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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMINUTES - 04041995 - F-HS.02 0: BOARD OF SUPERVISORS F&HS-2 5 L Contra FAMILY AND HUMAN SERVICES COMMITTEE ,, fr.- � ,••, PROM: .� Costa �A•�::..�... ;`�� County :r..r. March 27, 1995 DATE: r+i`,U... SUBJECT: REPORT ON THE STATUS OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF CHANGES IN THE OPERATION OF THE COUNTY'S ADOPTIONS PROGRAM SPECIFIC REQUEST(S)'OR RECOMMENDATION(S)&BACKGROUND AND JUSTIFICATION RECOMMENDATIONS: 1 . ACKNOWLEDGE receipt of the attached report from the Acting Social Services Director, in response to the orders given by the Board of Supervisors on March 7 , 1995 . 2 . DIRECT the County Administrator and Acting Social Services Director to include in the agenda for the April 11, 1995 meeting of our Committee with foster parents, relative caretakers and potential adoptive parents the following items : ❑ A general introduction from the Department on the events and activities which have led to this meeting., ❑ A description from the Department of the funding mechanisms which support the foster care and adoptions programs, including the use of SSI funds, the availability of and eligibility for the Aid for the Adoption of Children Program (AAC) , and the trust funds , which result when SSI income exceeds the foster care payment. by the Department. ❑ A general description. of the plan for implementation of the recommendations made to the County by the Child Welfare Research Center. This should include a response to the reports requested in Recommendations #3, #4 and #5 below. ❑ An opportunity for comments and questions by those who are present. ❑ A discussion of plans for future meetings . CONTINUED ON ATTACHMENT: YES SIGNATURE: RECOMMENDATION OF COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR RECOMMENDATION OF BOARD CO? APPROVE OTHER .SIGNATURE(S): �- ACTION OF BOARD ON Apr 1 1 4 19 5 _APPROVED AS RECOMMENDED OTHER 1 VOTE OF SUPERVISORS I HEREBY CERTIFY THAT THIS IS A TRUE UNANIMOUS(ABSENT �� ) AND CORRECT COPY OF AN ACTION TAKEN AYES: NOES: AND ENTERED ON THE MINUTES OF THE BOARD ABSENT: ABSTAIN: OF SUPERVISORS ON THE DATE SHOWN. q ATTESTED ` Contact: PHIL B TCHELOR,CLERK OF THE BOARD OF CC: County Administrator SUPERVISORS AND COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR Foreman, 1994-95 Grand Jury Acting Social Services Director Director of Human Resources a DEPUTY F&HS-2 3 . DIRECT the Acting Social Services Director to present to our Committee at our meeting on April 11, 1995 a more specific listing of key goals for implementation of the recommendations made by the Child Welfare Research Center and a timetable for when each of those goals will be completed and a sense of what the specific work product will be. 4 . DIRECT the Acting Social Services Director to present to our Committee at our meeting on April 11, 1995 a detailed response to each of the points raised at our meeting on March 27, 1995 by Mr. Fallis of the 1994-95 Grand Jury in his memorandum dated March 27, 1995 (attached) . 5 . REQUEST the Acting Social Services Director to present to our Committee on April 11, 1995 a breakdown of the number and age of children who have been freed for adoption but for whom adoptive parents have not yet been identified. 6 . EXEMPT from the "hard freeze" imposed by the Board of Supervisors on February 28, 1995, one position of Training Coordinator (or similar title) who would be responsible for implementing the training needs identified by the Department for its Child Welfare staff and encourage the County Administrator, Director of Human Resources and Acting Social Services Director to move ahead as quickly as possible to recruit for and fill this position. BACKGROUND: On March 7, 1995, the Board of Supervisors approved a report from our Committee which included the following recommendations : 4. REQUEST the Acting Social Services Director to report back to the Family and Human Services Committee on March 27, 1995 on the following matters : ❑ What consultants are capable of undertaking either a 100% or more limited review of all foster care placements where the child has been in placement for 12 months or more to determine why the child remains in foster care, whether adoption planning has been undertaken, if not, why not, and whether adoption planning appears to be an appropriate goal for the child and what the consultant would charge to complete such a review in an expeditious manner. [A more limited review would exclude teenage children in placement who are not interested in being adopted and children who are placed with relatives where adoption is not a desired outcome] . ❑ The status of the administrative review being conducted of all long-term foster care placements to determine: e Is a permanent plan an appropriate goal? • If adoption was ruled out, reason. • Does the Children ' s Services Administrative Team (CSAT) concur? • Recommendation of CSAT • Date for further review ❑ The Department's response to the points raised by the 1994-95 Grand Jury in Mr. Fallis ' memo to our Committee dated February 13, 1995. -2- F&HS-2 ❑ The number of children in placement who are placed with relatives as opposed to those who are placed with non-relatives (by age of the child and length of time in placement, if that information is reasonably available) . ❑ The cost and timeframe for designing and implementing a computer system which would allow the Department to have ready access to reports based on the same data now transmitted by terminal to the State Department of Social