Sacramento County Grand Jury • 2009-2010

The State of Foster Care in Sacramento County 1. Summary For too long, Sacramento County Child Protective Services

Published: September 14, 2009 18 pages
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Findings and Recommendations 14 findings

F1
0 The average number of placements for each foster child in Sacramento County remains too high, which results in poor outcomes for these children. When compared to the twenty largest counties in California for placement stability for the foster children in care for 12 to 24 months, Sacramento ranks last. 84
Related Recommendations (1)
R1
1 CPS should accelerate the implementation and mandate the use of the Centralized Placement Support Unit (CPSU) for all initial placements and placement changes.
F2
0 The current organization of CPS results in too many social worker changes. This may be convenient for the organization, but it fails to effectively meet the individual human needs of the children.
Related Recommendations (1)
R2
1 CPS should continue with the implementation of the change to the operational structure to have a single social worker follow a child throughout the CPS system.
F3
0 Currently, a child who is in long-term placement and has a placement change, is visited once in the first few weeks, and then every six months thereafter.
Related Recommendations (1)
R3
1 Children in long-term placement who have a placement change should be visited bytheir social worker at the same frequencyas that on initial placement.
F4
0 CPS does not have a good system to recognize health concerns and physical injuries that might indicate abuse or neglect of the children under their care.
Related Recommendations (1)
R4
1 CPS should require each social worker to maintain a growth chart on each child in their care to help identify medical conditions or possible abuse or neglect. Any irregularities should be referred to the Public Health Nurses for review.
F5
0 The Health and Education Passport (HEP) is not kept current.
Related Recommendations (1)
R5
1 CPS social workers should hold the foster parents accountable for taking the HEP with them for all medical, dental, counseling, and educational visits for the child, and having the provider update and correct it as required.
F6
0 Social workers work closely with foster parents and can lose objectivity when repeated allegations against a foster parent aremade and determined to be unfounded.
Related Recommendations (1)
R6
1 When there are repeated allegations against a foster parent, a social worker from the CPS Foster Home Licensing Program should make an unannounced visit to the home to check on the welfareof the child and conditions in the home.
F7
0 Recent state regulations have limited the number of children in county licensed homes to a total of six children (biological, foster, step, guardian, kin or adopted). Foster FamilyAgency(FFA) homes are not currently included in these limitations.
Related Recommendations (1)
R7
1 CPS should applythis six-child limit to all new placements in FFA foster homes.
F8
0 Foster parents are not always given sufficient information about the children theyare receiving.
Related Recommendations (1)
R8
1 In all cases CPS should, prior to placement, fully disclose all known medical, behavioral, educational and special needs of foster children to foster parents.
F9
0 Foster parents need better training to help them care forchildren with special needs.
Related Recommendations (1)
R9
1 CPS should survey foster parents to determine the topics in which they need additional training in caring for special needs children.
F10 Page 1
0 In some cases, CPS did not follow up when Community Care Licensing (CCL) and/or an FFA found violations in a foster home.
Related Recommendations (1)
R10
1 All CCL or FFA reported violations should be sent to CPS and entered into the Child Welfare Services/CaseManagement System (CWS/CMS) file.
F11
0 CPS Foster Care does not have an interactive electronicdatabase to assist CPSU and social workers in the placement of foster children in the most appropriate foster home. 86
Related Recommendations (1)
R11
1 CPS should develop a database that contains all the data needed to determine the best available foster home for each foster child. This can be developed in-house, contracted from another county, or a software developer.
F12
0 CPS is not consistentlyentering data into and utilizing CWS/CMS.
Related Recommendations (1)
R12
1 CPS management should require and enforce that all data concerning each foster child be entered into CWS/CMS as it becomes available.
F13
0 CPS supervisors and managers are not taking full advantage of SafeMeasures® to track social worker performance.
Related Recommendations (1)
R13
1 CPS management should require and enforce greater utilization of SafeMeasures® and evaluate supervisors and managers on their use of the program.
F14
0 The development of an online CPS Policies and Procedures Manualwas started last year and considerable progress has been made, especially in the EmergencyResponse sections. The remaining sections including Foster Care are far from complete.
Related Recommendations (1)
R14
1 CPS management should accelerate the effort to complete all sections of the CPS Policies and Procedures Manual. 87 8.0 Response Requirements Penal Code sections 933 and 933.05 require that specific responses to indicated findings and recommendations contained in this report be submitted to the Presiding Judge of the Sacramento County Superior Court by October 1, 2010, from: · Sacramento County Board of Supervisors · Director of Health and Human Services · Deputy Director, Child Protective Services Mail or hand-deliver a hard copy of the response to: Hon. Steve White, Presiding Judge Sacramento County Superior Court 720 9th Street, Dept. Sacramento, CA 95814 In addition, email the response to Becky Castaneda, Grand Jury Coordinator, at [email protected] 88