Board of Supervisors Richard Valle President Board of Supervisors January 14, 2020 Honorable Tara Desautels Acting*

The Department of Children and Family Services has not recruited and retained an adequate number of approved foster homes in Alameda County. Response: The Board of Supervisors partially disagrees with this finding. The Alameda County Social Services Agency (SSA), Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) launched a recruitment campaign in March 2019 with Hill & Company Communications to increase the number of resource families. The campaign included commercials and billboards throughout Alameda County. While the DCSF has actively made efforts to recruit foster families, there continues to be an inadequate number of approved foster homes in Alameda County. Additionally, the Department of Children and Family Services is working with Casey Family Programs and the California Department of Social Services for their Group Home Project, working to move youth in group homes to family-based care. The Department will also be using a consultant that has had success using out of the box ideas for direct recruitment (e.g. recruitment focused on individual children). Alameda County Foster Children, Youth and Non-Minor Dependents in Foster Care on July 28, 2019 Child/Youth 0-17 Total # of % of All Non Minor Dependent Total# % of all Alameda Children/ Out of County Alameda Alameda Out of County of Alameda Relative/ No Youth Relative/ County Not NMDs Relative/ Non Relative/ County Non Not 0-17 NREFM NREFM Relative/ Relative/ Dependent NREFM Relative/ Minor NREFM Relative/ NREFM NREFM Foster NREFM NREFM Dependents Youth County Foster 63 Home 2 . 65 7.7% 6 6 1.9% FFA/FFA-RFA 39 192 231 27.3% 9 12 21 6.8% Group 40 Home/STRTP 73 113 13.3% 8 13 21 6.8% Guardian 2 Home 2 0.2% 0 0.0% Relative/ 197 NREFM Home 231 428 50.5% 8 2 10 3.2% Small Family Home 2 0.4% 3 2 2 0.6% Supervised Independent Living Placement 0 0.0% 47 50 97 31.3% THPP/THP+ FC 4 4 0.5% 95 56 151 48.7% Court or Tribe Specified 1 1 0.1% 2 2 0.6% 197 148 231 271 847 8 165 2 135 310 Non-Relative (Non- Dependent) Legal Guardian 114 Home 1 5 120 21 1 22 % of dependent foster children/youth 0-17 placed out of county 59.3% % of dependent foster children/youth 0-17 placed out of county with non-relative FFA 22.7% % of dependent foster children/youth 0-17 placed out of county in a group home, small family home or STRTP 9.0% % of dependent foster children/youth 0-17 placed out of county with a relative or NREFM 27.3% of all dependent foster children/youth 0-17 placed out of county, % placed with Relatives or NREFMs 46.0% ALAMEDA COUNTY RESPONSE TO THE 2018-2019 GRAND JURY FINAL REPORT

