HOUSE HEALTH, EDUCATION AND SOCIAL SERVICES STANDING COMMITTEE April 20, 2000 3:25 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT Representative Fred Dyson, Chairman Representative Joe Green Representative Allen Kemplen Representative John Coghill MEMBERS ABSENT Representative Jim Whitaker Representative Carl Morgan Representative Tom Brice COMMITTEE CALENDAR DFYS REPORT AND AUDIT PREVIOUS ACTION No previous action to record. WITNESS REGISTER PAT DAVIDSON, Legislative Auditor Legislative Audit Division Legislative Agencies & Offices PO Box 113300 Juneau, Alaska 99811 POSITION STATEMENT: Presented the DFYS Report and Audit. RUSS WEBB, Deputy Commissioner Department of Health & Social Services PO Box 110601 Juneau, Alaska 99811 POSITION STATEMENT: Commented and answered questions on the DFYS Report and Audit. DEIRDRE O'CONNOR, Children Services Manager, Southeast Region Family Services Division of Family and Youth Services Department of Health & Social Services 3025 Clinton Drive, Suit 200 Juneau, Alaska 99801 POSITION STATEMENT: Answered questions on the DFYS Report and Audit. TONY LOMBARDO, Director of Advocacy Covenant House Alaska 609 F Street Anchorage, Alaska 99510 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified on the DFYS Report and Audit. ACTION NARRATIVE TAPE 00-49, SIDE A Number 0001 CHAIRMAN FRED DYSON called the House Health, Education and Social Services Standing Committee meeting to order at 3:25 p.m. Members present at the call to order were Representatives Dyson, Kemplen and Coghill. Representative Green arrived as the meeting was in progress. CHAIRMAN DYSON announced that the only order of business was hearing the Division of Family and Youth Services Report and Audit to identify problems and solutions and solicit from DFYS what progress has been made, what solutions are working or not, things that remain to be done, things the legislature can help with and entertain some of the questions raised in the audit. He has forwarded to DFYS a letter which suggests that some children who are aging out of the system are struggling in the transition when reunification hasn't worked. Some of the children may have had some unfortunate transitions and are still in the midst of that. Some of the cases that DFYS has worked on have gone to criminal proceedings, and one or more parents are suing the department. Because of the ongoing criminal and civil actions, the legislators need to not do anything that will prejudice those cases. The committee will be careful about those specific cases where there is a pending action. Number 0236 PAT DAVIDSON, Legislative Auditor, Legislative Audit Division, Legislative Agencies & Offices, came forward to present the report. She reported to the committee that over the last three years four audits examining various aspects of the Division of Family and Youth Services (DFYS) have been conducted. The first audit was completed in March 1998 and contained eight recommendations. The second audit was completed in August 1998 and contained six recommendations. The third audit was a follow-up on the recommendations contained in the first report and was completed in January 1999. The last audit effort has been completed, however, the Budget and Audit Committee has not yet approved the report for release. MS. DAVIDSON said rather than going over recommendation by recommendation, she would focus on three operational areas which need improvement. The first one is responding to reports of harm. Although DFYS states it has a "zero tolerance" policy, by necessity the agency must prioritize which reports of harm are investigated. The past audit reports have reflected concerns that the agency did not have in place a standard, widely accepted approach regarding how to consistently assess what reports of harm should be investigated and which ones, due to lack of resources, could be passed over. MS. DAVIDSON noted the legislature has authorized additional positions to increase the DFYS's ability to respond to reports of harm. It is a prudent time for the DFYS to establish and implement various policies and procedures that clearly identify investigative priorities across the state. MS. DAVIDSON reported that the second area that needed improvement was the training of social workers. This has been a long standing area of concern. The emphasis that has been placed on training has varied from administration to administration over the years, and the current administration has placed a renewed emphasis in this area. This has been a success area for DFYS. With the increasing certification requirements for licensure of social workers, the training and continuing professional education will in likelihood take on more importance in future years. MS. DAVIDSON stated that the third area of concern is the relationship with parents. The DFYS often times has had an adversarial relationship with one of its main constituent groups, the parents of children the agency takes into state custody. It is recognized that the primary focus of DFYS is on the welfare of children. However, sometimes this focus is maintained to such an extent that it is possible to be detrimental to effective communication with the parents whose children have been taken into state custody. To that end, it has been suggested that DFYS: consider how the agency can provide more medical and psychological counseling information about children in state custody to parents; work with the court system to establish a less intimidating, more mediation-like process to resolve custody