Services. ❑ The status and precise nature of the requests for a training coordinator and a contract with the Child Welfare Research Center for a study of the implementation of the Grand Jury's recommendations, along with a system for funding these requests . ❑ A description of the caseload and fulltime equivalent staffing provided to adoptions programs in other comparable counties in California. on March 27 , 1995, our Committee met with the Acting Social Services Director, Mr. Hofmann; the Assistant County Welfare Director for Services, Ms . Fabella; the new Division Supervisor in charge of Adoptions, Ms . Canan; members of the Grand Jury, foster parents, adoptive parents and advocates for foster and adoptive parents . Mr. Hofmann and Ms . Fabella reviewed their report, which is dated March 23, 1995 (attached) . Ms . Fabella noted that the Department' s administrative review will include three groups of children who are 12 years of age or younger and who have been in foster care for two years or longer: 1 . Children in long-term foster care where the goal is adoption, but where adoption has not been finalized. 2 . Children in long-term care with a relative caretaker. 3 . Children in long-term foster care. The Child Welfare Research Center (CWRC) will audit a 10% random sample of the cases which have been reviewed by the administrative group to determine whether the CWRC agrees with the decision and plan of the Department. In addition, CWRC will do a review in February, 1996 to determine the extent to which their recommendations have been implemented by the Department. These reviews together will cost about $35,000 . In response to a question from Supervisor DeSaulnier regarding why foster care and adoptions are short of staff, Mr. Hofmann noted that there have been layoffs the past several years . The result of these cutbacks have been the reduction or elimination of County overmatch in most programs, including child welfare and adoptions . Also in response to a question from Supervisor DeSaulnier about whether the Department would be able to update their child welfare manual as they move through the change process, Ms . Fabella agreed that they could and would. Mr. Jim Fallis from the 1994-95 Grand Jury presented his response to the Department 's report. A copy of this report is also attached. The Foreman of the Grand Jury, Clyde Parkhurst, suggested that the Department. needs to outline tangible goals which can be measured and have deadlines attached to .each of them. -3- F&HS-2 Our Committee agrees with the Grand Jury that the Department needs to outline its key goals and attach timelines to their completion. Our Committee also wants to make it clear that the Department needs to hire a Training Officer as soon as possible and that the current freeze on positions cannot be allowed to slow down or prevent this appointment. Ms . Fabella noted that she has several vacant supervisory positions and that the need to fill the Training Officer position needs to be balanced with the other operational needs of the Department. Questions were raised by those in the audience about the accuracy and comparability of the various numbers which have been surfaced for the number of children of various ages in various types of care, with various statuses at various points in time. The Department needs to reconcile these numbers and assure our Committee and the concerned parents and advocates that we are all working off the same sets of numbers . Mr. Bill Williams raised a question about how many children there are who have been freed for adoption but for whom no adoptive parents have yet been identified. He alleged that there are children who have been freed for adoption but that available adoptive parents have not been contacted about adopting these children. Questions were also raised about how the potential adoptive parents are advised of the availability and amount of AAC (Aid for the Adoption of Children) payments which may be available and how these amounts are computed compared to foster care payments . Questions were also raised about the receipt of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments, who receives this money and how and under what circumstances this money is made available to the child or foster parents . It is clear that there is substantial confusion on these points . We are asking the Department to comment in general on the financing of adoptions and foster care at our April 11, 1995 meeting to which foster parents, relative caretakers and potential adoptive parents have been invited. Based on the discussion with those present, we have formulated the above recommendations for actions we believe need to be taken. -4- SOCIAL SERVICE DEPARTMENT Contra Costa County TO Family and Human Services Committee, DATE March 23, 1995 Board of Supervisors FROM Robert Hofmann, cc Phil Batchelor Acting County Welfare Director Clyde Parkhurst, Foreman, Grand Jury SUBJ FOLLOW UP TO THE FEBRUARY 9, 1995, REPORT TO THE FAMILY AND HUMAN SERVICES COMMITTEE ON THE ADOPTION PROGRAM The following information is provided as directed by the Board on March 7, 1995, in adopting the report of the Family and Human Services Committee. 