The DHS Office of Family Advocates' Stacie Bladen and Seth Persky present a video case review of a child fatality. This month's example involves a 5 month old who died as a result of accidental suffocation. In addition to reviewing areas of interest in this fatality, they reinforce infant safe sleep practices.
To view the video click here.

The DHS Office of Family Advocates' Stacie Bladen and Seth Persky present a video case review of a child fatality. This month's example involves a teen male who died as a result of suicide. To view the video click here.

Stacie Bladen
Director, Office of Family Advocate
Department of Human Services

Teens in foster care face considerable individual and family challenges that place them at an elevated risk of becoming a teen parent. Child Trends has released a new research brief, Teen Parents in Foster Care: Risk Factors and Outcomes for Teens and Their Children, which reviews existing research literature on teens in foster care and examines analyses of primarily regional data to assess the extent to which teens in foster care are at risk of teen pregnancy and parenting. Existing studies suggest that teens in foster care have higher rates of teen pregnancy and parenthood than youth not in care. More than 160,000 of the children in foster care were over 12 years old in 2009.

On the basis of the research highlighted in this brief, Child Trends identifies several challenges to reducing rates of pregnancy and childbearing among teens in foster care and to preventing negative outcomes for these teen parents and their children. With this brief, we hope to increase understanding of this high-risk population; to inform strategies to reduce teen pregnancies in foster care and support teen parents in foster care and their children; and to identify issues that need further research.

This research was supported by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

The Federation is pleased to present its Annual Report to the Membership • September 2011. Please see the attachment below.

BY ROBIN ERB DETROIT FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

The Michigan Foster Care Review Board would like to share with you its 2010 Annual Report:

http://courts.michigan.gov/scao//resources/publications/reports/fcrb/fcrb_ar10.pdf

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The Foster Care Review Board (FCRB) is a program established by the legislature to provide third-party review of foster care placements and related matters. There are 30 local review boards throughout the state, comprised of citizen volunteers. For those who are not familiar with the program, complete information can be found at
http://courts.michigan.gov/scao/services/fcrb/fcrb.htm

The 2011 Salary & Fringe Benefit Survey of Private Agencies Summary Report has been issued!

See the attached brochure for how to purchase the 2011 report....

2011 Salary Survey Report…What’s in it? How can it help my agency? The 126-page 2011 Salary & Fringe Benefit Survey Summary Report reflects data as of January 31, 2011, including a compilation of actual salaries of over 5,000 employees across 73 job classifications within 44 Michigan private, nonprofit child and family service agencies. The report also includes extensive and detailed information related to employee benefits, making it that much easier to compare your agency's compensation packages to agencies across the state and in your region of the state. All data in the report is presented geographically: statewide, SE Michigan counties and counties outside of SE Michigan.

The brochure attached (SalSurRptWhatsInIt.pdf) spells out important uses for the report’s data, including a new IRS Form 990 requirement to document “reasonable compensation" paid to key employees. Read more about this in the attached BDO USA article titled, “Compensation and Transactions on the New Form 990.”

NEW YORK, Oct. 21, 2010 – An extensive examination of adoptive families in the United States, released today, concludes that too many are not receiving the essential services they need, and calls for a reshaping of national priorities and resources to develop and provide such services.

In an effort to demonstrate the breadth of professional support for a “paradigm shift,” major child welfare and adoption organizations across the country joined in endorsing the 98-page report, which was researched and published by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute and is entitled “Keeping the Promise: The Critical Need for Post-Adoption Services to Enable Children and Families to Succeed.”

The report stresses that the vast majority of adopted children function normally – and their parents are highly satisfied with their families. But it also points out that just over the past 15 years, nearly a million boys and girls were adopted by Americans from foster care in our country and from orphanages abroad, and the majority of U.S. adoptions continue to be of those types (by far, mostly from state child welfare systems).

Nearly half of Michigan’s babies are born to mothers in cities or communities larger than 25,000. And many of those children start life without equal opportunities to thrive, arrive at school ready to learn and go on to become part of a highly educated workforce, according to “Right Start in Michigan 2010 – The Other Half.”

The report, released by the Michigan League for Human Services’ Kids Count in Michigan project, looks at eight indicators of maternal and infant health across 69 communities of populations of at least 25,000. It sorts those communities by risk, finding that two of every five births were in high-risk communities, including most racial minority births. It also found large disparities based on race and poverty.

The 2010 Salary & Fringe Benefit Survey Summary Report reflects data current as of January 31, 2010, including a compilation of actual salaries of 4,890 employees across 71 job classifications within 41 Michigan private, nonprofit child and family service agencies, presented geographically: statewide, SE Michigan counties and counties outside of SE Michigan.

This 126-page report includes statewide aggregate data, plus four breakdowns of the General Information, Fringe Benefits, Staff Turnover Report, and Salaries Report by size of agency. This amount of detail allows for a close comparison among similarly sized organizations as agencies consider their own employee compensation packages.

This annual report is one of the many benefits of Full Membership in the Michigan Federation for Children and Families; there is no extra charge for participation and a copy of the summary report.

The 2010 report is available to non-participating non-members for $200 per copy; $150 per copy for Affiliate and Individual Federation members.

Send your request and check to: Michigan Federation for Children and Families, 320 N. Washington Square, Suite 100, Lansing MI 48933. The printed report will be sent directly to you as soon as your payment is received.

This report, submitted pursuant to 1997 PA 170, § 9, provides an overview of the review board’s functions and program activity details from this past year. Included are data, trend summaries, and observations gleaned by the board during 2009 from the review of cases involving over 1,300 children in foster care. These reviews were conducted by 200 dedicated and well-trained citizen volunteers. The information obtained from case reviews provides an objective, third-party evaluation of the care that Michigan’s foster care system provides to abused and neglected children.

