Legislature(2017 - 2018)BUTROVICH 205
03/21/2018 01:30 PM Senate HEALTH & SOCIAL SERVICES
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| Audio | Topic |
|---|---|
| Start | |
| HB151 | |
| HB215 | |
| Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
| + | HB 215 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| + | TELECONFERENCED | ||
| += | HB 151 | TELECONFERENCED | |
HB 151-DHSS;CINA; FOSTER CARE; CHILD PROTECTION
1:31:13 PM
CHAIR WILSON announced the consideration of HB 151. [SCS CSHB
151(FIN) was before the committee.]
1:31:51 PM
CHAIR WILSON opened public testimony.
1:32:07 PM
JANINE REEP, Board Member, Facing Foster Care in Alaska,
supported HB 151. She said she is an attorney who has worked in
the field of child protection for over 30 years. Currently she
is a mediator in child protection cases. She knows the child
protection system very well. She knows how it is supposed to
work and she knows it is not working well. Things are worse now
than when she began 30 years ago. She's been around long enough
to see youth coming back into the system as parents themselves
or more often, incarcerated. The system needs to be fixed.
She opined that the bill might look like it is full of lots of
little things, but the reality is that each of these sections,
if passed into law, can profoundly change a person's life. For
example, filling out a foster care application is a daunting
task. Under the bill, OCS [Office of Children's Services] would
be required to help prospective foster care parents complete
application, and there is a deadline for making a decision on an
application. She also highlighted the provision for prudent care
allowing foster parents to fill out permission forms for field
trips or participation on a sports team. It is awkward for youth
to go a state agency to have a pink slip signed so they can go
on a band trip. It can mean a youth misses out on a network of
peers.
She said the crux of the bill is caseload limits. She has been
saying for decades that nothing will change unless caseloads are
statutorily capped. Caseworkers cannot make good decisions for a
family when overloaded with cases. A relative search is
difficult to do. Families will not share information about
relatives if they don't trust someone. Many times healthy
relatives are estranged from the family. Unless a caseworker has
an ongoing relationship with a family, family placements are
difficult to find. She noted that the graph on slide 16 of
Representative Gara's presentation reflects the relationship
between changes in caseworkers and chances of permanency. She
said she has seen that again and again. Progress cannot be made
when a social worker is in place for five months and then gone.
The case lingers and children languish in the system, often
until they're adults. She urged the committee to pass the bill
because it is an opportunity to make a real change. She
concluded reiterating that until there are lower caseloads,
nothing will work.
1:37:54 PM
SENATOR MICCICHE noted her 30 years of experience. He asked why
none of these issues are getting better. He asked if there is
something systemic that is not in the bill.
MS. REEP said the turnover is insane and the caseloads have
increased. The numbers are outrageous. Social workers are
dissatisfied and feel they are doing a terrible job. It is high
responsibility and they are not going to stay. A cap on numbers
will attract more qualified people. Many social workers are not
interested in working for OCS because of the horror stories and
the caseloads. If they knew there was a limit and they could
actually make a difference in helping families, they'd be
applying.
MICHAEL JEFFERY, Representing Self, supported HB 151. He has
spent 40 years in Barrow, first working with Alaska Legal
Services and then as a superior court judge for 32 years. He
said part of the work of a superior court judge is Child in Need
of Aid cases. He likes many things about HB 151. One of them is
training. He hopes that would include fetal alcohol spectrum
disorder issues. He said social workers want to do right by
these families, but if they are swamped with cases, they can't
do it. He realizes that some funding issues go with that, but
it's important to have these standards. He loves the parts of
the bill about timeliness in foster care license decisions. A
family is offering itself. If the application is dropped into
the void. That denies the availability of that home and it is
also stress for the family. The provisions to have youth
participate in their own case planning and the ability of youth
and families to do things without checking with a social worker
will reduce trauma and long-term damage that can happen from
multiple placements and the feeling of being shut out from
making any decisions about their situation.
1:43:05 PM
ANDREW CUTTING, Program Fellow, Alaska Children's Trust,
supported HB 151. He said his agency looks at children across
the state and worries about kids who are falling through the
cracks. This is a way to move forward with those being left
behind. With the high case numbers and maxed out staff, this
bill supports front line staff. A lot of research shows the cost
of kids revolving through different families. It increases their
ACEs [Adverse Childhood Experiences] scores. The cost across the
state associated with ACEs scores is more than $450,000,000.
Decreasing caseworker loads, providing additional training and
support, decreasing the number of kids who cross their desk
every day and putting kids in supportive families using the
tools in this bill will reduce costs in the long term, even if a
few more staff have to be added in the front end. The Children's
Trust is a big, big supporter of this bill.