situations rather than utilizing the very legalistic, somewhat intimidating child in need of aid process. Number 0492 CHAIRMAN DYSON asked her to repeat that last sentence and then asked if that was like recommendation number five in the 1998 audit. MS. DAVIDSON answered yes. MS. DAVIDSON continued saying it was suggested that DFYS better publicize the procedures and process within DFYS that are open to parents who believe that a social worker is not treating them fairly which goes to the ombudsman-like process; and make more of an effort to solicit and document cooperation of parents in carrying out case plans so families can be unified in a more timely manner. Number 0550 MS. DAVIDSON mentioned other issues addressed in the report. One is that the legislature should consider amending relevant child protection statutes to provide better and more consistent casework. This was accomplished by the prior legislature. Improvements to the agency's management information system are necessary from both an internal management perspective and to report timely on the agency's caseload statistics. Number 0582 REPRESENTATIVE COGHILL asked Ms. Davidson if any credence was given to the different regional setting of the different types of training or different priorities in the policy of taking reports of harm. MS. DAVIDSON answered with regard to the differences in the offices across the state, to the extent there were significant differences, it was in how the agencies handled "workload adjust," which is that determination of which cases get investigated and which ones don't or are delayed. That is the biggest difference seen across the regions. Number 0673 RUSS WEBB, Deputy Commissioner, Department of Health & Social Services, came forward to comment and answer questions on the DFYS Report and Audit. He believes there are certainly areas of success. It is unfortunate that the most recent effort of the Legislative Audit Division to look at the issues is not yet available to everyone. Although he understands the reasons why that is the case, it would have made this meeting more fruitful for everyone. Given that information is not available, he will talk about what he knows and try to not violate some of the things that Ms. Davidson has asked him not to violate. Some of the past recommendations, from the Legislative Audit Division and from other forums like the Governor's Child Protection Review Task Force, talked about the need for additional staff in DFYS to get to the point where there would be an adequate response to the legislative mandate. It is fairly clear now, as it was not clear a year ago, that the impact of that additional staff is significant. The DFYS [with additional staff] is indeed able to respond to more reports of harm, and fewer children are left unprotected. MR. WEBB referred to a chart describing the percentages of reports of harm that the DFYS responded to from July 1996 to February 2000. In fiscal year 1997 at the time of the initial audit, the DFYS was responding to about 70 percent of all the reports of harm. The legislative mandate was to respond to every report of harm. With the addition of 28 new staff and a number of other improvements made of utilizing existing resources, the DFYS is now responding to about 90 percent of reports of harm. He believes that is a significant fact worthy of note. He believes that the new law passed two years ago is demonstrably having some of the desired impact in terms of better protecting children, moving cases to permanent resolution and moving children into permanent homes quicker. MR. WEBB noted that DFYS has done everything in its power to effectively manage the budget that it has to support the efforts of social workers and achieve the greatest response capacity possible. Responding to a report of harm is not the entire job; it's just the start. The resources need to be allocated between responding and moving children to permanency and trying to work with parents in a productive way to resolve the issues that place children at risk. This, as well as other things, will demonstrate that this is the case. The issue of focusing the resources on the highest risk cases is important. MR. WEBB said he believes that the DFYS has improved its consistency in making sure the DFYS is prioritizing the response to those cases that are highest risk. That has been focused on in terms of the policies and procedures. He agrees with Ms. Davidson that a replacement of the management information system is critical in making additional improvements throughout. CHAIRMAN DYSON apologized for his being late, the time constraints of the meeting today and this report being heard at the end of session. He asked if the department is now able to recruit the quality of staff to fill the vacancies. Number 0995 MR. WEBB replied the DFYS is a much better position, and the problem three years ago does not exist now in filling vacancies. The DFYS is able to fill as many positions with its current budget. Staff is being trained, and higher quality staff is being hired. The DFYS has engaged with the university to bring in more staff. The answer is yes. CHAIRMAN DYSON asked what is going on with turnover, what causes it and what can be done to reduce it. MR. WEBB indicated that turnover has been reduced from 32 percent in FY98 to the 21 percent that is projected for this year. The single most critical factor he has heard from staff in regard to turnover is the caseload and workload--the staff burns out. Training is another key issue. Training