1. As per the Board of Supervisors' direction, the County Administrator's Office and the Social Service Department have scheduled a meeting to be held on the evening of April 11, 1995, at the Contra Costa Water District Board Room between the hours of 7:00 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. The purpose of this meeting is to provide the opportunity for foster parents, adoptive parents and other concerned individuals to ask questions of the Department about policies, procedures and practices of the Social Service Department having to do with foster care and adoptions. Letters went out to all licensed foster parents, relative caregivers and adoptive parents. This meeting will be videotaped and shown on the Contra Costa Television (CCTV) channel at a later date. 2. The Social Service Department has now structured the administrative review of children who have been in long-term foster care over two years. The number of children in long-term foster care including those with relatives is approximately 1700. The Department discussed with the Youth Law Center how to proceed with this review. Their primary concern is young children (under age three) with a permanent plan of foster care in a non-relative placement. We agreed that this group should be reviewed to determine whether Department practices, policies or other resources were needed to increase adoptive planning for this group. We jointly developed a strategy to review all children under the age of 12 in foster care, living with a relative, and those with adoptive plans which have not been finalized. We have received a list of those children in the above-stated target groups and are creating a data base to track those children and their report and Family and Human Services Committee, Board of Supervisors March 23, 1995 Page 2 review date. As you may be aware, all foster children are reviewed by the Juvenile Court every six months. The Children's Services Administrative Team (Assistant Director and Division Managers) will use the most current court report to complete the first part of the review. We will be jointly developing the assessment review tool with the Child Welfare Research Center and caregivers. 3. After our review, CWRC will do a random sampling of those cases reviewed using the same assessment tool. They will provide a monthly report on their findings and will meet with us immediately if they determine we are not assessing accurately. Children for whom the Children's Services Administrative Team (CSAT) believes adoption should be the goal will be staffed and adoption plans will be pursued. We will gather data on barriers which prevent adoption and work on strategies to overcome these barriers. The Youth Law Center has agreed to search for a foundation to help financially support this review. 4. In response to the memo by Jim Fallis, Chairperson, Child Welfare Committee, 1994-1995 Contra Costa County Grand Jury:' Mr. Fallis asked why there was a discrepancy in the number that had attended as reported in the draft summary and in the final report.. The Assistant Director who wrote the draft summary was using the estimated count that was given her on the day of the planning meeting; however, after staff tallied the sign-in list and the add-on list, the actual number was less than originally estimated. We apologize that Mr. Ramiro Arosemena's name was on the no-show list. He did, in fact, send a substitute since he could not attend. In response to the statement regarding the notice for the January 30th meeting, it is true that a mass mailing did not go out for the public meeting held subsequent to the planning meeting. However, the original intent of that meeting was to allow those who were invited to the planning meeting but could not attend due to lack of space to have an opportunity for input. However, we did not have to exclude anyone who responded and, in fact, accommodated all who responded. In response to the paragraph about children in long-term foster care and the use of "O'Brien-Kreitzburg" for "project scheduling, the Department contacted O'Brien-Kreitzburg, which is an engineering construction management firm. They did not believe they had the expertise to assist us in Family and Human Services Committee, Board of Supervisors March 23, 1995 Page 3 establishing time lines for this project and suggested another consulting firm, New Center One located in San Rafael. The Assistant Director has contacted New Center One and discussed the project we are undertaking. A meeting has been scheduled with them to discuss whether they can assist us and what their cost would be. In response to the Child Welfare Committee's statement that we should resolve 50 percent of those foster care children in care over 24 months within one year of the study, we would like to restate that over half of these children are in long-term foster care with relatives and will likely remain so versus adoption. There are a variety of complex reasons why families do not wish to adopt. As we complete our review, we will become more knowledgeable as to the reason those children are with non relatives and seek to resolve these cases. In reference to the question as to why we proposed a review of children under age six, the Department believes those children are most likely to be adopted. The CWRC and the Youth Law Center are in concurrence and believe reviewing children under age six would best use our own limited resources. Although we support the premise that all children are adoptable, many children exhibit behaviors that make adoption difficult and for whom adoption recruitment has not been successful. Many potential adoptive parents are concerned about having sole responsibility for a child with difficult behaviors or with a history which may lead to behaviors that are problematic as they become older. In reference to the Fost/Adopt Pride sessions which the Department is now requiring of new foster parents and adoptive parents, according to the