Senate Children and Youth and House Aging, Children and Youth, Legislative and Military Affairs
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All right, members, if you'll take your seats, we're going to
get started. So, before we get started, I would like to,
we, Representative Feit has, we got a card for Blake and Sheila, and our appreciation for all your help with us in this committee.
Thank you guys so much. And so next up, we're going to
go with Representative Feit. Do you have anything? Just welcome all of
Representative Charlene Fite
Unverified
0:39
you to come at 10 o'clock or as soon as we're finished here up to the old Supreme Courtroom. And we're going to be having Christmas at the Capitol where we've brought gifts for our children who are in foster care and in DYS services. And it's a wonderful time. I hope you can all come and join us at least for a little while.
All right. We're going to start with our next is item C, consideration to approve the minutes of
November 4th, 2019. Anybody need to look over those, or do I have a motion to approve the minutes? I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? And without objection, members, I would like to start with item K, so Director Martin can get upstairs and do all of her handshaking before the toy drive.
Without objection, Director Martin, you're recognized. Oh, I think I just
Speaker 13
1:54
broke something. Good morning. I'm Misha Martin. I'm the Director of Children and Family Services at DHS. I have two reports to present today. I'll start with Exhibit J, which is the overturned
investigation report. It's a super simple report, and so this was actually a part of a legislative act that was passed in 2017 requiring us to report this information. And so you can see that once an investigation is complete you and I let me just walk you through the columns looking on exhibit J it's broke down by counties you can see the number of calls received by the hotline broke down by county and then you'll also see
on the far left the area those are just DCFS specific areas and if you'd like to reference the areas it's on the front page on the cover of exhibit K if you'd like to reference the DCFS area. But then the next column is county. You can see the number of calls received by the hotline, and then the number of calls that are accepted, which means they're going to an investigation. The next column, you'll see the number of investigations found true, and that's the actual number. The next column is the percentage of those investigations found true.
And then once an investigation is found true, the offender is notified and receives notice. They have the opportunity to appeal that finding to the Office of Appeals and Hearings, which is within DHS, but separate from DCFS. And you can see the actual number that were appealed. And then the next column is the percentage, followed by the number of the ones that were appealed, the number that were overturned, followed by the percentage. And then you can see the last two, percentage of
true investigations overturn and percentage of all investigations overturn. And that's basically the breakdown. That is the report on overturned investigations report wrote down by county. If there are no questions, I can move to the next report. Are there any questions? That was item
J. No, you're on item K there. J is the spreadsheet looking thing. Yeah.
Speaker 16
4:11
No, we started with J. We started with J. All
right. Seeing no further questions, we'll consider Exhibit J or Item J reviewed. Moving on to Exhibit K. So K is the
Speaker 19
4:24
Quarterly Performance Report, and we'll start with the first quarter of
Speaker 13
4:28
SFY 2020. And because I know that there is a long agenda and I present this at every meeting, I'm going to really try and just hit the highlights of this report and then take questions. So I will be skipping over some of the charts and graphs.
As usual, page one talks about the number of maltreatment reports we received, and then broke down in the red is whether they were assigned to DCFS for an investigation or assigned to our differential response. Again, you can see a definition of differential response on the right ribbon on page one. Moving forward on page two, at the bottom of page two, you can see the percentage of children in true allegations and the type of allegation. remaining about the same neglect than physical abuse, sexual abuse, sexual exploitation, and
abandonment. I'm going to again move very quickly to page four. You can see timeliness of initiations and child maltreatment assessments or what we call investigations and we do compare it to prior quarters. You can see priority one is 24-hour response time, priority two is 72-hour response time and then a combined total. And as you will see, we've stayed about average with the prior quarters. Moving on to page six, I'm going to skip forward to in-home services. So if a report is
found true and we do not remove the children, then we provide an in-home service case to the family. You can see that we, at the end of the first quarter, we were serving 5,296 children and in-home cases and that is pretty consistent with the prior three quarters as far as open cases the open cases of the blue on the top you can also looking at page eight you can see the ages of the children that we're serving on in-home cases and the circular chart at the top of page
eight and then important on the bottom of page eight is our number of our percentage of in-home visits that that we made um on those in-home cases again remained about steady with the past three quarters moving on to page 10 this is our section on foster care as is consistent with several years now if you look on page 11 you'll see that neglect and substance abuse continue to be the main reason for children entering foster care and again i'll note that children can have multiple reasons for entering foster care example would be many times if a parent is using substance
of use, there's also neglect involved. So you can see that 51% entered foster care because of neglect and 45% substance abuse, but there again, a child could have multiple reasons. Looking on the bottom of page 11, you'll see the reasons for children's discharge from foster care. Again, reunification continued to be the highest percentage of children, followed up by adoption, relative custody, children aging out and so so forth and so on. I guess I should also note that our children in
foster care saw a slight rise in the a very slight rise in the first quarter. As of yesterday we were back down to 4,270 children. We always see an uptick around the beginning of school and then kids start discharging around Christmas. Moving on to page 12 looking at length of time that children in foster care. That's the top chart on page 12. How long, like how long kids are in foster care and the percentage breakdown. Again, that's on the top of page 12. And then moving on
