Senate Children and Youth Committee and House Aging, Children and Youth

Good morning welcome to Senate Committee on Children and Youth and the House Committee on aging children Youth Legislative Military Affairs first thing we want to do today is to consider the approval of the meeting minutes from the December meeting. I will need a motion to adopt those meetings thank you have a motion from representative fight in a second from representative Springer. All those in favor say aye. Opposed no. Okay we have adopted the minutes next we have a motion to authorize the chairs to approve special expenses incurred by the committees during thank you have a motion by Senator sorry representative painter. We won't talk about whether that was a promotion or demotion and we have a second by Senator Gilmore all in favor say aye. Opposed no thank you. also Alan Clark has been re nominated for that child maltreatment investigations oversight committee that's one of the two members of the interim Senate Committee on Children and Youth and house aging committee I need a motion to approve Senator Clark to this position on this committee a motion from senator Gilmore and a second from representative Mayberry all in favor say aye. Opposed no. Thank you we have appointed reappointed Senator Clark. Okay first in our presentations today we have Tiffany right from DCFS. If you will identify yourself you may begin your presentation. Good morning everyone I'm Mr Martin I'm deputy secretary of youth and families at DHS and good morning I'm Tiffany right DCFS director and chair if you do not mind I'll be presenting the reports today and if you will be supporting me because like a good supervisor I'm coaching and mentoring and so probably today will be my last day to you and present the report and you have to exhibits and both the second quarter in the third quarter and to be efficient if it's okay with the chair I present the third quarter because as we go through the third quarter presentation you can see the data from the second quarter and most of the data element so we can cover both in one if that's okay. Okay thank you so beginning on page one which is the report of child maltreatment you can see these are the reports that come to the child abuse hotline that's run by Arkansas state police so in the third quarter you see nine thousand two hundred and twenty reports those reports are then if except with the these are accepted but once accepted there broke out between state police and DCFS you can see that one thousand six hundred and fifty one were given Tennessee ACT crimes against children division and seven thousand five hundred and sixty nine investigations or differential response was assigned to the Division of Children and Family Services moving on to page T. you can see the percentage of those investigations that were found tree read as DCFS at twenty percent I believe it's C. ACT at thirty percent for a combined total of twenty two percent moving on to the bottom of page two you can see the percentage of those true investigations what type of at maltreatment let there was no collect was it at all as always the highest percentage was sixty nine percent of the investigations being true for neglect on page three you can see affects Halliday's in near for tallies that involve maltreatment I would just also tell you that there's an appendix in the back of this data that you can see more specifics about each of those well there were two two true findings from maltreatment of child fatalities you can see more specifics in the back in the appendix on the bottom of page three starts information about differential response if you're if you're curious about different response and what exactly that is we describe it on page one by the child maltreatment reports it's just a different way to respond to those allocate those lower level maltreatment that come into the hotline and instead of focusing on putting them on the central registry not we focus on can we support the family get them the services in strength in this family those are mostly neglect report. You can see the break out on the bottom of page three as to the type of allegations that go to different response. I'm page four we're still talking now we're back to talking about investigations DCFS in crimes against children have to respond to child maltreatment and twenty four or seventy two hours depending on the type of maltreatment it is and you can see in the third quarter we had a combined a priority one which is twenty four hours party T. which is seventy two hours we had a combined response rate of seventy five percent that means that we saw the victim child seventy five percent of the time within those time frames you can also this is a good example of our second quarter is also included you will note that that is a slight decrease in the prior quarters but not significant I'm on the bottom you can see completion of the Intel of the investigation completion of the investigation is posted within forty five days the statute does allow for some extensions but most of the time March how much treatments complete and forty forty five days we had a combined rate of completing those at sixty eight percent which is a little lower than that then we light and director right can talk about some of the efforts on investigations at the end if you like I'm gonna move over the initiations of differential response to to page six now where we really look at re occurrence of mount treatment we did see a slight increase in re occurrence of maltreatment but if you look back to the last fourth quarter it was in line so we Evan flow between six eight percent so while we're at eight percent there's no real cause for concern interns and I re occurrence of maltreatment that it if you need further explanation again I'm happy to answer questions but the Blue ribbon on the left or the right side of former gives that gives a complete definition of