1:44:55 PM
TAMAR BEN-YOSEF, Executive Director, All Alaska Pediatric
Partnership, supported HB 151. She said the mission of the All
Alaska Pediatric Partnership is to improve the health and
wellness of all Alaskan children. They consider OCS caseworkers'
high caseloads and resulting inability to adequately serve
families a significant barrier to children's optimal health.
Nearly 3,000 Alaskan children are in out-of-home placement. In
some places of the state, workers are managing more than 30
caseloads, which is more than double the national
recommendations. About ten percent of children entering the
foster care system are under the age of six. The first three to
four years of life are when the brain structures that govern
personality traits, learning processes and self-regulation
skills to deal with stress and emotion are established,
strengthened, and made permanent and the nerve connections and
nerve transmitter networks form during these critical years.
These transmitter networks are influenced by negative
environmental conditions, such as child abuse and neglect,
violence within the family, and exacerbated by multiple
placements. Most children entering the foster care system,
especially those entering early on, have not experienced a
nurturing, stable environment. The positive experiences created
by permanency and a solid relationship with a supportive
caregiver are critical in both the short- and long-term
development of the child and their ability to participate fully
in society. The premature return of a child to the biological
parent and the inability of a caseworker to provide families
with the attention they need to remain stable, compliant, and
safe often result in a return to foster care or ongoing
emotional trauma to the child. No less important is that working
in such stressful environments creates toxic stress for the
caseworker and results in high turnover rates and further
negative outcomes for children. Reduced caseloads and additional
training will result in a healthier and more supported
workforce, leading to more permanency and better outcomes for
children.
1:47:50 PM
MARK LACKEY, Member, R.O.C.K Mat-Su, Executive Director, CCS
Early Learning, supported HB 151. He said he has been a foster
parent in the past. He is familiar with the issues that HB 151
addresses. He adopted a child and would estimate that he was in
care for 6-8 months longer than needed because of staff
turnover. Professionally, CCS Early Learning has seen a steady
increase in the percentage of their slots provided for children
in foster care. The last school year, 17 percent of total slots
were for children in foster care. In 2009, it was six percent.
1:50:05 PM
SENATOR BEGICH arrived.
MR. LACKEY said they have seen a steady increase in children
needing care but until very recently, they have not seen a
corresponding increase in staffing at OCS. Wasilla has seen
recent staffing increases, which has drastically helped their
caseloads. R.O.C.K. Mat-SU has been working closely with OCS on
multiple issues. He can already see changes in morale and how
responsive staff are and in the level of community engagement.
Getting children in and out of the system as quickly as possible
requires sufficient staff.
1:51:42 PM
ROSALIE REIN, Representing Self, supported HB 151. She said she
worked at OCS for seven-and-a-half years and is now developing a
social services program for the Fairbanks School District. The
high rate of front line turnover leaves OCS with less
experienced workers and growing caseloads. The pressure
threatens the longevity of the remaining caseworkers. The
provision in HB 151 capping caseloads for new caseworkers during
the first six months is going to support workers through the
steep learning curve. Staff retention is a positive effect of
allowing workers to develop a solid skill set early in their OCS
careers. Research shows that caseworkers who have social work
education, appropriate training, specialized competencies, and
greater experience are better able to facilitate permanency. New
workers with a full caseload and older workers with a caseload
more than twice the national recommendation cannot keep up with
adequate support for foster parents, let alone the children and
their families. Her testimony is not to convince them to make
sad caseworkers happy. It is about ensuring that children and
families have access to services in a timely manner, have
communication with their worker, and for relatives to be
identified so they can provide care for their own family. These
services require adequate staffing.
1:54:07 PM
RACHEL BEDSWORTH, Statewide Representative, Facing Foster Care
in Alaska, supported HB 151. She said she is a student at the
University of Alaska Anchorage and aged out of the foster care
system when she turned 21 in October. She was in care 12 years
and moved through 47 placements. She had nine social workers.
There was a time in eighth grade when she did not know who her
social worker was. She lived in a foster home for three months
where the only food was rice, broccoli, and cheese. Her social
workers didn't listen to her because they didn't know her. They
need more social workers, so they can give the individual
attention that a child needs and deserves.
1:55:29 PM
SARAH REDMON, Administrative Director, Facing Foster Care in
Alaska, supported HB 151. She said she was in foster care three
different times over seven years. She was in 16 different
placements in those seven years. She is one of 12 siblings who
went into foster care at the same time. During her placement she
had no contact with her siblings. She was like a mother for her
eight younger siblings. She made sure they went to school, went
to bed, and were fed. Not knowing where they were gave her
social anxiety and stress. If she had been able to have contact
with them, that would have provided some relief. Making sure
siblings have contact is her big focus.
