Child Safety and Permanency (CSP) Division staff hosted Family First Prevention Services Act (Family First) listening sessions for county and tribal supervisors and lead workers to learn how the new residential placement requirements were working, and where challenges existed during the first six months of implementation.
Virtual meetings were hosted across the state in Jan. and Feb. 2022 and over 250 local agency staff participated. As you may know, Family First impacts practice across several program areas resulting in the participation of a broad audience of attendees to include those working with children and families receiving child welfare, child protection, children’s mental health, developmental disabilities, and Medicaid waivered services.
Themes that emerged across the listening sessions focused on:
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Challenges agency staff were experiencing as they implement the new processes for placing children in qualified residential treatment programs (QRTP’s)
- how to communicate changes to families, youth and other stakeholders
- knowing which facilities were or were not certified qualified residential treatment programs (QRTP’s)
- questions on whether some new requirements were redundant such as 60 day court approval for QRTP placement and 180 day court approval of a voluntary placement for treatment
- understanding the role of the new Family and Permanency Team
- understanding how to work with qualified individual’s (QI’s) such as sharing private data with releases of information, what to expect from a QI, what happens if QI does not recommend placement in QRTP.
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Resource issues impacting agencies
- staff shortages for county and partner agencies
- limited prevention and community mental health services in rural communities
- need for more support and training for family foster parents on supporting children with mental health needs and developmental disabilities
- wait time for placements in residential facilities can be lengthy.
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Positive impact of new residential placement requirements
- increased collaboration
- QRTP assessment process reduces case workers stress in the placement decision.
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Recommendations
- flowchart and checklist to help workers navigate placement process
- consider changes to out-of-home placement plan to reduce length of plan
- additional training for judges and attorneys.
Supervisors who attended the meetings will receive a summary of the identified themes from their region.
Department staff have taken some initial steps to address concerns about the residential placement process:
- June 2022 webinar will soon be announced to introduce a placement flow chart and checklist
- Policy and SSIS staff are working together to review and improve the out-of-home placement plan
- Clarifications have been made on releases of information for QI’s
- Department staff collaborated to clarify communication on which residential facilitates are or are not certified QRTP’s
- Brochure for families is under development.
Thank you to the supervisors who attended the regional meetings. It is very helpful to hear, learn, and better understand your experience during the first six months of implementation. We look forward to improvements and continued collaboration in our Family First implementation efforts.
Family First County Link website Family First Prevention Services Act
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