each of the data points that I'm talking about this feel free to look at that Blue Ribbon for additional information moving out of investigations and moving into in home services please remember we serve more children in home than we do in foster care and at the end of the third. Order we had two thousand and one hundred eighty nine cases in the case you can remember their siblings and others so that those cases involve five thousand three hundred and sixty six children that were served you can see at the bottom the average number of days that we have an in home case open on the bottom of page seven. And then moving into pages eight and page nine you can see the ages of the children that we serve on in home cases and then on the bottom of page eight you can see our in home visits at the family should be seen at least once a month now of course depending on the severity of the case and how early in the case it might be more than once a month but as the case goes on we are required to see them at least one time a month and we had a seventy one percent rate on in home visits that's actually a slight increase but not from the second quarter but say level at the first quarter we have increase from last year because we have been doing focusing on an in home visit. I mean I move on to a foster care foster care starts on page ten as you can see we have had a slight decrease in the number of children in foster care at four thousand one hundred and ninety nine children in foster care and that that continues to decline based on efforts around permit C. and discharged but you can also look I'm at the bottom of page ten where we do a comparison of entries and exits or and you can see that well we did have less exits than injuries we are about in line with the prior three quarters and you can see that are discharges I've been out now I suspect that when you see the fourth quarter data you will see a significant increase in discharges from foster care but the because the fourth Cup fourth quarter covers end of school and in the school a lot of judges and workers recommend kids to start trial home placements or to go home over the summer so I see a slight decrease in the third quarter I suspect you'll see increase and exits in the fourth quarter looking at page eleven these are reasons that children come into foster care remember that children can come in the foster care for more than one reason but we have and those seven years that I have been DCFS director we have never had it not being a collect and substance abuse it could be both of those things that you can say in the in the third quarter neglect and substance abuse continue to be the top two reasons that children enter foster care and then the bottom on page eleven you can see the discharge reasons that children exit foster care our number one exit is reunification from whoever the child was removed from typically that's parents but it could be a they could be removed from others legal custodians and so forty four percent is reunification and while twenty six percent as adoption that could include adoption to relatives and guardianship at eight percent and so forth. Moving on to page twelve you can see length of stay in care by the percentage and you all know that twenty four plus minus we know that the evidence shows that kids that staying here twenty four months or longer it makes it harder to get this to permanency so that's a group that we really focus on and look at you in the middle of page twelve you can see placement of children in foster care and thirty three percent of our children in foster care are placed with the relative or fictive kin while twenty eight percent are placed in foster families and so on. Moving on to page thirteen you can see our case work visits we not only count if the case worker saw them once a month but if somebody if DCFS saw them so long only eighty percent of our children in foster care were seen by case worker once a month ninety percent or at least seen by at least one DCFS staff. Moving on to page fourteen and fifteen we really value placing siblings together and seventy three percent of our kids in here are places that leads to one set sibling now on the downside only fifty two percent of our kids are placed with all siblings if you're that that is in the ribbon on the left where I got that fifty two percent placement stability I'm even though we are above the national standard at five point five five if you look at where we have come over the last five years we significantly decreased our other number of moves per thousand we still have a lot of work to do but this is a focus we want our kids to be more stable and not moving around when they're stable they're connected they're getting Services there hopefully have better outcomes to something we continue to work on but it has significantly improved or the last few years I'm permanency within twelve months of foster care we did see a decrease in the third quarter I'm not super worried about that because the fourth quarter is coming in as I mention in the fourth quarter comes we see significant increases and exits out of foster care re injuries we are below the national standards of kids re entering foster care which is a good thing the national standard is eight percent and we're below at seven percent moving into Page sixteen you can see the are adoption data in the third quarter we had three hundred and sixty kids sixty two kids available for adoption but remember and you'll see this also in the ribbon and the last about twenty percent of those kids are already in a pre adoptive placement but technically they're available for adoption you have to be in that pre adoptive placement for six months so if you follow project zero or some of our adoption where you'll mostly see that that number you know available for adoption is under three hundred because those are the kids that actually we are looking for a home for so about