to page 13, you can see foster children who receive monthly face-to-face visits from case workers. Again, remaining about steady for the last three quarters. Moving on to page 14, siblings placed together. We saw a slight decrease in siblings placed together, but that continues to be a focus and i suspect that you'll see an increase in the next quarter but we are monitoring closely page 15 permanency within 12 months we've been very focused on this at the department making sure that kids are moving through this system to safe and permanent placements we had seen some
increases and as you can tell in this last quarter it had dropped from 55 to 46 percent we also saw a decline in re-entries into foster care and are now below the national average which is a good thing moving on to page 16 you can see our adoption information we have 457 kids avail the number of children available for adoption so 457 children available for adoption at the end of the quarter you can also see length of time from tpr to finalization of adoption on 17 we saw a
slight increase this is part of our permanency focus and will be something that we're focusing on the next year to really see that a decrease from timeliness to adoption from termination of penal rights to finalization of adoption. You can see on page 18, the number of adoptions that we finalized, a slight increase from the fourth quarter, but pretty steady over the last four quarters. And then on page 19, you can see a breakdown of the number of cases that we had of each type of case, investigations, different response, foster care, in-home supportive service, and
ICPC which is out of state placements that's the actual number at the end of the quarter and then you can see on the bottom of page 19 a total number of cases that we served through the quarter moving on to page 20 you can see that we had a slight uptick in our in our caseload again similar with foster care we always see that uptick coming around the start of school and then it starts to decline around this time frame so I suspect that you will see a slight decrease we're always the lowest in the summer where we hit the lowest at 18 back up to 21 and I suspect it'll start
declining again um you can see on page 21 the foster bed to children ratio we had a slight decrease but it remains about about steady and then the the last few pages are just appendices that are that um reference additional information that's provided in the report and I always note on page 24 it which is super important to look at the county caseload not just the overall state so you can see the breakdown in your counties of what the actual caseload was at the end of the
Chair
Unverified
10:41
quarter on page 24. are there any questions from the committee representative richardson you're recognized thank you mr chair uh on the page 14 where you talked about the uh the ones being placed together has gone backwards a little bit what's the any idea of what causes that those kids that
Representative Jay Richardson
Unverified
11:10
are not being placed together i'll tell you it's just was an
Speaker 13
11:14
increase of entries into foster care so when we had that increase in initial placement um we have trouble with that initial placement, placing siblings together. So I think that that's caused for one of the declines of the number of children placed in foster care. I suspect
it will see increase over the
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
11:39
next quarter. Okay. Thank you. Representative Crawford, you recognize? Thank you, Mr. Chair. My
question was the same. However, I do know that laws, regulations
have changed to where, like the Young's Children's Home in Fort Smith, they had to change their host staffing to where they couldn't use house parents, that they had to use staff people. That's what some of my constituents have told me. Is that correct?
Speaker 13
12:08
No, ma'am. So Young's Home is specifically taking siblings and focus on siblings, and they are a house parent model. Now, they have multiple houses on that property.
Right, they have four. Right, and so three are the house parent model that are focused on taking siblings. One is licensed as emergency shelter. One is like what? Licensed as emergency shelter. They chose to utilize that house as an emergency shelter, but they're still using the house parent model too, right? Yeah, that emergency shelter is still being staffed by house parents, not shift staff. Okay,
Representative Cindy Crawford
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12:47
what changed in the regulations? Something changed. Are you referring
Speaker 13
12:52
to Maggie's house? Well, Maggie's house is part, I know. So Young's home is one, like, the bigger umbrella is free will, and free will has Young's home, and they also have Maggie's house, and they also have Florence Crittenden and Little Rock. Young's home is still houses with house parents focused on taking siblings. Maggie's House is a qualified residential treatment program that does have shift staff and takes children that have been assessed with serious emotional behavioral
disturbances. So that is a new type of provider. That's a new type of provider type. And that is what Maggie's House is now a QRTP. Florence Crittenden in Little Rock is now a emergency shelter. And they are run by shift staff as
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
13:44
well. Okay. What changed that? Was it the pass? Was it the funding? No, ma'am. No,
Speaker 13
13:51
ma'am. So as the division and the federal government has moved
to place our children either in a home with house parents or in a treatment type model, we realigned our contracts. So even though we do not receive federal funding now for Young's Home, We value house parents and siblings, and we worked with some providers who have house parents to ensure that we still partnered with those to make sure that we had placements for our large sibling groups. Okay, I think you
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
14:20
just touched on it, what I was after. The federal funding stopped if it were house parents.
Speaker 28
14:26
But we still pay state general revenue. We
Speaker 13
14:29
still have a contract for Young's Home. We still have a contract. We are still paying the same rate. We are using state general revenue only to fund Young's Home. I just know that
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
14:38
it really upset all of Fort Smith when that was happening. I just wanted to follow up. I won't take any more time.