for new staff helps reduce their stress if they know what they're doing and how to do it well. It is important to get more specialized training for tenured staff. Number 1085 CHAIRMAN DYSON asked Mr. Webb why the MIS [management information system] hasn't been overhauled or replaced. MR. WEBB answered that the department doesn't have the money to replace it. The department has asked for $5.4 million in the capital budget to replace the MIS. If the department gets that money, the MIS will be replaced. Several steps have been taken to improve the use of the existing MIS. A new project coordinator will be working on a contract to review the business processes and try to get ready for assessing new applications and applying technology most efficiently to assist the staff. CHAIRMAN DYSON said the budget and audit report identified the need for an ombudsman-type function. Several people have encourage the House HES committee to become an oversight group. He believes that the Foster Care Review Board was working pretty good and was a good direction to go and that got dropped two years ago. He asked what the department thinks about Legislative Budget and Audit's recommendation for an alternative mediation and ombudsman-type function for DFYS. Number 1183 MR. WEBB informed the committee that the DFYS is working with the court system to try to take advantage of every mediation opportunity available in a variety of different forms. That is part of good casework. If it can use the court system's mediation, that will be done. There is an internal position to help resolve complaints. The DFYS disagreed somewhat with Ms. Davidson's recommendation that the DFYS find a special ombudsman; if the legislature wanted that, it should do that. The DFYS doesn't disagree with that; it works with the ombudsman's office all the time. If the legislature wants to fund one, the DFYS would be happy to have it. MR. WEBB noted the DFYS did establish a position, held by Tim Spengler, as an internal trouble shooter. Part of Mr. Spengler's focus is to try to field complaints that people have, get to the root of those complaints, resolve them in whatever way he can, whenever possible and at least to get to the facts if he can't resolve them. He believes Mr. Spengler has been successful in trying to prevent some things from going to the grievance process or into court. Mr. Spengler has tried to make certain that the grievance process is available to people. The DFYS has tried to fulfill the spirit of the recommendations that the legislative auditors made. The DFYS disagreed in some instances on the specifics, but the intent was generally followed. CHAIRMAN DYSON asked Mr. Webb what the court does for DFYS in mediation that isn't part of the formal court process. MR. WEBB said essentially the court takes cases that might otherwise be headed to court and tries to resolve them through mediation, much like other civil litigation processes. The court has hired and trained mediators for that purpose. CHAIRMAN DYSON asked Mr. Webb what other child protection agencies around the country do in terms of the ombudsman's function or mediation or alternative complaint resolution. Number 1324 MR. WEBB answered that many states take advantage of mediation processes much like the court established here. Some agencies have an internal ombudsman. Some other states, like Alaska, have its own ombudsman office separated from other things. Mr. Spengler doesn't precisely serve an ombudsman function, but he certainly serves something akin to that in terms of fielding complaints and trying to resolve them. In addition, Alaska has a grievance process in regulation which most states don't have. CHAIRMAN DYSON commented that many of the complaints his office receives often have to do with either the investigator getting bad information and/or believing the wrong people or being unfair, or being a monster, or having attitude or being prejudiced and so on--not the sort of things of classic mediation. There is a real problem with actions and decisions, and in some cases there is justification. It is an emotional issue. The perception of many people who have encountered DFYS in an adversarial role is that all of the resolution systems are in-house, and therefore very suspect. He asked Mr. Webb to help the committee in the next few months to find what other jurisdictions have done with that issue and see if there is a way to increase the confidence of the public that there is an objective review and certainly fund it. Number 1477 REPRESENTATIVE KEMPLEN asked Mr. Webb if there were any statistics on false accusations and how the department has responded to those. MR. WEBB answered the department doesn't have a record of false allegations; those are exceptionally rare. In his experience, he doesn't know of a false allegation. He believes what sometimes occurs is people make a good faith allegation that are not particularly well-based. The examples of those that he is familiar with are instances, particularly in custody battles, between estranged parents. He has not found those to be false allegations; in other words, he believes that the people believe that they are making a legitimate complaint; they have a legitimate concern. The concern may not be well founded, but they believe it with all their heart. REPRESENTATIVE KEMPLEN asked Mr. Webb about the priorities that the department responds to in terms of a situation. If someone says this is priority one and the department says no, it is actually a priority three, how does the