An excessive percentage (more than half) of Alameda County's foster care placements are made to homes located outside of Alameda County, despite evidence that out-of-placements are generally not in the best interests of foster children. Response: The Board of Supervisors disagrees partially with this finding. The Department of Children and Family Services seeks to place children in their community and with family or extended family members whenever possible as a core tenet of practice. However, the information listed in the Executive Summary (p. 91-93) is slightly inaccurate, likely due to the way the information was presented on the data source. Of the 847 dependent youth under the age of 18, 59.3% are placed out of county. However, 27.3% of those youth are placed in the home of a relative or non-related extended family member. Additionally, 9% of the youth placed out of county are in a group home and only 22.7% are placed in a non-relative FFA home. Of the 847 dependent youth under the age of 18, 50.5% of them are placed with a relative or non-related extended family member and 27.3% of them are placed in an Foster Family Agencies (FFA). A data extraction from July 29, 2019 is attached for your reference. % FFA 31.4% 26.0% Apr-05 Apr-06 Apr-07 Apr-08 Apr-09 Apr-10 Apr-11 Apr-12 Apr-13 Apr-14 Apr-15 Apr-16 Apr-17 Apr-18 Apr-19 % FFA 31.4% 32.3% 32.6% 26.9% 30.2% 29.6% 31.4% 28.9% 27.2% 24.6% 28.3% 28.2% 29.1% 31.4% 26.0% ALAMEDA COUNTY RESPONSE TO THE 2018-2019 GRAND JURY FINAL REPORT Point In Time Placement Type 1 Я 4 1 Я 1 ч 1 я 4 п Я ч 1 Apr-13 Apr-14 Apr-15 Apr-16 Apr-17 Apr-18 Apr-19 Apr-06 Apr-07 Apr-08 Apr-09 Apr-10 Apr-11 Apr-12 Apr-05 n n n п n п п п n n n n n n n Pre-Adopt 21 16 16 13 23 18 43 46 36 21 20 18 50 40 38 Relative/ 517 464 508 503 504 445 315 369 921 833 862 781 681 581 964 NREFM 101 117 113 116 117 103 165 81 125 129 119 165 140 140 126 Foster 215 474 431 340 291 266 321 322 309 315 820 781 728 552 563 FFA Court Specified 2 2 2 3 g 4 2 4 1 1 9 11 1 Home 115 129 121 102 333 310 227 161 124 104 107 94 109 412 336 Group 1 Shelter 7 10 12 11 11 9 6 22 17 10 23 16 10 96 36 Non-FC Guardian - 16 16 7 11 9 8 4 3 15 13 14 24 15 12 16 Dependent Guardian - Non- 148 129 236 173 172 170 172 135 137 124 307 273 258 201 193 Dependent 28 22 28 21 27 24 27 21 51 52 47 41 15 72 69 Runaway 2 2 4 3 2 3 2 4 1 15 14 7 15 3 3 Trial Home Visit 1 SILP ٠ . . Transitional 5 2 7 7 8 8 Housing 9 13 .16 14 11 13 7 6 6 17 20 20 21 15 22 13 17 3 31 40 32 28 21 22 Other Missing 1,545 952 2,065 1,793 1,350 1,240 1,255 1,284 1,277 1,198 1,131 2,917 2,692 2,488 2,288 Total Total excluding NRLG 828 1,136 1,142 1,061 1,002 2,610 1,864 1,600 1,372 1,178 1,070 1,083 2,419 2,230 2,052 Apr-15 Apr-16 Apr-17 Apr-18 Apr-19 Apr-12 Apr-13 Apr-14 Apr-05 Apr-06 Apr-07 Apr-08 Apr-09 Apr-10 Apr-11 % FFA 28.3% 28.2% 29.1% 31.4% 26.0% 28.9% 27.2% 24.6% 31.4% 32.3% 32.6% 26.9% 30.2% 29.6% 31.4%

Average caseloads for Department of Family and Child Services emergency response and family maintenance child welfare social workers are too high, which is not conducive to the delivery of high-quality services to Alameda County's foster children. Response: The Board of Supervisors partially disagrees with this finding. The caseload guidelines recommended in the 1998 SB 2030 study were never realized in the state of California due to the exorbitant cost. Despite those standards not being funded, Alameda County has strived to maintain a caseload close to those numbers. The caseload numbers listed in the Executive Summary are not fully accurate. The report reflects that the Emergency Response program has a caseload of 24.99 (p. 95). However, Child Welfare Workers in Emergency Response have a caseload guideline of 15 and over the last year Child Welfare Workers have averaged less than 15.

The Department of Children and Family Services has not been timely in its implementation of the Child and Family Team concept that is a central element of California's Continuum of Care Reform legislation. Response: The Board of Supervisors agrees with this finding. The Department of Children and Families Services implementation of Children and Family Teams was delayed as a result of ongoing discussions with our labor partners. However, resolution was reached in June 2018. ALAMEDA COUNTY RESPONSE TO THE 2018-2019 GRAND JURY FINAL REPORT