Chairperson of work group four, the group did not reach consensus on the recommendation that social workers attend all ten sessions. However, our consultant on the Foster Pride curriculum who attended that group estimated that four sessions would be extremely valuable to social workers. She has reviewed the sessions again and recommends six specific sessions for workers while others are specific to foster parents and adoptive parents. The Department will refer the issue to a Social Service/Caregiver committee to be formed. It should also be noted that we have just completed our first Fost/Adopt Pride curriculum and plan to revise the number of sessions and to contract with the community college to provide this training. The foster and adoptive parents who completed the course were quite enthusiastic about the information they received. Family and Human Services Committee, Board of Supervisors March 23, 1995 Page 4 In reference to the statement that the development of the adoption worker desktop manual should not take a year, we believe the "manual' should be completed only after we create the changes in our system and should be reflective of that system. This "desktop manual' must be a guide to direct social workers from the beginning of our system (emergency response and family reunification) to a dual permanency planning process of reunification or adoption by 12 or 18 months. Therefore, we do not plan to have this manual completed until we have completed the review of our system and have developed a new way of preparing for the adoption process. Likewise on the training issue, the Department currently receives much training which is coordinated through our Staff Development. The January 18th Planning Work Group recommended having a Social Work Supervisor dedicated to specific child welfare training and who would be responsible for developing a comprehensive in-house training program geared to practice and policy issues that pertain to child welfare practice in this County. However, to do a comprehensive plan and a training manual will require an understanding of all the areas in which we need training and developing a logical training curriculum which goes from the general to more specific. It also requires obtaining a training supervisor. We hope to develop.this training prior to a year and will make all efforts to do so. We.will be submitting the request for the position shortly but recognize it must be considered in light of the County's difficult fiscal situation. 5. The Grand Jury requested the number of children by age and length of stay who have been in long-term foster care over two years. The report the state provided us indicates there are 517 children who have been in foster care over 24 months and are with non relatives. This report, dated March, 1995, shows by age the average number of months for children who have been in foster care over two years. We have again requested from the state a specific report. We will give this information to the Grand Jury when we receive it from the state. The following is the average length of stay by age grouping. LONG-TERM FOSTER CARE 24 Months or More NON-RELATIVE PLACEMENTS Age Number Average of of Length Children Children of Stay Total 517 62.3 2 19 28.8 Family and Human Services Committee, Board of Supervisors March 23, 1995 Page 5 3 44 37.1 4 45 46.9 5 51 53.4 6 44 64.0 7 32 72.7 8 31 63.5 9 41 69.0 10 34 74.9 11 34 68.4 12 28 76.5 13 33 67.2 14 27 75.6 15 20 69.7 16 10 67.3 17 12 71.4 18 9 88.8 19 3 91.9 6. The Department will request a Social Work Supervisor II position be created to train and to develop training manuals and curriculum for social work staff. We estimate this position will require $58,000 with approximately $16,000 County cost. We plan to utilize our existing budget to fund this position. 7. The Assistant Director has met with Brian Simmons of CWRC to outline specific work products for a contract to provide technical assistance, a random sampling of our review and a comprehensive system review in March, 1996. This will include case reviews of young children entering child welfare to determine whether appropriate case planning is taking place and to assess the implementation of their recommendations. They estimate a cost of $35,000 for this work which we plan to include in our 1995-96 budget. 8. As the Department indicated at the last meeting of the Committee, the California Department of Social Services has been in the process of developing a comprehensive statewide child welfare computer system for several years. During that time counties have not been permitted to develop (or enlarge) their own systems. Unfortunately there is now considerable doubt about whether the state's "CWS/CMS" system will include an "ad hoc reporting" component or even if it will be completed at all because of the vendor's difficulty in programming the system. This should be known in the next month or so. If CWS/CMS does not go forward, counties will be proposing alternatives, such as enlarging existing county (or multi-county) systems to meet current needs. r Family and Human Services Committee, Board of Supervisors March 23, 1995 Page 6 In the meantime we are contacting the state regarding direct local access to the Foster Care Information System (FCIS) data. FCIS is a state system in which County data is entered on a terminal to a local mainframe by our clerical staff. A computer tape is then mailed to the state each month. The state consolidates the data from all the counties and produces required state and federal reports. Counties have the ability to request