Thank you. Thank you. Senator Stubblefield, you're recognized. Thank
Senator Gary Stubblefield
Unverified
14:48
you, Mr. Chairman. Misha, is there a direct correlation between the number of cases and caseworker as far as the success rate you have on these caseworkers?
I can't provide you a... You've got two counties here with a caseworker on 40-plus cases. How can
Speaker 13
15:05
that be? So a lot of times you'll see an increase in caseloads because we've lost staff. But to answer your first question, absolutely. If caseworkers have a large case, kids are slower to permanency, we have issues. Now, the problem is not so much that we don't have the positions. You guys gave us the positions, and we regularly run anywhere from 80 to 100 vacant positions that we're advertising and trying to hire.
So areas with the higher caseload, usually we have a new worker that has a lower caseload on there, or we have a vacant position where we're trying to hire somebody in the community. So a lot of caseworkers from surrounding
Senator Gary Stubblefield
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15:41
counties that have lower caseloads to come in and help those. Absolutely. And you do do that? Yes, sir. Absolutely. In fact, we are we doing it in cross and
Speaker 13
15:55
Clark County? Well, so even if there are counties coming in to support that county, it wouldn't change the caseload.
So we have a SWAT team, statewide assist team that we send in. We also, so the first line of defense when we have a staff exit and a shortage is to ask the area or the county, can we pull from the surrounding counties to support that county? But it may not be that the cases actually get assigned in the computer to new people. It may be that those people come over and do visits or they help with making referrals. They may not actually get the case assigned to them. They support that casework until we can get somebody hired and trained to take on.
The next line of defense is then sending in the statewide assist team to support a county that's in crisis. So we have a couple of things that we try and do to support a county if they've lost staff and are trying to get
Senator Gary Stubblefield
Unverified
16:48
back balanced. How does that number need to get before they become
Speaker 13
16:52
a crisis? Oh, it can become a crisis, not just on caseloads, but we also look at overdue investigations. But, you know, if they're in the 40s, we're
Speaker 28
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in crisis and looking at how to support that county until we can get it leveled off.
Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Representative Birch, you
Representative LeAnne Burch
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17:10
recognize. Thank you, Mr. Chair. With regard to the caseload numbers, do those just include foster cases or are they also protective
Speaker 13
17:17
services cases? It includes everything. It includes everything. Those caseloads number is a combination. A worker might have multiple types of cases, especially in the rural county, so it's all types of cases. So
Representative LeAnne Burch
Unverified
17:27
there's no way for us, because what I'm concerned about is going back to page 8, where only one in four are the protective services cases. Somebody's in the home once a month,
and I can't tell whether that's a problem in my county. I'm sorry, one in four doesn't get a visit. Right, right, right. So I can't tell, based on this report, whether that's a
Speaker 64
17:47
problem in my counties. Is there something I'm missing in this report that would tell me that? No, probably
Speaker 13
17:55
not, but we could do a breakout for you. I mean, in-home visits has really been a priority for us, and we've seen it. So in that first quarter, when our numbers of investigations, you can see numbers of removal goes up, our visits go down, but we should see an increase in the next quarter.
Okay, I'll get back to that. But we can get some breakdown for you. You know, we have a core report that comes out once a month that details caseloads and what the caseload makeup is by
Senator Alan Clark
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18:31
type all the way down to the individual worker across the state. Okay. Thank you. Senator Allen Clark, you recognize? Thank you, Mr. Chair. With keeping these foster parents,
it's important. One of the things that's important is respite care. And I came across a situation that I'm sure is not y'all's policy, but I've got somebody who was trained by Compaq, and they're not allowed to do respite care for the call, people who were trained by the call, and that didn't make any sense to them or me.
Speaker 13
19:02
Do you know anything about that? So that's a super specific situation that we probably need to work on that particular case. But what it sounds like is the compact is a private license placement agency, and they recruit foster homes, and they license the foster homes themselves, whereas DHS homes are licensed by us. But we could work through that, I think. I mean, it's a licensing issue, but that's something that we could. It's just the fact that call homes are really DHS homes that are licensed by us,
and you're talking about a compact home that's licensed by them, but we just need to know that specific case so that we can work through those issues.
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
19:41
Okay, yeah, I didn't think it would be that hard to work through, but, yes, they've got other folks that would like to use them for respite care and can't, and that just doesn't make any sense. I
Speaker 13
19:49
think it's just something we need to sit down with compact and us and figure out if we can work through it. I think
we can. Okay, thank you. Is Representative Stuart Smith in? He's on my list, so I'm just seconding to go.
Speaker 40
20:03
we'll come back well you may check with him on
your way out okay there's a question i'm sorry i missed the name uh representative stew smith yeah are there any other questions from any
committee members if not thank you director martin okay next up we're going to move on to item d mark white and members i'm going to ask mark since he's on here twice to do d If there's a problem with that, let me know.
