Dr. Traci LaLiberte presenting at the Feb. 13, 2015, meeting of the Governor’s Task Force on the Protection of Children. Source: Heidi Ombisa Skallet/CASCW

The Governor’s Task Force on the Protection of Children met last Friday, Feb. 13, in St. Paul. Two of the workgroups also met that day, though I was only able to attend the Family Assessment/Adequacy of Resources (FA) workgroup meetings (held before and after the full Task Force meeting).

Full Task Force Meeting

Bryan Samuels, Executive Director of Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, presented on effective use of screening and assessment tools in child welfare: Not only do comprehensive screening and assessment need to occur at the beginning of a case, but workers also need to continue screening and assessing throughout the lifespan of a case. Moreover, services offered should be assessed to determine their appropriateness for each family. In order to illustrate this, he gave some examples: Does the residential treatment center address the specific type of chemical being abused, and does it address child maltreatment? Does the parent’s visitation schedule allow the parent to apply their learned skills from parenting classes in real life? Are interventions being provided all at once (thus reducing their efficacy), or are they sequential in order to allow parents to work on one issue at a time?

Two Human Services Performance Council members presented on the state’s human services performance management system. The human services performance management system was officially established during the 2013 legislative session in Minnesota. The Human Services Performance Council advises DHS on its implementation and operation and provides annual reviews and reports to the legislature. The two Council members talked about accountability and transparency in human services and introduced their tentative measures for determining social services efficacy. For more on the Council and the performance management system, check out their factsheet here.

Our very own Executive Director, Traci LaLiberte, also presented at the Task Force on Friday. Dr. LaLiberte talked about education and training of Minnesota’s child welfare workforce, covering the BSW and MSW Consortiums, our own Title IV-E Child Welfare Stipend Program, and the University of Minnesota’s partnership with the Minnesota Child Welfare Training System at DHS.

Family Assessment and Adequacy of Resources Workgroup

Bryan Samuels also presented during the morning session of the FA workgroup, as did Annette Semanchin Jones, who was a PhD graduate assistant here at CASCW. Dr. Semanchin Jones discussed her study on race equity in Minnesota’s differential response system. (You can read more about that study here.)

In addition to the two presentations, the FA workgroup reviewed its draft recommendations related to Family Assessment and post-screening practices. The table below highlights the draft recommendations and accompanying discussion points. The next meeting of the FA workgroup will be on February 20, most likely in the morning. The final recommendations from the FA workgroup are due on March 13.

Draft Recommendation Discussion
Change the term “Family Assessment” to “differential response.” Senator Kathy Sheran made this suggestion in the workgroup meeting as a way to avoid confusion. This suggestion received unanimous agreement.
Interview children separately from their parents, when practical, in a neutral spot. Some workgroup members were concerned about making this recommendation too prescriptive, pointing out that in some instances this might not be possible or necessarily preferable. They asked instead that DHS conduct research on best practices for culturally responsive interviewing. MayKao Hang, President and CEO of the Wilder Foundation, stressed the importance of culturally competent providers and training in order to help families from different cultural groups understand child protection processes. Senator Sheran also asked that as DHS offers guidance and clear protocols for practices, that there be oversight of DHS to ensure that when rules or standards change, they still work towards child safety.
Fact-finding should occur in any child protection response, and DHS should develop protocols to support fact-finding. The only issues related to this recommendation were the definition of “fact-finding” and when fact-finding should occur. Most of the workgroup members considered fact-finding to be a term covering the general process of uncovering the facts, whereas some members defined fact-finding to mean in-person visits and discussions to uncover the facts.
Use multidisciplinary teams. This received unanimous agreement with no contention.
Keep the two-track response system, but assign the pathway (or track) later in the process in order to allow for fact finding and data gathering. Track assignment should be decoupled from initial response times. All members appeared to agree on expanding counties’ ability to gather more evidence prior to determining track assignment, but they disagreed on the process. In the end, two options were proposed to put forth to the full Task Force.

1) Conduct fact-finding (i.e., in-person visits and interviews) prior to track assignment in order to determine the most appropriate child protection response, with those reports alleging substantial child endangerment being immediately assigned to FI. Stacy Hennen, Social Services Director of Grant County, was concerned about the legality of such a process, the impact it might have on family engagement, and worker subjectivity regarding track assignment for resistant families.

2) Develop more robust and comprehensive intake and screening practices, to include collecting collateral information, in order to determine the most appropriate child protection response.

Ms. Hennen was also concerned about delinking track assignment from initial response times, explaining that in Minnesota (and all other states with differential response systems), statute defines which reports are assigned to Family Investigation (FI)—those alleging substantial child endangerment—so the only way to delink track assignment from initial response time would be to delink track assignment from statute, which could have unintended consequences. Rather than delink the two, Ms. Hennen suggested that the substantial child endangerment statute be expanded to include more allegations that could compromise child safety.
Trauma screenings should be conducted on any child during a child protection response, and referrals made if needed. Ms. Hennen pointed out that DHS is already piloting this, so this shouldn’t be an issue. Several workgroup members mentioned the need for the child welfare and children’s mental health systems to be more integrated, pointing out that even their systems (e.g., child welfare’s Social Services Information System, or SSIS) don’t even speak together.
DHS should research, review, update, and validate all decision-making tools and update them as best practices change or emerge. The Legislature should review any changes. The workgroup members talked about the need for reliable, valid, and comprehensive screening and assessment tools, including better mid-service assessments for service and case plans conducted by experts outside of child protection.