special reports, and these are provided in one to two weeks at no charge. Running extracted reports ourselves locally would require the County to obtain.and run the state's programs. We do not yet know if this is possible. We are asking if programs can be made available to the County. We will then determine if the County's equipment and operating system are compatible. We may also need system analysts capable of maintaining the system and generating.reports. It would also be possible to write a PC-based program which would involve downloading the data from the tape sent to the state and extracting the desired information. It is certainly likely that it is more cost effective to have the state run the reports than to run the program in-county against monthly data and produce reports, but we will advise the Committee when we have this information. 9. As per the Family and Human Services Committee's request, we are including below information on adoption staffing in comparable.counties. Caseload Cgunjy Staffin2 FR PP Contra Costa 2 Adoption Supervisors 541 1441 9 Full-Time Social Workers 2 .5-Time Social Workers 3 Clerical Support Staff Alameda i 2 Adoption Supervisors 1143 2392 14 Child Welfare Workers 5 Clerical Support Staff Sacramento 2 Adoptions Units 752 2313 2 Adoption Supervisors 13 Child Welfare luvRK�Rs 2 Full-Time Unit Clerks 4 Clerical Support Staff 1 Paralegal 1 Attorney Family and Human Services Committee, Board of Supervisors March 23, 1995 Page 7 Caseload CpAn1y, Staffing FR PP San Mateo County 1 Supervisor 150 471 1 Clerk 5 Full-Time Social Workers .5 Time Post-Adoption Worker San Joaquin County 2 Units 456 1086 2 Supervisors 8 Adoption Social Workers 5 Homefinding Social Workers 2 Clerical Support Staff San Francisco County 1 Adoption Unit 685 2127 1 Supervisor 5 MSWs 1 Social Worker 1 Unit Clerk 1 Social Service Tech 10. During the month of February, the Department developed a plan to reorganize the Services Bureau. The plan was implemented March 20th. We believe the reorganization will give the adoption program a stronger focus. The adoption program is now under a Division Manager who has responsibility for County- wide programs which provide services to all the County rather than a district; specifically adoptions, licensing and screening. The district Division Managers will have the core child welfare programs which provide emergency response, family maintenance, family reunification and permanency planning within particular geographical locales. We have also rotated all Managers with the purpose of obtaining new perspectives and giving the Managers an opportunity to utilize their skills in new areas. 11. Additionally, the Department would like to provide the Family and Human Services Committee with more information on long-term foster care. This population is of concern to all the counties. Our statistics do not look much different than comparable counties. For example (per state statistical report dated October, 1994): Family and Human Services Committee, Board of Supervisors March 23, 1995 Page 8 FR Average PP Average % of Total County Caseload Caseload Total in PP Alameda 1143 2392 3535 67.7 Contra Costa 541 1441 1982 72.7 Sacramento 752 2313 3065 75.5 San Francisco 685 2127 2812 75.6 The County Welfare Directors' Association's (CWDA) Children's Committee has taken leadership on this issue. It spearheaded a statewide survey to assess the situation. The Children's Committee is working on an agenda regarding what steps should next be done statewide to address this matter. Nationally, the Department of Health and Human Services, Administrator for Children and Families, has held meetings with professionals around the country to explore the issue of long-term foster care specifically to address the issue of long-term relative placements. Participants at a meeting on this issue last year felt that "long-term relative care is an appropriate and preferred permanency outcome." Since more than half of dependent children in out-of-home care nationwide are placed with relatives and these children do not leave the child.welfare system, we are faced with a potentially larger permanency planning caseload over the next five years. Strategies are being discussed at the federal and state levels to create an alternative system for relatives to separate them from the child welfare system. Our Department will work with CWDA--Children's Committee to review what strategies should be developed to address the issue of children in long-term foster care. In the meantime, we will commit to the completion of an administrative review on children under the age of 12 to identify issues and develop strategies to ensure permanency for children in Contra Costa County and to specifically address permanency planning for those children reviewed. RH:DF:ceb b:adopp ogihs f-disk 1 March 27 , 1995 To: The Family and Human Services Committee of the Board of Supervisors, Contra Costa County From: Jim Fallis, Chairperson, Child Welfare Committee, 1994-95 Contra Costa County Grand Jury I have a graph that shows the Foster Care Distribution by all ages and time in foster care. This is based on the 1733 cases reported on Appendix C of the February 9th report. The white section of the graph are those children in foster care over 24 months (83%) . I want to commend this committee and the Social Services Department for having scheduled the meeting of April 11 , 1995, and inviting the foster parents, relative caretakers and potential adoptive parents. Perhaps that meeting should have been held prior to todays meeting for obtaining additional