twenty percent have already got an identified home and are just waiting for their six month period I'm super proud of the work around the length of time from term. A nation of parental rights to adoption it has decreased this quarter and it's down to twelve twelve point seven minds I'm in wow that seems like a long time it really is I wish we could get shorter but you do have to remember that kids have been in the system for years to the efforts a project zero there also and count included in that number so we may have kids that have been in the system for five or six years that through the work with adoption with project zero U. man saw the event this past weekend is extravaganza after being in foster care for years and years the family my you know connect with them and it might work so that that also skews are I just want you to remember those kids to that have been our system that adopted that skews our data a little bit. And we did have a decrease and adoptions in the third quarter but that's really not surprising because in the second quarter we had an amazing number which was two hundred and thirty one and you'll remember that in the third quarter is national adoption might so when we push for a lots of options in the third quarter we go down and that are in the second quarter we go down in the third quarter I suspect to see a rise in the fourth quarter. And then Page nineteen is a great start of all the different types of cases I've covered almost all of them but you have actual cases at the top of page nineteen and then on the bottom is the actual number of kids service so cases don't equal kids right because of siblings and families on sometimes account cases as families as if it's on a different response case so you can see the number of cases on the top and then on the bottom is actual kids served in those cases and then you can move on to page twenty and see that are a average case load and the second in the third quarter state even at twenty four point five that is concerning and I have been very open with this committee that we continue to have significant work force issues across this state now I will say that if you want to dig into your area and a case leads there's independence in the back appendix B. that has a state map and you can actually see at the break out in your county as to what the cases are we have the delta actually has some pretty amazing caseloads low case loads or some of our more urban areas and even some of our rural areas that are struggling to keep staff have higher caseloads and then you can see on foster homes on page twenty and twenty two and I just can't mention foster homes without talking about our work with every child Arkansas and our recruitment partner the contingent if you're not liking us on social media on every child Arkansas I'm just gonna get a little plug here please like us and follow is even if you don't want to be a foster parent if you do want to be a foster parent CS afterwards we're always recruiting but we do have a statewide initiative working with all of our in almost all of our nonprofit nonprofit partners and to collaborate around every child Arkansas and recruitment of foster homes in the in that's pretty much the M. but just note I've mentioned some of the appendix that are in the back but there are additional panics with this data and thank you chair. Thank you are there any questions from committee. Good morning thank you madam chair hi how are you doing Gasol up I just want to follow up you know much probably know what my question is and relates to what you indicated earlier about staffing and I want you to give us an update on your action plan with respect to staff recruitment and retention and tell us about that yes I'm gonna let director right take that because actually all these years of me talking about what we're doing with the work force Tiffany R. director I has really been lied she's been over the field for the last two years she was my first higher when I came to central office seven years ago the that's right you want to that question I can morning so we continue to focus on how we able to recruit and retain staff our recruitment efforts were doing more on social media working with our partners and asking them to promote the work we do we've been promoting the good work of our staff to our everyday champion I'm not sure if you see that on social media but trying to feature the work that we do and why you'd want to come work for DCFS in the impact that you have over it when over the last two years we've implemented on call standby pay we have worked through family service worker specialist which is a career ladder incentive for workers to stay three years and even before that we once they complete new worker training if they're brand new Stafford giving them a ten percent increase to their salary upon completion of training to try to keep them longer through training and get them to that three year mark we continue to hear from them about ways to impact the work impact the work force and continue to support them and it's just it's really hard to recruit people to do this job it's a hard job but we continue to work closely with DHS H. R. on big ideas to recruit staff and I just added director right actually did this of and. Yes it's been about a year ago but work closely with DHS HR and they are not able to have to do hiring events where we hire same day pending the drug screen results so the people walk away knowing that they are they are hired by DHS pending a drug screen was all and I if you've worked in state government or ever applied sometimes it takes weeks to do that but she has put together a team to streamline that process and has done hiring events in Washington County where we have a significant turnover and in plastic county and probably others though those are two main focuses was was public Washington in Pulaski on the on boarding on the same day pending drug screening