This year’s report and recommendations address significant issues related to achieving safe and timely permanency for children in foster care, particularly in the area of parent-child reunification.

The Foster Care Review Board (FCRB) is a program established by the legislature to provide third-party review of foster care placements and related matters. There are 30 local review boards throughout the state, comprised of citizen volunteers. For those who are not familiar with the program, complete information can be found at
http://courts.michigan.gov/scao/services/fcrb/fcrb.htm

The Dwayne B. v. Granholm consent decree requires DHS to develop and implement a statewide Quality Assurance (QA) program, directed by a QA Unit established within the DHS central office. The Child Welfare QA Unit has been established as a division of the Child Welfare Improvement Bureau to ensure the provision of service in accordance with DHS philosophy. The Child Welfare QA Unit’s aim is to foster a continuous quality improvement (CQI) culture throughout DHS by introducing CQI concepts to all levels of the child welfare system, training staff on improvement processes and integrating CQI philosophy into long-term and everyday decision making. The QA unit has developed an internal capacity to undertake data collection, verification, and analysis in addition to case record reviews for the higher risk cases identified in the consent decree.

After the submission of the CQI plan in April 2009, the QA Unit began to conduct special reviews as specified by the consent decree. The Data Management Unit (DMU) provides an initial list of identified cases for the high-risk categories. The QA Unit reviews each identified case in the Foster Care Services Worker Support System (SWSS-FAJ) to pre-screen for possible data errors, and ensure that the case meets the cohort definition. The DMU and the QA Unit will continue to refine the querying process to the fullest extent possible.

The QA Unit completed special reviews for Period Three: October 1, 2009 through March 31, 2010. This report is a summary of the findings for the special case reviews conducted for during this period.

The Michigan Department of Human Services (DHS) is responsible for administering the state’s child welfare program. The DHS mission includes a commitment to ensure that children and youths are safe; to sustain a higher quality of life; and to give children in DHS permanent and stable family lives. The DHS Children’s Services Administration is responsible for planning, directing and coordinating statewide child welfare programs, including social services provided directly by DHS via statewide local offices and services provided by private child-placing agencies.

A settlement agreement was signed July 3, 2008 and a final consent decree was entered on October 28, 2008. Since then, DHS has made significant strides to improve the quality of service to children and families in the child welfare system by reducing caseloads for its workers, moving more children to permanency, reducing the number of children in out-of-home care, launching a continuous quality improvement system, increasing oversight of contracted providers, and developing extensive data reporting capabilities.

The consent decree requires DHS to ensure that qualified and competent individuals conduct a fatality review independent of the county in which the fatality occurred for each child who died while in the foster care custody of DHS. The fatality review process is overseen by the Office of Family Advocate.

This report was prepared in response to a request from Page Walley, Casey Family Programs Managing Director for Strategic Consulting, for an analysis of the privatization efforts of Kansas and Florida. Kansas and Florida were chosen because they are the only two states that have privatized all child welfare services – other than investigations – statewide.

Following a review of the recent literature on child welfare privatization, including independent evaluations, government reports, and state assessments, nine interviews were conducted with private provider staff from Kansas and Florida directly involved with the privatization initiative
and a national consultant on privatization in the target states. The state’s perspective was primarily captured through interviews with current private providers who worked for Florida’s Department of Children and Families at the time of the transition to privatization, as well as information compiled during a March 2009 Casey Family Programs visit with Florida state leadership.

The report includes contextual information on privatization across the states, historical background on the Kansas and Florida initiatives, a summary of challenges and lessons learned during the transition process, the benefits of privatization, and performance and fiscal outcomes. Appendix A provides a table comparing the key components of the two privatization models.

Report from Chapin Hall: Midwest Evaluation of the Adult Functioning of Former Foster Youth
http://chapinhall.org/research/report/midwest-evaluation-adult-functioni...

Mark E. Courtney, Amy Dworsky, JoAnn S. Lee, Melissa Raap, Gretchen Ruth Cusick, Thomas Keller, Judy Havlicek, Alfred Perez, Sherri Terao, Noel Bost
2010

The Midwest Evaluation of the Adult Functioning of Former Foster Youth (Midwest Study) is a prospective study that has been following a sample of young people from Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois as they transition out of foster care into adulthood. It is a collaborative effort involving Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago; Partners for Our Children at the University of Washington, Seattle; the University of Wisconsin Survey Center; and the public child welfare agencies in Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin.

The Midwest Study provides a comprehensive picture of how foster youth are faring during this transition since the Foster Care Independence Act of 1999 became law. Foster youth in Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois were eligible to participate in the study if they had entered care before their 16th birthday, were still in care at age 17, and had been removed from home for reasons other than delinquency. Baseline survey data were collected from 732 study participants when they were 17 or 18 years old. Study participants were re-interviewed at ages 19 (n = 603), 21 (n = 591), and 23 or 24 (n = 602). A fifth wave of survey data will be collected when study participants are 25 or 26 years old.

For background and current status of the federal Adoption Tax Credit, download the attached Adoption Advocate newsletter issued by the National Council for Adoption.

Additionally, these sites are listed for your convenience:

• The IRS tax topic can be viewed at http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc607.html
• The entire IRS publication is available at http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-prior/p968--2002.pdf
• Forms referenced in the newsletter can be accessed at:
  http://www.irs.gov/formspubs/index.html?portlet=3
  http://www.ssa.gov/online/