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There are many benefits to engaging relatives not only as a potential placement resource but in the overall care and planning for their relative children. Recognizing this, significant changes were made to state foster care and permanency statutes during the 2022 legislative session. For example:
- Several sections of statute were modified to include relative engagement in case planning and permanency planning, and to emphasize the requirement that relatives must be considered for foster care and permanency placement prior to considering unrelated individuals.
- The definition of relative in Minn. Stat. 260C.007, subd. 27 was modified to be more inclusive of culturally and family defined relatives. A child or child's parent or custodian may consider close friends, religious advisors, and other individuals with whom they have significant relationships to be part of their family and kin network despite not being legal, biological, or marital relatives. Foster and adoptive placement consideration order for relatives was also updated to reflect this modified definition.
- The relative search section was restructured and amended to clarify the various points of the relative search process (search, notice, engagement, and placement consideration) and what is required at each point. This section and other sections were modified to ensure greater court oversight of relative search efforts, and to clarify that such requirements cannot be waived or relieved in their entirety (except when Safe Place for Newborns applies).
Webinar Details
Join staff from the Minnesota Department of Human Services, Child Safety and Permanency Division, for a statewide virtual webinar to brush up on your knowledge of relative search, notice, engagement, and placement consideration. Learn more about the recent policy changes starting from the point of a child’s placement to permanency. This webinar will be recorded and posted on the Child Welfare Training Academy’s FFPSA webpage at https://mnchildwelfaretraining.com/more/ffpsa/.
Date: Tuesday, October 18, 2022
Time: 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Zoom meeting link:
https://umn.zoom.us/j/91970383263?pwd=NG41VDRnNENVZkVUZmxPN2lzRURyQT09
Meeting ID: 919 7038 3263
Passcode: F5jMCy
Dial by your location: +1 651 372 8299 US (Minnesota)
Meeting ID: 919 7038 3263
Passcode: 724826
Questions about this webinar or about foster care policy and requirements should be directed to dhs.csp.fostercare@state.mn.us.
Beginning October 1st, 2022 the Federal Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) data entry timeliness requirement, regarding entry of the start and discharge dates of placements, is changing from the current 60 day entry expectation to a 30 day entry expectation. Entry dates are not editable in SSIS, they are system generated based on when a user enters the start or discharge date for a placement.
Timeliness errors for AFCARS may negatively affect the state IV-E federal grant award, which would in turn affect county and tribal agencies that receive these funds. With the tightened timelines for data entry of placement information potentially impacting IV-E funding, it will be especially important for agencies to ensure timely entry of placements.
Agencies should use the repository report to review, find, and fix AFCARS related errors. Over the coming months many AFCARS related changes will be included in SSIS and the related repository errors. These changes will be included with the SSIS quarterly release notes and shared with agencies prior to each release, as well as during the related SSIS coffee talk release webinars.
All agencies have been migrated to the new Horizon farm; the plan to shut down the Legacy SSIS farm is starting to take place.
Currently, County test/training environments are available, however we are dealing with an issue that a test/training user must also have Production Worker icon as well. MNIT is investigating and hope to have a solution shortly.
The Legacy farm, for all agency environments will be shut down the week of October 9, 2022.
As a reminder, all production users should be using the new Horizon environment at this time. The legacy environment will not be accessible after October 9, 2022. Users can upgrade to Horizon Client 8.4 (version 2111) at any time, but all upgrades must be complete by October 9.
When experiencing SSIS technical issues email communication assists in providing detailed information to technical partners expeditiously and facilitates the quickest response possible. To report technical concerns SSIS mentors should contact the SSIS Help Desk.
Currently SSIS Purge Rules are set so any Adoptions/Guardianship workgroups and any workgroups with a participant that has an inactive relationship with the reason of ‘termination of parental rights’ are kept permanently in the database. SSIS Business Operations, along with DHS Adoptions, are reevaluating this rule to potentially decrease the number of workgroups kept permanently. This is important because Minnesota statute allows these records to become public information in one hundred years. We would like input from agencies on the possible changes and will be organizing some discussion sessions. Please share this request with agency supervisors and staff, with a focus on those having a background in permanency/adoption and/or record retention. Email the SSIS Help Desk for more information or if interested in participating.
An agency mentor or IT staff are asked to email the SSIS Help Desk two weeks prior to making firewall and password changes, or changing out an agency server, in order to coordinate any needed updates for fiscal interfaces.
Fiscal interfaces are used for payment batches as well as vendor import. If there is no communication between SSIS and the agency accounting system, payment batches and vendors will not be updated.
This notification information should also be used for any changes made to the OpenLink server.
Training opportunities for new SSIS users or those seeking a refresher are now available to SSIS users. Courses are great for those new to SSIS or those seeking a refresher. Click the topic below for course descriptions, schedules and registration information.
SSIS webinar materials and previous recordings can be found on the MCWTA site.
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