days
	Comprehensive face-to-face safety assessments must be done on children at the beginning of our involvement with them and at important milestones following that.
	Assessments will be built into home visits and occur monthly
	Investigators will turn a child’s case over to a permanency worker if out-of-home placement is required.
	Permanency workers will have a 15:1 caseload ratio.

Delivering Prevention Services through Community Partnerships

To address this issue:

	Division of Prevention and Community Partnerships will be created and directed by the Office of Children’s Services, within DHS
	The Department will lead a renewed statewide focus on prevention, working with corporations, foundations, local communities and other state agencies to make prevention a priority
	The Department will double the size of two highly successful prevention programs catering to youth and families, the School Based Youth Services Program and the Health Families Program
	The Department will create and fund a dozen Community Collaboratives over 24 months. These Collaboratives will steer the provision of local, community programs for at-risk families and children.
	Community Developers will be hired within each DYFS Office to facilitate local service connections

Reducing Inappropriate Reliance on Institutional Settings

	All children at risk of or in institutional placements like juvenile detention, shelters and psychiatric hospitals will be assessed and placed in the least restrictive setting able to meet their needs
	The Division of Child Behavioral Health Services will move one third of the children – a total of 450 children -- now in congregate care, such as residential treatment centers, group homes, shelters, detention facilities to family like, smaller settings.
	During 2004, the system will identify and step down 150 children who are currently in congregate care to family or family like settings with community supports
	Over the next two years, 80 percent of the children in out-of-state placements will be moved back into state programs
	By January 2005, children in detention, psychiatric centers and shelters waiting for appropriate placement and children in congregate care waiting for discharge will have case managers responsible for assisting with their transition to step down placements.

Adolescents and Youth Transitioning Out of the System

Older teens and young adults have been a difficult group for DYFS to serve and frequently end up in inappropriate settings, like congregate care, because the system has not developed the appropriate resources to serve them.

To address this issue:

	Adolescent Workers, with particular affinity and training for dealing with adolescents, will be in every office. Every child 13 years of age or older will be assigned an adolescent worker and permanency worker
	All casework employees will be trained will be trained to build trusting relationships with adolescents
	Resource Families Willing to Foster and Adopt Adolescents will be recruited trained and supported
	Adoption will be vigorously pursued for children until their 13th birthday
	Contract with Community and Faith Based Organizations to provide case management for adolescents until they reach 21 years of age

Pursuing High Quality Accountability and Continuous Improvement

The current system lacks a coherent quality improvement system leading and as a result system changes occur only in response to crises and data analyses are done for compliance evaluations and rarely lead to meaningful system frequently.

To address this issue:

	A culture of quality improvement will be established in DYFS through regular staff meetings , at all levels, which establish continuous quality improvement as a priority
	Working with community stakeholders, quality improvement committees will develop consumer satisfaction surveys, report cards, and develop program improvement plans
	Create a performance based contracting system

Skill building, staff development and supports will be enhanced

Frontline staff are critical to the success of this reform effort and to the health and well-being of New Jersey’s families. Their work should be valued and they should have all of the support, training, supervision and equipment they need to do their job.

To address this issue:

	A NJ Child Welfare Training Academy will be established in April 2004 in collaboration with national training experts and the NJ academic community
	The entire DYFS staff will be trained in Structured Decision Making, a state of the art safety and risk assessment protocol, over the next three months
	Training on Entire New Practice Model will begin immediately
	Supervisors will be trained to be coaches and mentors to front-line staff
	Data Case Situations and Critical Incidents will be used as Learning Tools
	Such supports as Incentive Programs, Crisis Response, Counseling for critical incidents, and Staff Support Days will be implemented

Full copies of the report are available at the DHS website, www.state.nj.us/humanservices.