background checks follow up manager. Thank you so can you give us some specifics to testing so as to how the numbers like you the increase of the number of hires by X. number or the the tension rates have dropped but you'll persons exiting leaving the Division can you give us any type of specific statistics like you've shown here this report regarding your hiring and then regarding retention rate to that sort of thing can you have you have this specific statistics regarding those I think we can do some follow up with you around that and work with you on exactly what you want related to retention and recruitment efforts if that's okay. Flower Ballinger one more quick okay. You can come back in the queue okay mothers. Senator Hammer you're recognized. I don't think you're thank you measure a couple quick questions on the are we still under the hiring freeze are you having trouble getting your request approved. And no Sir we we saw are under the hiring freeze technically but we are able to hire for all of our front line staff so program assistance family service workers and family service workers supervise years and we've been able to submit higher freeze requests that have been approved okay and on the direct impact of the number of workers and the reduction of the number of the kids in foster care the if we were fully staffed do you think that you would see that number lower than even what it is now the forty one hundred if you were fully staffed up and if if you had to just make educated guess how much floor with that forty one hundred B.. I think yes if we have the workforce and we were not having turnover and high workloads we could put more efforts to serving those children and families I don't I don't know how to give you an estimated guess on what the number would be because that's really specific to that child and that family not just adding projector right neither one of us are are pushing for a specific number right like we want the right children who need to be in foster care to be in foster care but to answer your question as to why we would see a lower number if we had if we had not just fully staffed so we're doing a better job of getting staff on board but you also have to remember this is a very complex work and so you really need probably three years of experience to really feel confident in the work and the significant portion we get actually get you the percentage I just don't know it off the top of my head is between workers and supervisors with the turnover that we song code of it are with this less than two years so that means not the best decisions not able to really work quickly right work quickly and efficiently so if we had a knowledgeable you know I experienced work force they would be able to work cases in a better way to get home get home quicker which is also why we track in the data time to permanency okay Ballinger have one more quick one. You're recognized thank you. On the number of foster homes are closing Quarters a hundred seven the other quarters a hundred twenty eight are those average trends or are we seeing the number of homes closed increasing or decreasing errors that. Traditionally what we expect every month we have that data and back again again who is the lead for every child Arkansas she would know it off the top of our head because that is one of the work groups that Adam is the executive order I retention and recruitment is one of the workers and also the focus of every child Arkansas Senator Hammer I think we should just follow up with you before we have it and it would be easy to get to you and I want to speak okay thank you thank you manager. Representive car you're recognized thank you madam chair a quick question regarding the number of children in foster care what what measures do you all have in place to anticipate the numbers increasing now that abortions are prohibited in this state. So we we don't have a way to forecast that number but I can tell you that when I became director in twenty sixteen we had fifty two hundred children in care set well about three to four months posted was sept September of sixteen we had our peak at fifty two hundred children in care so workforce wise even though we're hundreds of positions below I mean if there are more children come into care we will care for those children you do also have to remember that we technically have more in home cases then we do foster care cases so it's a matter of what looking at each county figuring out how many foster care in home shifting resources are kind of used to working in that crisis situation I will tell you that we have as hundreds hundreds of foster and adoptive homes that are open for kids under the age of three so as far as having homes for those kids that is not something that we are worried about thank you thank you madam chair. Representive under you're recognized. At a base. That tracks the location of kids in the system. Absolutely yes so when children are in foster care we he them into their placement so where they are currently staying so and if they're in a foster home and all the saints lien County their queue to that very specific foster home. Thank you. Representative may very you're recognized. Okay. Sorry about that thank you madam chair I'm back to the question of recruitment and and employees I know you need people who are experienced but you and you do have a a large turnover how much effort is there too going back and recruiting people who have left in the past you know maybe it was someone who was there three years ago and reaching out to them to say Hey what can we do to get you back here maybe the pay is a little higher or something like that yes so the page changes came we activity an hour together or director right sorry director and treasurer I and I work together to literally have at the HR database pull everybody every supervisor who had left days and started personally calling people to see if we