AUGUST 5, 2011

Morning Musings.  A Progress Update and New Report         ( Morning Musings Katz way of doing ,attempting to show progress clean up the mess they have made, but sadly I have not seen a change)

Yesterday marked an important milestone for the new leadership team at the Connecticut Department of Children and Families.  We began as a team on February 4^th, six months ago. Over this period, we have initiated important organizational change within the Department, and we’ve used Morning Musings to keep you all updated on this work.At this six month point, it is useful to look back, and forward.

Over the last six months, we have streamlined the DCF central office and replaced isolated bureaus with a collaborative team leadership model. We also assigned senior regional leadership as direct reports to the commissioner, and we will be expanding from five regions administrators to six, to better serve this state’s most vulnerable youngsters.   We consolidated the administration of the Riverview Hospital for Children and Youth with the Connecticut Children’s Place, and we are establishing six new brief treatment residential units across the two campuses.

In addition, we have been working on several key policy issues, using the six-step process outlined below:

1. Create an internal analytic process to collect and analyze data
2. Prepare a public report of findings
3. Establish a standing internal workgroup to manage the department’s work relative to both community and congregate services
4. Design a collaborative public-private process with the community and congregate provider sector to create solutions that advance the department’s vision
5. Establish a Results-Based Accountability process to report on progress and challenges
6. Prepare regular public progress reports.

Using this process, we issued the Future of Riverview Report (April 13) and the Interim Consolidation Report (June 21). We are 75% done with a close internal look at our support for foster families. Later in August we will issue a report entitled Advancing Connecticut’s Foster Family System.
Late yesterday, we posted another key report examining important aspects of the department’s use of congregate care.  This report is entitled: Congregate Care Rightsizing and Redesign: Young Children, Voluntary Placements, and a Profile of Therapeutic Group Homes

As we have done upon release of other important reports, we will use the next couple of Morning Musings to “unpack” this substantial report, though we encourage you to download and read it all.  For today, here are six key principles that underlie the report and the goals that it sets for future action.

Six Principles:

1. We will not place children ages six and younger in congregate care, except under a very few exceptions that I will authorize personally.  This will require attention to the neuroscience of early childhood development and a stronger set of relationships with families, foster families (including relative and kinship families) and community providers.
2. We will work to dramatically reduce the numbers of children ages 7 through 12 who are placed in congregate care, beginning with those whose permanency goal calls for reunification with their families, placement in a foster family or adoption. To accomplish this will require increased supports for families and increased foster and adoptive family resources.
3. For those 1200 youngsters ages 13 through older adolescence now in congregate care settings (including group homes), we will conduct a thorough review to determine how best to ensure their return to a family or kinship-based setting as close to their families of origin as reasonable.
4. When any congregate placement is made, we will expect and require the facility to include the child’s family or foster family (and other key adults in the child’s life) as full participants in the admission, treatment and discharge process.
5. We will work with the congregate care sector within the State of Connecticut to gradually implement a brief treatment model in all cases in which that is appropriate. In the department’s own behavioral health facilities, we are also moving to a brief treatment model that will be generally limited to 120 days or less.  The average stay in private residential treatment and therapeutic group homes is now close to a year, or more.
6. We will work with families, providers and young people themselves focus on outcomes for all aspects of the department’s work. This means that we will expect child and family plans to include both treatment and normative outcomes to be accomplished within a timeframe specific to each child.

Looking Forward

Over the next several weeks we will be meeting with key stakeholders, including families and representatives from both the community and congregate care sectors, to talk through implications of the reports and identify next steps that we can take together to better serve children and families in a highly effective, family-centered and cost responsible manner. 

This information was obtained by the Department of Children and Families..The morning musings

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