department keep track of that. He wondered how the department assesses which ones were indeed legitimate priority one cases and which ones were in reality priority three cases. MR. WEBB answered the priorities are based on the information that comes into the department. The priorities essentially are based on the risk of harm alleged, the child's age, the danger presented in that kind of information as well as prior reports of harm. The department doesn't know until it gets there what it will look like. The department is able to assess what is found in an investigation after the data is recorded. To some degree those two things can be compared. People don't call the department and say they have a priority one; they call them with the information of the kind of harm they believe is occurring to the child, and it is the department's assessment of whether it is a priority one, two or three. REPRESENTATIVE KEMPLEN asked if statistics are kept on how the department responded based on its evaluation of either downgrading or upgrading these calls. Number 1667 DEIRDRE O'CONNOR, Children Services Manager, Southeast Region, Family Services, Division of Family and Youth Services, Department of Health & Social Services, came forward to answer questions. The priority levels are what DFYS uses to determine when it first needs to get out to see the family, and how long a time the DFYS believes the victim will most likely be able to be safe and not receive further harm. If it is identified initially as a priority three, it is going to be a priority three until DFYS goes out and sees the family. If at that point it is realized that lots of circumstances exist that were not related to the DFYS, and it needs to act very quickly to protect the child, the DFYS doesn't necessarily go back and change the priority level because at that point it is actively involved in the investigation. The DFYS is working on the family's need as opposed to what the report of harm needs to be called. MS. O'CONNOR noted if there is a case identified as priority three and then two days later another report of harm is reported on the same child or family, that will come up as that information is entered in the current MIS. That would then be upgraded to a priority two or one because two reports of harm were received in a very short time which says it is a very significant situation. Once the DFYS actually lays eyes on the child, whether or not it is a priority one, two or three, is of less importance than doing an assessment of risk of harm to the child. MR. WEBB added the brief answer is the DFYS hasn't compared that information. What does occurs though, in some instances, based on the assessment of the information the DFYS got, it may be a priority one, but when the DFYS goes out, it finds that the situation is not as it appeared to be. The same things occurs on the reverse side. There may be a priority three report and after investigation, it turns out that the child is at great risk of harm. He doesn't have the data that tells him how many of those occur. REPRESENTATIVE KEMPLEN concluded that Mr. Webb couldn't tell him how many priority ones occurred within the past month. MR. WEBB said he could tell him that, but he could not tell him how many priority ones, upon investigation, were actually priority two or three and vice versa. REPRESENTATIVE KEMPLEN asked for the reasons why that information is not available. MR. WEBB answered that information is not recorded; all that really matters is what action is needed to protect the child. The priority system is designed for resource allocation, not for ranking risk at the time of investigation. The value of it is gone at the time the resource has been allocated. REPRESENTATIVE KEMPLEN asked Ms. Davidson if she thought this priority ranking would fit into the category that she reported that no consistent policies and procedures were in place for reports of harm. MS. DAVIDSON answered yes, there is a priority ranking system, but what was seen in some regions was risk category three was not being responded to but priority one and two were being responded to. Other regions responded to priority one, some priority two cases weren't being responded to and none of the priority three cases were being responded to. While there was a ranking system, it fell apart in consistent decision making. Number 1855 CHAIRMAN DYSON asked Mr. Webb for the department's response to the children who have aged out or gotten out of the system and have had real problems in transition. [This is referenced from a letter from Tony Lombardo of Covenant House Alaska in Anchorage to Representative Dyson.] MR. WEBB replied there is no question that there are kids who have difficulty in transition. He believes that the people at Covenant House see kids who have had contact with DFYS at various times in their lives, some of whom may have run away from a foster home or other things. He asked some of the staff to take a look at a list provided by Representative Dyson, and the staff was able to identify five or six of the kids on the list even though last names were not given. It seems fairly clear that Covenant House doesn't have some of the information. MR. WEBB indicated that some of the people on the list have been dropped from DFYS care and are in residential care. It is not clear to him how accurate the list is, but there clearly is a problem helping kids transition out of DFYS custody, and there clearly is a problem with some kids coming to Covenant House as runaways from their parents. Those