can get them back and sometimes people leave as we get real creative sometimes people leave S. because they had a baby or they can only so we have what we call extra help positions we put people an extra help positions city part time work we get real creative on figuring out how to support the work force and bring people back. Representative painter you're recognized thank you madam chair how many vacancies do you have currently today. Give me one second I'll tell you. Yes but I can pull it really quickly. I'm going to that and it's like in my new role I think they may have questioning it even once your last if you give me one minute and my email download. Now I found someone at work. This this always happens adequate but we get out we get a weekly report and physician control and norm at it is somewhere between two hundred and three hundred vacancies M. but we have a here he's here okay. Area I can't even tell you my County this isn't the terms. He's the only. Okay so we have like our total positions is one thousand four hundred and twenty three total physicians we have three hundred and thirty one vacancies and we have one thousand and ninety two field. Thank you thank you manager. Representive Springer number ninety. Thank you madam chair and manager could you ask them to share that report that she has with us share okay yes now my kid now my question is not thank you all representative may very for your question with respect to of what they're doing specifically and I would like to follow up on that as well by asking about your qualitative data with respect to reasons why you have persons leaving are you focusing in on those reasons why they lead to is or an exit interview that you could look at that data to determine why so that you would have some base for your room to. Pop possibly change whatever they're saying is taking place in order to assist with the recruitment I'm just curious to know what all the specific efforts to dealing with respect to recruitment and retention yes so and they can come the employee that's exiting can complete an exit survey and I receive those exit surveys and and well in my previous role as the assistant director of the field I would receive those exit surveys and commonly what we hear from our staff is on call caseloads Does does the big one safety and those are the those are the big ones that we hear safety on call and the workloads. And then you will get occasionally you know relationships in the office and things like that but if we have those issues we work together so a remedy what's happening and we do we I will call and ask them to stay like how can I help I'm going to get you to stay what do I need to do to make that happen and I try to work through those issues with the employee if that's an office issue a relationship issue that kind of thing. One last question you're recognized thank you sold the so the issue with respect to pay the recent increase in salary so that that's not a reoccurring issue now is that what you're telling us occasionally we will hear about the salary yes I'm in the salaries every carrying mostly requiring issue around supervisors so we did salary and we did things for program citizens injuries increased and then around family service workers as address right mentioned we did a career ladder we also did overtime pay so they were getting overtime on call day sorry on call pay but for supervisors we really haven't done anything around there compensation so in some areas we have workers making more than supervisors because what supervisors are not eligible for overtime and because they're exempt employees so that right now that is the lead that's the thing at the top of our list when it comes to looking at what what is needed but I just wanna emphasize what director I said workload is the key reason why people are leaving but this people take on significant workloads while we're trying to hire an onboard and train but we don't have extra people to send from other areas we've done that in the past so there's not like this you know Justin everybody from another county to help stabilize the county we have a significant number of our counties across this state who are struggling and the work is really hard if you haven't visited your county office and talk to children and family services about what they do day in day out to keep children safe in their communities I would encourage you to do so it's it's very difficult emotionally telling work. Thank you madam chair and I and I have spoken with that that's why I'm following up on these questions because I do hear from them thank you. Senator Hammer you're recognized thank quick question does exit interviews of those part of the personal file or those available to us as legislators to review. I think we can at I need to check with legal but we definitely do a summary of our when I say we did DHS H. R. does at the end of a quarter does a summary of DCFS exit surveys so we I know we could share the summary of exit surveys with you all I need to check with a legal and most of the time they don't state anybody's name but occasionally they do use I just need to check with legal I make sure that that we can release as I'm I suspect we can okay on that report could do the quarterly report you just mentioned could maybe better chair they get sent to you and to the membership committee and I'd like to get of nine members Committee but let's get it please. Yes thanks legal one available you have that sense of like also. Thank you. Your representative painter you're recognized thank you madam chairman of those three hundred thirty one US vacancies. How what's the percentage of those that are out in the field case work managers or case workers okay so I'm not great mass I'm gonna tell you how many vacancies are housed at central office now I do know that there are a few of the central office positions that we that our house at central office that are actually