information and concerns. For the sake of all the children in foster care with Contra Costa County I hope we see standing room capacity. -------------------------------------------------------------- The following comments addresses the Follow Up Report On The Adoption Problem by their numerical usage number. Item 2 . There appears to be some difficulty for the Department to arrive at an adoptable age for children. In the 2/9/95 report it was under the age of six. In this report it says (under age three) and review all children under the age of twelve. Than it goes on to say; All children in foster care are reviewed by the Juvenile Court every six months. We should be reviewing; The numbers of reduced foster care cases over the past 6-12 months. How many cases were assigned to adoption and guardianship by the Juvenile Court and what were the ages of these children ? What is the goal of reduction in the social workers caseload ? Item 3 . Here we are in the second year of an extremely sizable problem, and the Social Services Department states; "after our review" , and "we will gather data on barriers and work on strategies. " We should be reviewing; The Social Services Department goals for the next 6-12 months on helping the children. Here are a few goals the Department should provide: 1 . Develop a formal Fost/Adopt program in Contra Costa County; This will be developed within seven months . 2 2 . Create an Adoption worker ' s desktop manual; This will be completed within three months. 3. Establish a training officer from existing budget. This will be in place March 30, 1995 . These become positive steps with direction. Item 4. The January 30th meeting was to be an Open Public Meeting. Now you are being told; "it was a meeting for those who didn't attend the planning meeting 1/18/95" . If that were the case the Department should of held a Children' s Services Bureau employee meeting. Same item, page 3; last part of paragraph 3, "Many potential adoptive parents are concerned about a child with difficult behaviors or behaviors that are problematic as they become older" . Those potential adoptive parents should have been provided with the names of pediatrics and psychotherapy clinics.. .These clinics should provide personnel to address concerns at the caregivers training sessions. Health concerns should not become a barrier to adoption. Same item, page 3; 4th paragraph, Of the ten session in the Fost/Adop Pride training manual the Department now recommends six specific sessions for social workers, up from four. The other four are for foster and adoptive parent training sessions. We should be reviewing; The relative caregiver didn 't have any training sessions. The Department realizes that the relative caregiver has not been given the support it should have. The Fost/Adopt Pride training sessions will start for relative caregivers beganing April 1.7 , 1995 . Item 5. The Department indicates there are 517 children in foster care over 24 months with non-relative. This is (30.4%) of the 1700 cases. The fact that this report came from the state and not from within the department I find appalling. The Department provides this information to the state than the Department should have to maintain a backup copy. On a report I received March 14, 1995, I know there are 1148 children in foster care for over 24 months. Of these there are 474 (41 .3%) with a relative. The remaining 674 (58 . 3%) are with a non-relative. We should be reviewing; Why there is a 300 foster care case count difference between now ( 1148) and the February report of ( 1448) . What case count report and related information is this committee expected to accept ? 3 Item 8 . The Social Services Department should produce the documentation were it states that counties have not been permitted to develop (or enlarge) their own systems. If the California Department of Social Services has vendor ' s difficulty in programming the system they have, than this County Social Services Department should develop their own system within six months. Waiting for the State may take years. Item 10. I commend the department for implementing the personnel changes effective March 20th. . I only hope these changes have time frames for obtaining perspectives and utilization of skills, and not the continued problems of the past. Employees of long duration become disinclined to change. Item 11 . "On long-term foster care, our statistics do not look much different than comparable counties. " We should be reviewing; How the Department has been looking at comparable counties to improve our image for other counties to compare them-selves to Contra Costa County. Same item, page 8; second paragraph from the end; "Since more than half of dependent children in out-of-home care nationwide are placed with relatives. Over the next five years will become a larger caseload" . We should be reviewing; The Department is aware that we have the problem that the rest of the nation may have in five years. The Department is aware that this county has more than 50% of the children in long term foster care (over 24 months) with non-relatives, and not with relatives. Within 6-12 months we will reverse this trend. Within 2 months, the committee will be provided with our direction of changes along with dates of implementation. How long must the children wait ? I appreciate the time to present these comments and bring them to your attention. Thank you. . 0 00 = W F- zQ OV � LO .�. N 0 = W F— Z Q OV M N coZ _O � W m � H � U N W 0 H LLI cn � J O Q J LL U z � W W F � N O LL 0 M co Co 2 W F- fQ Z Q OU 200 v N Q W 0