But since he's up now, I'll let him stay and do
Chair
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20:50
both D and H. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mark White, DHS Chief of Legislative
Speaker 85
20:56
Intergovernmental Affairs. Ashlyn Abney, Assistant Director, Division of Child Care and Early Childhood Education.
Speaker 88
21:02
Kelly Hilburn, Program Manager for the Child Care Licensing Unit.
Speaker 91
21:06
You're recognized. Good morning, everyone. We are here today to visit with you about the minimum licensing requirements. Because of State Act 530 of 2019 and the Federal Child Care Development Block Grant of 2014, we are mandated to update our regulations in the areas of child maltreatment reporting and criminal background checks, also job training and disaster preparedness.
Chair
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21:39
And Mr. Chairman, I'll just mention, I know there are four separate items listed here, D1 through D3. We have the same changes made in each of those individual sets of rules, and so certainly we can answer questions about those. I just want to let you know that it will be the same changes throughout all three, all four of those exhibits. Are there any questions
from the committee on these changes? On D1, we're going to have to, it may just be
a formality, but I need to go through each one individually.
Are there any questions on Exhibit D? Seeing none, we'll consider it reviewed. Please
move on to D1. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. I need a motion to review that. Do I have a motion? I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed say no.
Motion carried out. Item D is reviewed. Moving on to item D1. You're
Chair
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22:44
recognized. And then item D1 is implementing the same changes
and our licensing rules for out-of-school-time facilities, all just implementing acts from the previous session. Senator Clark, you're recognized? Yes. Mark, is there any questions we should
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
22:58
be asking here? I don't believe so. I mean, all this is is just taking
Chair
Unverified
23:04
acts that were passed in the session and we're just adding those to the rules. And so I don't believe there's anything in which we've expanded on the acts or gone beyond them. So it's just all we're doing is just updating them to reflect the acts passed in session.
Speaker 91
23:20
Right. So this is just to comply with what is already the state and federal law. So this is a part. So for an example, the child maltreatment updates in the manuals across the board, just to make sure that everyone understands that they are a mandated reporter. They've always been a mandated reporter that have interactions with children. Now, the licensing requirements explicitly state that.
Also, in the Act 530, made an additional language to say that people that interact with children also have to report. If they believe that children are in intermittent danger, they need to report to local law enforcement. So it's, again, changes that were already put into the state or federal law that we need to comply with into our minimum licensing requirements. Senator Clark?
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
24:20
Yes. Are there any other substantial
Representative Cindy Crawford
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24:31
changes? No, sir. Representative Crawford? Thank you. On page five of Exhibit D, it talks about the prospective staff member may not begin to work until they receive back from the Arkansas State Police. That can take up to 30 days.
Have you guys done something to help that to where it can be done quicker? Yes,
Speaker 85
24:59
ma'am. We are in the process of automation, so we've worked closely with the Arkansas State Police,
Speaker 91
25:05
as well as internal people at DHS. We are anticipating that to go live in January, about mid-January, and we're expecting those turnarounds to be much quicker. Okay, thank you. Okay, Representative Birch, you were satisfied?
Okay. Are there any other questions on item D1? Seeing none, I need a motion
and a second. Motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, say no. Item D1 has been reviewed. Moving on to Exhibit
Chair
Unverified
25:44
D2. And then Item D2, again, the same changes, but made for the minimum licensing requirements for licensed child care family homes. Are there any questions on Item D2?
Senator Clark, you're recognized. Same questions. Yes, sir. Oh, I
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
25:59
apologize. Yes, sir. No substantial changes. Yes, sir. That's right. Thank you. Any other questions
from the committee? Seeing none, I need a motion. I've got a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed say no. The motion carries. Has been reviewed.
That was D3, right? That's D2. D2. All right, now we're moving on to Exhibit D3. You're recognized. Thank you, Mr.
Chair
Unverified
26:33
Chairman. And then D3, again, the same set of changes. No other substantial changes made regarding the minimum licensing requirements for registered child care family homes. Are there any questions from the committee? Seeing none, I need a
motion to review. I have a motion from Senator Clark.
Second from Representative Birch. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, say no. Motion carries. Item D3 has been approved. Thank you very much. Thank you, you're welcome. And as we said, we're
Speaker 112
27:09
going to skip on since Mark's at the end of the
table. Oh, since Mark's at the end of the table, we're going
Chair
Unverified
27:18
to move on to item H. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll be joined by some representatives from the Division of Youth Services. Let them introduce themselves.
Speaker 114
27:28
MR. Good morning, Mark Golden, Assistant Director of
Speaker 116
27:34
DYS. MS. Marcella Della Rosa, Superintendent of Education with DYS.
Chair
Unverified
27:38
MR. You're recognized. MR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have some, again, some rules. We're making changes to adapt to legislation passed in the 2019 session in regards to the DYS Operations Manual, and I'll and I'll let DYS outline
Speaker 121
27:56
those specific changes. Yes. In the past session, we would like to implement new rules regarding dyslexia and anti-bullying,
and also we would like to update our DYS manual, which refers to the termination of pregnancy and AWOL policy.