feel positions but they're like in a database House there for a minute until we reassign but of the three hundred and thirty one vacancies sixty five or as assigned to you Senator office that means that three sixty one minus sixty five whatever that number is is the total amount of field vacancies filled like out in the field not F. I. L. L. ET okay okay thank you thank you manager. Representative do you're recognized. Thank you could you speak to as far as what type of recruitment do you do in our bordering states. To try and because I mean I I know being so close to state we recruit a lot for of teachers and staff for school district come from is drive because of water is that an effort that you guys make as well. I was about to say no but if any talk about your assistant director he just got hired from orient I'll fling ten yeah so we've been using linked in so the new assistant director of field operations is actually from or again and she moved well she I was already living in Arkansas but working for child welfare in Oregon so she thought through linked in being you know in another state so we do use linked in but I would say as far as like on the ground recruitment probably not we are having some like recruiting teachers. You may. Do you that do you see that I mean because for me just thinking that could be a possibility of I don't know of and how did you do that may be something that you could look at least for some of those those areas along the border that those might be possibilities for them to have people just coming across yes colleges are over there as well I agree I'm sorry for interrupting and I do want to say probably more Northwest Arkansas it happens related to getting from Oklahoma or Missouri border because I know we've had a couple staff that live out of state and work for us so it is possible and we could definitely consider some recruitment in those other states. Thank you if there are no other questions by committee thank you for your presentation. Next on the agenda will hear from major through crimes against children. I know you know the drill but if you're recognized yourself you may begin. Major Jeff drew commander CCD Arkansas state police. I will have to reports ma'am would you like me to both of you just go to the most recent one. that's at your discretion. The most recent one okay. Are you go to page two you're recognized the hot highline received eighteen thousand six hundred and thirty six calls ten thousand two hundred six of those were accepted SEAC hello NO one thousand seven hundred seventy eight of those except across the surface hello six thousand five hundred sixty four well one thousand eight hundred sixty four of those were differential response. On page three it Willis the allegations and type of vested by CCD if you know is that list will be a little bit more concentrated and has been in the past because we're concentrating on six areas instead of listing them individually now. On page four you see in there because we received from mandated reporters break down of that. And on page five U. S. C. a monthly breakdown cases open and and close with CCD within those three months one thousand six hundred eighty four cases were open. One thousand four hundred eighty nine were closed with four hundred forty nine of those being found true S. the thirty cent thirty percent substantiation rate. We took the time to head the total active to a two thousand eight hundred and fifty eight and two hundred and fifty of those beyond forty five days. On page six and seven you can see how the the county breakdown is. And on pages nine and ten were reflect the reported allegation types with the victim age groups. pages eleven through twenty one we show the relationship between the offender and victim and the age group of those offenders alleged offenders. And pays twenty two through thirty which show the breakdown of the prosecuting attorney's judicial districts in cases submitted to prosecutors. Broken down by the client filed or pending during that time period we had we submit it five hundred and thirty two. Cases were submitted two hundred forty four were filed two hundred twenty two was still pending and sixty six of those were declined. I'll be glad to take any questions. Representive shepherd you're recognized. Thank you for being here today Sir I have a question in regards to that thirty percent rate is that higher in comparison to what we've seen in the past. Normally what we'll miss for substantiation rate thirty percent yes no more will be between thirty and thirty five is what we normally run each quarter okay thank you. Any other questions from committee. Seeing none thank you for your report thank you. Next on our agenda. Is Samaria Health infant child death review program. And if you will introduce yourselves for the record then you may begin. Good morning my name is hope Mullins I am the director of injury prevention at Arkansas children's good morning my name is don Porter and I'm the committee program supervisor for the Arkansas in financial Jeffrey program I'll be presenting on seminary hills behalf. And so I wanted to just kind of give a little background about Arkansas if intelligence review Arkansas invitada three program has eleven regional teams that review unexpected deaths of children under the age of eighteen the teams cover seventy five counties giving our program the potential value at a hundred percent of reviewable pediatric deaths as required by the act eighteen eighteen of two thousand five. On the page five of the report the annual report executive summary the total input in child deaths ages zero to seventeen Arkansas for twenty twenty four four hundred seventy deaths of those a hundred eighty eight were eligible for review and a hundred and ten of those elves cases were reviewed. Out of the seventy eight cases not reviewed thirty four those were still under criminal investigation or being prosecuted