kids may allege abuse or neglect; the DFYS may do an investigation and find out that there are willing and able parents capable of caring for those kids, and the kids simply don't want to return home. Those are not child protection cases necessarily; those are kids with problems and some of them are open cases. There is a runaway position in Anchorage that tries to work with those kids. CHAIRMAN DYSON summarized Mr. Webb's answer that some of those kids were in state custody or runaway status. Some of those kids are kids who have either never been or may not have gone through reunification or alternative placement and the case was closed, but they did at some point in their life have contact with DFYS. He wondered if there is another category. MR. WEBB said there potentially is another category, one where the case is closed, the kid becomes an adult and receives a significant amount of money. The department holds in trust the permanent fund dividends, as it legally has to do, which is released to the person when he/she becomes an adult. In one case, the young adult ended back in Covenant House soon after his release without the money. That is precisely the kind of issue that needs to be dealt with through transition independent living training. Kids need to learn how to manage their money and be prepared to be adults before they get the money. Number 2050 TONY LOMBARDO, Director of Advocacy, Covenant House Alaska, testified via teleconference from Anchorage. He wanted to raise this issue on behalf of the program staff. They are not trying to cast any dispersions on DFYS, but there are information flow issues. The Covenant House would like to ascertain as best it can where these kids are coming from because for the staff, the kids are real case histories. The staff are concerned that there are youth who receive the trust funds and are released right to the street without anywhere to go. There are possibly kids being released before they are 18 for a variety of reasons, whether they are runaways, they simply can't ascertain their custodial status but the Covenant House is just seeking a solution to a better interface with DFYS on behalf of the kids. CHAIRMAN DYSON asked Mr. Lombardo if he or someone on the staff would be willing to serve on a task force to work on this problem. MR. LOMBARDO replied absolutely. CHAIRMAN DYSON asked Mr. Webb if there was someone in DFYS in Anchorage that Mr. Lombardo could touch base with to facilitate the communication breakdown. MR. WEBB suggested that James Steele, the Children's Services Manager in Anchorage, would be more than happy to talk with Mr. Lombardo. In regard to the question about a task force, he suggested contacting Ms. O'Connor. With the federal money that is coming, there are some some requirements that DFYS will work with collaborative partners in the community, like Covenant House, and thus DFYS would be happy to include them in that planning process. CHAIRMAN DYSON asked if the federal act and the funding allow for some financial support to the community partners. MR. WEBB noted he couldn't answer that question because he didn't know all the "strings attached to the dollars." REPRESENTATIVE KEMPLEN asked what happens if there is a false accusation called in to DFYS. Number 2149 MR. WEBB said it would be difficult to determine if it was a false accusation as opposed to the kind he described earlier. For example, reports of harm may come in anonymously and the intent of the reporter cannot be interpreted. The DFYS can try to assess and get as much information about that as it can. The DFYS can go out and determine whether the report had a foundation or not; but it is not in the business of doing criminal investigations about the intent of the reporter. If there is no foundation to the report, then the DFYS will take no further action. REPRESENTATIVE KEMPLEN asked if there is a penalty for someone saying something false. CHAIRMAN DYSON interjected to Representative Kemplen that that subject has come up a lot of times. A fair number of the reports are spite motivated and have to do with custody hearings, jealousy and all kinds of stuff. Quite a bit of time has been spent trying to figure out how to deal with that but also not inhibit people feeling the freedom to report when they are not sure, but it appears to them there is harm. CHAIRMAN DYSON told Mr. Webb that more than a year ago a group met and wanted to get a brochure out to give to parents when a child is taken from them. He would like the department's assurance when he gets his part done, that the department will review and approve it and will start using it. He asked if, at this point, parents who have lost custody of their children temporarily or whatever have adequate access to legal help. MR. WEBB answered if parents are unable to afford counsel, the court will appoint counsel for them. He believes that is working. The public defender and OPA [Office of Public Advocacy] are constrained in terms of their budget, but this is a priority area. CHAIRMAN DYSON said another one he is eager to work on is the independent ombudsman suggestion and the resurrection of the foster care review board. CHAIRMAN DYSON indicated this is not the end; the committee is all going to stay involved in this issue. If people have their questions faxed in, he will try to get some of those answers for them. ADJOURNMENT There being no further business before the committee, the House Health, Education and Social Services Standing Committee meeting was adjourned at 4:11 p.m.