Are there any questions from the committee? Representative
Representative LeAnne Burch
Unverified
28:20
Birch, you're recognized. Thank you.
Mr. Chair, what changes? Just a summary,
but to enunciate those, please. All right. So
Speaker 120
28:33
in the termination of pregnancy policy,
Speaker 121
28:36
previously it was extremely general. So therefore, we added new language stating, which brings us in compliance with state law to note that the family is responsible for payment and that they
Speaker 127
28:46
are the decision-maker in that process, that DYS is not part of that process. Senator Clark, you're
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
28:59
recognized. Yes. Without getting too deep in the weeds, what changes are you making as far as dyslexia?
Speaker 127
29:09
Dyslexia is new to us. Prior to the session, we did not have a
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
29:14
policy for dyslexia. Okay. And so what is the policy now? um
Speaker 121
29:18
again without getting too deep all right um this implements steps that our dys is
Speaker 127
29:23
required to take in order to implement dyslexia screening the policy basically states within 30 days that we have to implement the series of steps which screens all juveniles that come through dys and and provide follow-up services as needed mr
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
29:39
chair uh i would uh lock uh whether it takes a motion or not
month for us to get a report in the future on what they're finding on dyslexia. Some of us suspect that it may be high, and what's happening there. Yes, Mr.
Speaker 131
29:59
Chair, just to answer your question, we are currently tracking that, and thus far we are finding a high projection of those
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
30:08
numbers. Yes, which comes back to, I mean, this is Children and Youth Committee and not education, But a lot of the problems that we deal with are because that we're not catching dyslexia early
and that the kids begin to have other problems because of that. But thank you all. I appreciate that you're on top of it. So, Senator Clark, I
want to be clear. Are you satisfied that they're tracking it, or are you wanting to make a motion
that this is part of the report that we continue to get on a quarterly
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
30:40
or annual basis? Yes, I would like for it to be part of the report, something that we look at and my compliments to them that they're on top of
it. So I'd ask you, D.Y.S., do you think that would be, would that be a burden for you to provide that
Chair
Unverified
30:56
in your quarterly or annual report to us? No, we don't think it's a burden. I think that it's
a benefit to all to do that. Okay, then we've got a motion on the floor with Senator Clark to ask D.Y.S. to provide quarterly reports on their dyslexia findings. Do I have a motion from Senator Clark and a second from Representative Christensen? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed say no. Motion carries. Thank you guys for adding that to
your report. I believe Representative Crawford had a question.
Speaker 41
31:31
Thank you. I was just, you were just zipping
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
31:37
through things really fast. Uh, in my world, if we're going to oversee these, we need to know what we're looking at. So it took me a while, but while Senator Clark was there, I went back to the termination of pregnancy. I want to make sure I understand this. Um, let's look at, um, where it says DHS may be involved in any court proceedings.
court proceeding related to the consideration. Can you, um, elaborate on that? MR. Yes, Representative
Speaker 82
32:17
Crawford. That language tracks what was in the legislation that was passed back
Chair
Unverified
32:20
in the last session, which says essentially that the state agency, while the state agency may be involved in that court proceeding, the state agency cannot itself, uh, approve or consent to an abortion for someone who's in their custody. And so we just did the language to track that legislation. All right, thank you.
Senator Stubblefield, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mark, do you have a number on the
Senator Gary Stubblefield
Unverified
32:46
number of pregnancies that were terminated this past year?
Speaker 127
32:52
To my knowledge, none. Yeah. None? Zero, yes. Since I've been with DYS in the five years, we've never terminated a pregnancy. All right. Are there any other
questions from the committee? Seeing none, I need a motion to review Section H.
I got a motion from Senator Stubblefield. Second from Senator Clark. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, say no. Motion carries. Exhibit H has been reviewed. Thank you for coming. Thank you, members. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We're going to put it in reverse, and we're going to go to Exhibit E on your agenda. Kristen Harper Good morning.
Kristen Harper
Unverified
33:45
My name is Kristen Harper. I'm an assistant director with the Division of Children
Speaker 146
33:51
and Family Services. We have four rule packets up for review today. All of these rules are associated with acts passed during the 92nd General Assembly regular session. The first rule relates to referrals of infants born with and affected by prenatal drug exposure. rules as a result of changes to the Federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, or CAPTA, which in turn prompted the enactment of Act 598 of the 92nd General Assembly.
It allows health care providers involved in the delivery and care of infants to call the child abuse hotline when an infant is affected by prenatal drug exposure to any legal drugs. For these, a child maltreatment investigation does not occur. However, DCFS staff still meet with these families to assess their needs and develop a plan of safe care, make any necessary referrals, et cetera. There are no changes in this packet related to infants and or mothers who test positive for illegal substances at the time of birth.
So the responses to those reports, typically referred to as Garrett's Law, will remain the same. And I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have.
Are there any questions from the committee? Seeing none, I
need a motion to review. Got a motion from Representative Birch. Second from Senator Clark. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed say no. Motion carries. Exhibit E has been reviewed.