1:58:20 PM
NATALIA EDWARDS, Member, Facing Foster Care in Alaska, supported
HB 151. She said she has been in foster care since February 2012
with 11 placements and somewhere between 6 and 15 social
workers. She was separated from four sisters, which caused
constant anxiety. She will face repercussions for that the rest
of her life. In the past two years she has been in and out of
homelessness and has had little to no contact with her social
workers. She was homeless because so many social workers changed
with no notice; it was hard to track down who would have helped
with friends who could have become licensed. It was only when
Amanda Metivier [founder of Facing Foster Care in Alaska] became
her foster mother that they tracked down her social worker to
figure what needed to be done so she could be in a continual
safe home with a steady foster parent. If HB 151 had been in
effect in the past, it would have helped with the repercussions
with her siblings. She would have had more attention in the past
six years.
2:00:30 PM
ALISON KULAS, Executive Director, Alaska Mental Health Board,
Advisory Board on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, supported HB 151.
She said the joint mission of her boards is to advocate for
programs and services for people with behavioral health
disorders, their families, care providers, and communities. They
look comprehensively to build healthy and safe environments for
Alaskans to reach their individual potential. HB 151 supports
the safety and well-being of Alaska's children in state custody.
This bill addresses the concern that OCS workers are overworked
and their ability to serve families adequately is compromised.
Representative Gara's bill will help mitigate the trauma and
long-term damage of children who experience multiple placements
or who languish in foster care. Instability and neglect cause an
increased likelihood of mental health challenges, substance
abuse, homelessness, incarceration, public assistance, and
unemployment. Decreasing caseloads can help to intervene in this
expensive and damaging cycle. Her boards want to make sure that
OCS workers are fully trained and equipped to handle the
challenges of working with families on their caseloads so that
families really get the attention they need to remain stable,
compliant, and safe. They need to stabilize the workforce to
better serve the needs of families involved in the state's child
welfare system.
2:03:01 PM
CHAIR WILSON closed public testimony on HB 151.
CHAIR WILSON asked what the ratio is of OCS supervisors to
caseworkers.
2:03:27 PM
CHRISTY LAWTON, Director, Office of Children's Services,
Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS), testified on HB
151. She said generally in the larger offices, such as
Anchorage, Mat-Su, and Fairbanks, supervisors have six to eight
employees per unit. The Child Welfare League of America
recommends five per supervisor.
SENATOR VON IMHOF observed that the tribal compact agreements
are just getting off the ground, and asked what impact that will
have in taking the burden off employees by lowering caseloads.
MS. LAWTON said in the very long run, it will help with caseload
size, but in the short-term, there will be lessening of some of
the caseload. There are pieces of case management they will be
slowly taking on. Initially the focus is helping with relative
searches and family contact visitation and doing safety walks
through homes in communities where they do not have staff. They
are being strategic about what they are taking on and starting
to build their infrastructure and capacity. It will be a number
of years before they are taking over large numbers of cases.
CHAIR WILSON asked the sponsor if he had any closing remarks.
2:05:37 PM
REPRESENTATIVE LES GARA, Alaska State Legislature, sponsor of HB
151, said there has been talk about how much this is evidence-
based--less turnover, fewer placement changes, less trauma to
children, higher success rates of children, fewer children on
public assistance, more children in the workforce, more children
graduating high school, going to college. What he wants to leave
the committee with is the notion that we are closer than ever to
fixing the system, but the first step is to have all the members
on the team with a good manager and good systems. Drawing a
parallel to a baseball team, he said you need a good manager and
nine players on the field. Without that, you'll always lose.
"We're closer than ever to fixing many, many, many of the
problems at OCS." In terms of cost, the transfer of adult public
assistance money to OCS last year made it possible to hire 31
additional staff. That is within striking distance of reaching
caseload limits that will work, that will reduce turnover rates
like they did in New Jersey.
REPRESENTATIVE GARA said he wanted to be clear about the fiscal
note because there are different ways of writing fiscal notes.
Early fiscal notes were $4, $5, and $7 million. The really
expensive things were removed from the current fiscal note, but
it does assume that the 31 new case workers remain. The cost for
that is $1.4 million. The fiscal note last year provided 75
percent of the funding for those workers. He noted that the
tradition in this building often has been to fund 75 percent of
the cost the first year and 100 percent the next year. The
fiscal note is written as a comparison to what is needed in
addition to the 31 staff that were hired last year. It is not a
comparison to what was in the budget last year. The funds for
those 31 workers is in the governor's budget and the House
budget. He hopes they remain in the Senate budget. With that,
you are within $1.4 million of reach of actually making a huge
difference with mentors and the supervisors to get the
supervisory caseloads to what Director Lawton and the case
workers talked about to reduce the work and reduce the turnover
and reduce the waste of money that we have in the system for
paying for empty positions. The empty positions I've talked
about are hiring somebody who leaves within a year when they
have finally learned their job. That's not a wise use of money."
2:09:19 PM
CHAIR WILSON said he would hold HB 151 awaiting the answers from
DHSS to some outstanding questions.