and forty four were not review due to the impact of the pandemic. Looking down at the twenty twenty manner of death we had forty eight axonal death cases that were reviewed twenty three those are motor vehicle accidents being the leading cause of accidental deaths that were reviewed. R. twelve cases that reviewed research expiation sleep related deaths had a higher rate other than other higher rate than other is fixated related deaths and males had a higher rate of sixty a desk that females. Review nine drowning cases there were a higher overall rated drowning deaths that occurred in people's purses open water. And then we have thirty four undetermined us the undetermined deaths are predominantly occurring in an adult that's an undetermined deaths related sleeping or sleep environment had a higher rate than any other undetermined deaths and then our of program reviewed eighteen suicide deaths fire arms were the leading contributing factor in our suicide deaths and the suicide death rate among fourteen to seventeen year olds was higher than nine to thirteen year olds. Thank you. Any questions by committee. Representative Pilkington you're recognized thank you chairwoman on the deaths related to create and build bads and then of course the sixty ation do we know in those homes how many of those homes had adequate sleeping arrangements for the children like a pack and play or crib or anything like that yeah we do collect that information I just don't have that information on me but we can follow up with you to give you that information and I I'd like that you know I know in some European countries they provide baby boxes to have a place for people to sleep you know I know during my first. Summary is Boris on his pediatrician and right as I was talking to the teachers in your office the nurse came in and said you know I'm going was going to cancel that evening's the baby died and in the bed and a the provider complains that used to hand out free packing places on these parents and so course I maybe think about that program they do and some of those Nordic countries I'm just kind of curious lack of adequate sleeping arrangements could help prevent that and then another question unrelated to that but I'm kind of curious on the suicide death for for black children is higher than white children soon the undetermined deaths is that how does that break down regionally compared to like the Delta first more like urban areas like Pulaski County is that it is a hard one area or is it across the board. I will have to get that information for you as well yet we don't have that in our report okay I'll be happy to follow up with you on that okay that yes eight I'm not. Point I'm just I just want to know so yes yes absolutely create thank you if you will get that information to Blake you will. As set out representative Shepherd you're recognized thank you madam chair good morning thank you all for being here this morning so I'm serving my first term and I have a question with all the data is collected what preventive efforts are put in place. So some of our local teams have been implementing preventive efforts around the different manners of death some communities have done campaigns on safe sleep education on the ABC's a sleep sleep for an events and with the in it in our report you can see that there are some recommendations that teams have made based on the cases that were reviewed I know that the pandemic had kind of put things on hold in doing could get out in the community with the families and stuff like that but our teams are back up and ready to do more preventive efforts to help reduce the staff's. And I follow like to add that the information from this report is utilized by not only children's hospitals but children's hospital but other organizations that work in injury prevention for children so we use information from the ICD our teams to inform the work okay is there like a comprehensive list. A comprehensive list of of all the resources. Lakes are you to for the preventive strategies date we spoke all yes we can provide you with the conference thank you. Representative painter you're recognized. Thank you madam chair so grounding to us that were higher in pools versus open water do you do you have a break down if it was like in a public pool compared to a private pool at home we collect the data on that so I can get that information please thank you the manager. We can add that to the list represent a fight you're recognized. Thank you madam chair good morning and thank you for this very difficult work. Do we have very many deaths or near deaths from children falling from shopping carts I know every time I'm in the grocery store I'm just horrified with little tiny children standing at precariously in the cart and I I just wonder if we see very many skull injuries. So as far as deaths we have not reviewed any dust a fall related injuries due to shopping carts I cannot speak on behalf of the near death injuries but we can see if we can get that information for you. Any other questions by committee. Thank you for your report today thank you. Next this report from the children's advocacy center. Please introduce yourself and you may begin. Thank you hi Elizabeth pulley in the executive director of the children's advocacy centers of Arkansas. I wanted to share a little bit that also included a decisional packet of information for you guys to have they need includes brochures map across the state in also just some information with the chill child abuse hotline on there for your community and we do also have. Posters available so if there's if you want posters and other material for your schools communities things like that we do have those available with the hotline number on them. Well that children's advocacy centers of Arkansas we're a nonprofit at we provide support growth and development for our child advocacy center statewide were membership organization with