Exhibit F, you're recognized. Thank you. The
Speaker 146
35:24
second rule is regarding permanency efforts for children in foster care. This rule packet was filed to establish the conditions and protocols for trial home placement of a child with a non-custodial parent per Act 541. It also includes policy changes to reflect, per Act 558, that if the court orders supervised visitation, the parent must receive a minimum of at least four hours per week unless otherwise ordered by the court. And finally, policy has also been updated to align with Act 984 regarding the evidence
to be considered when the court authorizes a permanency plan for a child. Once again, I'm happy to take any questions you may have.
Representative LeAnne Burch
Unverified
36:05
Representative Birch, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So the way I read this, it goes, it used to be trial home placements could be up to six months, and this says it's going to be two months, and then you make a decision. Help me understand what
Kristen Harper
Unverified
36:20
the real change is. There's actually no change to the time frames. Typically, a trial home placement is
Speaker 146
36:25
up to 60 days, but we can go up to six months when necessary.
The change here is that we are now able to do trial home visits with a non-custodial father. So the child still remains in foster care. We can do an immediate placement with an appropriate and safe non-custodial father before going to court, whereas in the past we had to go to court to change custody orders. Yes. that they will, yes, that we can do a provisional foster home placement with Victifkin. Any other questions?
Seeing none, I need a motion to review Exhibit F. I've got a motion from Representative Watson and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed say no. Motion
Speaker 146
37:21
Exhibit G. Thank you. This rule packet is in regards to subsidized guardianship. As per Act 968, DCFS has amended its policy to expand the definition of relative to include fictive kin for the purpose of determining guardianship eligibility. Fictive kin are people who are
not related to the child by blood or marriage, but who do play a positive and supportive role in the child's life. Typically, examples are teachers, coaches, pastors. This expanded definition will allow fictive kin to become the legal guardian of children in foster care for whom reunification and adoption have been ruled out. So, this should create additional permanency options for children in foster care, particularly for older youth. I'll be happy to take any questions. Representative Birch, you recognize. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So, with regard to the
Representative LeAnne Burch
Unverified
38:08
guardianship, one of the big issues before is it was out there, but it can be utilized because there wasn't any money in it. There's no funding. So no matter what you change, if there's no change in the funding available to do guardianship subsidies, then that still would, people would still be reluctant or unable to really take advantage. Is there any change? Is there going to be more money put into the guardianship opportunity? So
Kristen Harper
Unverified
38:30
I think there may be a misconception. So the rules pursuant to this policy, it is for a Title IV-E guardianship.
Speaker 146
38:35
And so for the large part there is federal funding for those. So we do try to ensure that the children who go into these
are what we call 4E eligible so that we can draw down that federal funding for these. Um, so that has been in place and we have, and so that we can draw down the federal funding. Um, now what you may have heard is for those children who are not 4E eligible, we do look at those a little more closely because those would have to be funded by state general revenue. Um, but we
Representative LeAnne Burch
Unverified
39:04
do do those, um, on a case-by-case basis. Follow up, Mr. Chair. Because whenever you look at this report, it says 1% or have guardianship privacy. That's not very much. This is a potential game changer for families
as long as it's really utilized and it's funded appropriately. So back to your
question, the 4E eligibility. What percentage, do you know what percentage of cases are 4E eligible versus not when we're looking at the usually older kids in
Speaker 64
39:27
this potential category? Right. So if I may, First, I would
Kristen Harper
Unverified
39:30
like to address the low number. So you're right. It is a low number. Right now we have 59
Speaker 146
39:35
active cases of guardianship, which involves 103 children. It is a very low number. Now, of course, we have had others in the past. Those children were out over the age of 18.
That low number is not actually as a result of the funding issues. Really, it's because of, I think, lack of education with staff. And that is one thing we have gone out over the past couple of years to do continued training, especially considering the turnover we have with our staff, to really make sure they understand this option or advocating accordingly. And over the last year and a half to two years, we have seen a big increase. I know it's still an overall small number, but we have seen an increase in the number of subsidized guardianships. In regards to your specific question about eligibility,
yes, that is tracked very closely. That fluctuates each month depending on the population of children we have in foster care. As a very rough average, typically about 65% of our children are 4E eligible, but lots of variation there month by
month. Senator Clark, you're recognized? Yes,
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
40:39
a couple of questions. First, where is the language on the expansion of FICTIVE-KIN?
Speaker 157
40:45
So it is in Policy 8L, and basically it just allows,
Speaker 146
40:50
it expands the definition of relative for the sole purpose of guardianship. Okay, how would
Speaker 157
40:57
I easily find it here? Sure. In your exhibit, in Policy 8L, and I apologize, I don't know exactly how
Speaker 146
41:10
your printouts look, but if you'll look at the markout version, in the second paragraph on page one of Policy 8L, Subsidized Guardianship, it states,
for the purposes of determining eligibility for a guardianship subsidy, the necessary degree of relationship is satisfied by a relative or fictive kin as defined in 928.108. And then you have the definition of the degree of kinship there, followed by fictive kin is defined as a person selected by the department who is not related to the child by blood or marriage and has a strong, positive, and emotional tie
Speaker 157
41:45
or role in the child's life or the child's parent life if the child is an infant.
