{"id":1056,"date":"2016-06-30T15:35:08","date_gmt":"2016-06-30T15:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fptemp.wpengine.com\/?p=1056"},"modified":"2016-11-04T21:15:06","modified_gmt":"2016-11-04T21:15:06","slug":"federal-government-finds-room-for-improvement-in-ncs-child-welfare-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fosteringperspectives.org\/?p=1056","title":{"rendered":"Federal government finds room for improvement in NC\u2019s child welfare system"},"content":{"rendered":"

In February 2016 federal reviewers released a report assessing the performance of North Carolina\u2019s child welfare system, which includes programs involved in maltreatment investigations, foster care, and adoptions. Called the Child and Family Services Review (CFSR), this report recognized our state\u2019s strengths in a number of important areas, including the pre-service training delivered to prospective foster parents.<\/p>\n

On the whole, however, its conclusions were sobering. North Carolina did not meet federal standards for any of the 14 outcomes and systemic factors evaluated by reviewers.<\/p>\n

Not Pass\/Fail<\/span><\/h6>\n

The US Department of Health and Human Services\u2019 Children\u2019s Bureau conducts a review of every state\u2019s child welfare system every seven to ten years. Since reviews began in 2001 there have been three \u201crounds\u201d of reviews, with the federal government modifying review procedures with each new round. Since they began, no state has met federal standards in all areas assessed by the review.<\/p>\n

While North Carolina Division of Social Services leaders take issue with some specific findings in the current federal report, they acknowledge there is much room for improvement in our child protective services, foster care, and adoption programs.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the Associated Press, Sherry Bradsher, Deputy Secretary for Human Services within NC DHHS, which oversees social services, stated \u201cAs painful as it might be, there\u2019s nothing new or shocking in the report in terms of something that we didn\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTh\"Kevin-\"<\/a>e thing to remember about the CFSR,\u201d says Kevin Kelley, Section Chief for Child Welfare Services in the Division of Social Services, \u201cis that it is not pass\/fail. The CFSR standards are set so high because the federal government wants to see both excellence and continual improvement. That\u2019s something we agree with completely.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s Next<\/span><\/h6>\n

Now that we have the CFSR findings, North Carolina must come up with a program improvement plan (PIP) to enhance our child welfare system. Workgroups of statewide stakeholders convened in March to help inform the development of this plan, which is sure to include strategies for reducing barriers to system performance and increasing positive outcomes for children and families.<\/p>\n

Once it is approved by the Children\u2019s Bureau, North Carolina will have two years to meet the goals outlined in the PIP. This will be followed by a third year of oversight and monitoring. If we don\u2019t meet our goals in that time, North Carolina may face financial sanctions. In 2011 our state was penalized $1.2 million for not meeting one goal of its previous federal program improvement plan.<\/p>\n

Although the details of our new PIP are not yet known, it will likely focus on improvements related to practice within county DSS agencies and collaboration with the courts and outside service providers.<\/p>\n

To Read NC\u2019s 2015 CFSR Report<\/span><\/h6>\n

Go to https:\/\/www2.ncdhhs.gov\/dss\/stats\/docs\/child%20welfare%20docs\/NC_ACF-CB_FinalReport_020216.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In February 2016 federal reviewers released a report assessing the performance of North Carolina\u2019s child welfare system, which includes programs involved in maltreatment investigations, foster […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1058,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,1],"tags":[1002,169,1009],"series":[1351],"class_list":["post-1056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-child-welfare-news","category-uncategorized","tag-cfsr","tag-child-welfare","tag-dss","series-may-2016"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fosteringperspectives.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fosteringperspectives.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fosteringperspectives.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fosteringperspectives.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fosteringperspectives.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fosteringperspectives.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fosteringperspectives.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fosteringperspectives.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fosteringperspectives.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fosteringperspectives.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1056"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fosteringperspectives.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fseries&post=1056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}