the network of thirty child advocacy centers we also have sixty four multi disciplinary teams in our state chapter like my office CACC in Indy teas are in all fifty states throughout the country and ACT nine seventy five of twenty twenty one the fifteenth multi disciplinary team and the C. A. C. child advocacy center projects to the children's advocacy centers of Arkansas to become more in line with other states and to provide best practices some of our highlights included strengthening statewide partnerships home including DCFS CCD and prosecutors we created a racy relational and supported the environment for RCA season NDT network with collaborative work groups committees and trainings we also implemented a statewide database system with standardized data practices so would be consistent across the state develop trainings training website a training center to equip professionals statewide in this includes eight hundred and seventy five training opportunities in the last year around the state a child advocacy center facility provides free direct services for child abuse victims and their family includes forensic interviews advocacy. Medical exam mental health therapy and prevention education in twenty twenty two are cece's in Arkansas served ten thousand three hundred children five years ago we served four thousand children so it more than doubled our capacity within five years. RCC highlights include additional locations in the last year in Madison County Grant County Hot Spring County children's safety center in Washington County broke ground on a new facility Hamilton center for child advocacy in Fort Smith moved to a larger facility and they serve the most children in the state in R. C. AC's currently CACD of Monticello moved to a new a larger building in the child protection center here in Little Rock completed a building expansion and if you notice on page eleven of our report there is a teacher at photo of Mario who's a new facility dog at RCC and Independence County and there's five other centers throughout our state that have facility dogs just to bring that support and comfort to the children while they're on site receiving services. Our multi disciplinary team project includes individuals from diverse organizations that work together in a coordinated effort to ensure an effective response to child abuse cases so that every victim has access to essential services we have sixty four county based teams and forty M. D. T. facilitators eight thousand six hundred child abuse cases were reviewed statewide last year and who sits on the team of those multi disciplinary teams that DCFS CCD prosecutors local law enforcement mental health and medical professionals juvenile justice in the CDC's. Some things that we have accomplished in the last year for the NDT project and we defined a statewide vision and values and shifting the mindset from a meeting to an actual coordinated approach that every child matters every service matters in every member matters there's on the team that's important to us so we really define that to with our a teams across the state we established an indie T. oversight committee that meets quarterly established a steering committee with three work groups and these work groups were from different agencies in also R. NDT facilitator so that they have a voice in change they had a voice in the processes and they were a part of it from the very beginning. As some of those said committees and workgroups worked on contracts in job descriptions a compensation structure on boarding and training for new facilitators and team members coming on they also include just conversations about conflict resolution and a team working together crucial crucial conversations database and team building so those are some of the things that we have worked on and also the they also had a part in the evaluation process of setting up an evaluation where team members had access to give feedback how the team's doing how the facilitators doing so that's important to it to us in this on going and effort. We created MDT facilitator of the year just recognizing achievements so that people can achieve in its strive to do better and if you have that coming due to local CACD meet the staff or you just review the child abuse data we just welcome you to come in and meet our a staff across the state into our facilities we just thank you Committee thank you chair. Thank you and thank you for the great work you do representative fight you're recognized thank you madam chair I just wanted to echo what you said about encouraging especially this committee's members to come and visit their closest CHC and can you tell us how we would make those have my business card with my phone number cell number is included in this package I would be happy to arrange that for you so if you could reach out and I will be also reaching out to many of you to you and this rain that haven't toured we would love for you to come into our thank you. Representive Shepherd you're recognized. Madam chair and thank you for the invitation I'm glad I'm representative five X. you know for that because I would love to come a quick question you mention SEAC gives out contracts what type of contract so the NDTV solicitors are contract positions so those ones that work in the sixty four and county teams across the state okay thank you. Any other questions by committee. Thank you very much for your report today. Okay next on the agenda I needs and a motion to adopt this I. S. P. from representative Jamie Scott. Thank you I was going to read the title but you can read it there. Dot. From representative Pilkington I need a second. Second by representative Springer thank you that is the motion to adopt her I. S. P. regarding postnatal in early childhood Advisory Board so we will send that. All in favor say aye. Opposed no. Thank you and without any other business before us we are adjourned thank you very much. Aaron.