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
41:53
Could you explain to us the difference between the guardianship that you're talking about versus normal foster care? So guardianship is a
Speaker 146
42:05
type of permanency. It allows the child to exit from foster care and establishes legal permanence for the child. The legal guardian removes the division almost entirely from the child's life. There isn't an annual accounting to ensure that that guardian is still providing care and responsibility for that child, but there are no longer, for example,
monthly caseworker visits. The annual report is filed with the court, but the family themselves does not appear in court anymore. Essentially, they have exited foster care to a legal guardian. Okay, so this is
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
42:38
exiting foster care, but how about when children are coming in? That's not what we're discussing
here. No, sir. This is a form of
Speaker 146
42:47
permanency, so this is one way that children can exit foster care safely when they cannot reunify and when adoption has been ruled out for them.
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
42:57
Okay. A lot of times
we have the discussion, or I have the discussion, that we're supposed to be looking for relatives, period, that often they're told they have to become foster parents to
get custody. How do we stop that?
Kristen Harper
Unverified
43:33
So can you repeat the question?
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
43:35
I'm not sure if I understand the question. We're supposed to be placing with relatives. Yes, sir. Okay. Relatives are not foster parents. Okay. But across the state, we tell people often that they have to become foster parents, relatives that they have to become foster parents to get custody. How do we
Speaker 146
44:00
stop doing that? Gotcha. So, we do encourage relatives to consider becoming foster parents, largely because that
allows the agency to provide additional financial assistance to those relatives. They are not required, but we do want to make sure that they fully understand their options so that they can have support. So, there's nothing in this that prevents them from gaining custody of
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
44:21
the child. Okay, I understand. But is there not a way that we can do it because we end up having
this gap of months sometimes where to become qualified to become a foster parent, their children are in foster care.
Where can we not realign where that we're putting the children with the relative and then because of the funding, et cetera, they can pursue being a foster parent? So, again, we can do the
Speaker 146
44:53
provisional placement, which allows them to go often in some cases on the same day. They're removed with that relative so that we can reduce the amount of trauma the child experiences by coming into foster care. I mean, we're always happy to work with you on additional ways that we can do a better job of ensuring that children go to relatives
and otherwise reduce trauma for children. But, again, we try to place children with safe and appropriate relatives as quickly as possible, and we want to make sure that our relatives have all the support they need to be able to care for those children. Okay. And I
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
45:26
believe that. It's just that the recognized problem is that because, again, and it is for funding and we want to help people, we are producing that gap. So that is something we need to work on, and, yes, I'll be glad to work on it with you. Thank you. Thank you.
Representative LeAnne Burch
Unverified
45:43
Representative Birch, you recognize? Thank you, Mr. Chair. With regard to the guardianship, whenever you talked about annual review and there's no court case that's an umbrella, who's doing the annual review? Where is it reported? And can we
find out where those cases, those guardianship cases are coming from just to see if they're concentrated somewhere where we can learn from that about
Speaker 146
46:04
how to do it or not do it? Yes, ma'am. So it's the division. There's someone in central office who sends out the paperwork in advance of the anniversary date of the guardianship to the relative. The relative submits that paperwork back to DCFS, and then ultimately that is filed with the court.
Representative LeAnne Burch
Unverified
46:20
If they didn't send the paperwork back, are you taking them back
Speaker 146
46:24
to court? There is a process and in the procedures, that's written out in terms of what that looks like and the designated follow-up that we're to do with
that relative. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Absolutely. Are there any other questions from the committee? Seeing
none, I need a motion to review. I have a motion from Senator Wallace. Second from Senator Birch. All those in favor say aye. Aye.
Opposed say no. Motion carries. Item G has been reviewed. Moving on
to item Exhibit I. And we start with the last item. For our
Kristen Harper
Unverified
47:03
final rule today, the primary focus of
Speaker 146
47:05
this packet is to detail the procedural requirements and other considerations as per Act 802 for the secondary reviews of maltreatment reports, administrative closures of maltreatment investigations, and the new requirement to determine whether an offender poses a risk to vulnerable populations prior to placement on the
child maltreatment central registry, and if not, selecting exempt from placement on the registry due to no risk. In addition to the actions and considerations listed in the rule that frontline staff must make. The DCFS director must ultimately approve all administrative closures and exempt no-risk selections. And
Speaker 148
47:38
once again, I'll be happy to answer any questions. Are there any questions from the committee?
Seeing none, I need a motion to review. I have a motion from Representative Birch,
second from Senator Wallace. All those in favor, say aye.
Aye. All those opposed, say no. Motion carries. Item aye has been reviewed. Senator Clark, You're recognized. Mr. Yes. Mr. Chair,
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
48:03
this, these will come before ALC. And they may go to Rules and Review. R. Rules and Regulations. Mr. Rules and Regulations. Mr. Right. R. On the agenda for R. Rules and Regulations. Mr. But it'll eventually will come to
full ALC. Mr. Yes, they will. Mr. I don't see that anyone else here was more prepared than Representative Birch and I were, which, and I don't think either one of us had read this before we said that.
Okay. Well, so Representative Birch had. I would like to note, I don't think it'll happen, but I would like to note so that this is not just a rubber stamp process, that if in reviewing this in the next week or so before it comes to ALC, that if we find questions that any member be able to suggest that we bring it back, any one of these to bring back to this committee.
We voted to review them, but we haven't really looked at them in depth. And again, I don't think we're going to find any problems, but this would be the proper place to look at it if we did find a problem. That's right. And so again, I would like to suggest that and would even make the motion because I think if any member went through this and found something that they thought was a problem. And again, and I don't think we will, but I would like that option that we can come to the chairs
and say, hey, I would like to pull this back at
the next meeting. Sure. So I think, members, the motion is that if someone finds something within these rules that later on they weren't comfortable with, you could go to the chairs and we could ask DHS to come back to this committee to, if they can't resolve it amongst you, that we might pull it back here. And I'm not sure if that's actually a proper motion. Can we actually do that?
Or once it's reviewed, it's gone, and we would have to make that through ALC. Okay, as long as it's done before ALC, then it could be a proper motion. So, does everybody understand what we're asking here? Not that we think we'll need this, but just in case. Certainly, I was actually going to make a statement how much I appreciate Representative Birch and Senator Clark's questions today. They add a lot to the conversation. And when you're asking questions, I saw a lot of heads nodding.
So, it was very good. Thank you for that. All those in favor of Senator Clark's motion, say aye. Oh, I need a second. Senator Wallace, all those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, say no. Motion carries. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. All right. Seeing no further business, we are adjourned and go up to the toy drive.
Agenda
A. Call to Order
B. Comments by the Chairs
1. Senator Bart Hester
2. Representative Charlene Fite
C. Consideration to Approve the Minutes of the November 4, 2019, Meeting [EXHIBIT C]
D. Department of Human Services (DHS) – Division of Child Care and Early Childhood Education
(DCCECE), Rules for Review:
Minimum Licensing Requirements for Child Care Centers [EXHIBIT D] Minimum Licensing Requirements for Out-of-School-Time Facilities [EXHIBIT D1] Minimum Licensing Requirements for Licensed Child Care Family Homes [EXHIBIT D2] Minimum Licensing Requirements for Registered Child Care Family Homes [EXHIBIT D3] 1. Mark White, Chief of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs, DHS
2. Ashelyn Abney, Assistant Director of Operations and Program Support, DHS, DCCECE
3. Kelli Hilburn, Program Manager, DHS, DCCECE
E. Arkansas Department of Human Services, Division of Children and Family Services, Review of Rules,
Christin Harper, Assistant Director, Infrastructure & Specialized Programs - Referrals of Infants born with and Affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder or Prenatal Drug Exposure [EXHIBIT E]
F. Arkansas Department of Human Services, Division of Children and Family Services, Review of Rules,
Christin Harper, Assistant Director, Infrastructure & Specialized Programs - Permanency Efforts for Children in Foster Care [EXHIBIT F]
Christin Harper, Assistant Director, Infrastructure & Specialized Programs - Subsidized Guardianship [EXHIBIT G]
H. Arkansas Department of Human Services, Division of Youth Services (DYS), Review of Rules, Mark
White, Chief of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs, and Marq Golden, Assistant Director for
Diversion - Division of Youth Servcies Operations Manual Updates [EXHIBIT H]
I. Arkansas Department of Human Services, Division of Children and Family Services, Review of Rules,
Christin Harper, Assistant Director, Infrastructure & Specialized Programs, DCFS
- Ensuring Child Safety and Confidentiality [EXHIBIT I]
J. Department of Human Services, Division of Children and Family Services - Mischa Martin, Director
- Overturned Investigation Report [EXHIBIT J]
K. Department of Human Services, Division of Children and Family Services, Quarterly Performance Report,
1st Quarter SFY 2020, July 1, 2019 – September 30, 2019 [EXHIBIT K] - Mischa Martin, Director, DCFS
L. Other Business
M. Adjournment
Documents
Speakers
Senator Bart Hester Chair
Unverified
Representative Charlene Fite
Unverified
Speaker 13
Speaker 16
Speaker 19
Chair
Unverified
Representative Jay Richardson
Unverified
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
Speaker 28
Senator Gary Stubblefield
Unverified
Representative LeAnne Burch
Unverified
Speaker 64
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
Speaker 40
Speaker 85
Speaker 88
Speaker 91
Speaker 112
Speaker 114
Speaker 116
Speaker 121
Speaker 120
Speaker 127
Speaker 131
Speaker 41
Speaker 82
Kristen Harper
Unverified
Speaker 146
Speaker 81
Speaker 157
Speaker 148