Senate Children and Youth and House Aging, Children and Youth, Legislative and Military Affairs

In twenty first meeting minute sets exhibit be in your packet. Decimation okay. All right we don't need one well that's right we do need one. In the interim. And next we have a very exciting presentation. I'm sorry all those in favor say aye. Posay NO. Right we have presentation of restore hope also known as one hundred families operation in your packet that is exhibit to see. And this is a very exciting organization they have already done some wonderful things for the state of Arkansas they're director Karen Phillips lives in my district and so it's really enjoyed caring for you to be here with us today. And that public Chapman the executive director is also here with her so if you will both come forward and we'll hear from you at this time if you're to sit at the end of the table and members if you'll just hold your questions until the end of their presentation. Make sure your Mike is on Kieran. And you may need to pull it toward you at that okay. At first introduce yourself to us but that view and then what they're ready for you okay. Okay Karen Phillips at nine and the one hundred families director for restore hope Arkansas seven executive director for restore hope Arkansas. I just want to first thank you and representative fight for inviting us here today we're very excited to tell you about the organization and and this initiatives that we've been working on and whenever governor Hutchinson took office and Arkansas had the fastest growing prison population in the nation and at the same time foster care of course was just add multiplying if the same kind of raid to as incarceration and so so the governor course called the faith community many of you might remember that to restore hope summit to and then Paul Chapman our founder and executive director had written a paper to governor Hutchinson about how to use collective impact to make a make a an impact in this area and have better outcomes for communities and governor Hutchinson said yes that's great go do it. And so so we have been working on that since at the time at all of this was going on and I was working at another organization and I did mainly housing and some social service programs and things like that but I was drawn actually by project zero's and videos and and and stories that and just couldn't ignore it any longer and became a foster parent myself that definitely changed my life I grew an overwhelming desire to not only help the children to help the families that were involved in my children's lives so their their parents and I I'm really grateful to say that they were able to cut to successfully go home in fact and the two year old boy that I got just turned eighty this past weekend and he's been home for about four years with his mom and and we celebrated at my house so it's just a joy and that that I can see kind of the outcomes of families supporting other families in this way and so that brought me to call an end to restore hope with a desire to really impact the foster care system by by really helping these families that I knew were struggling and so restore hope uses a collective impact model to reduce foster care and incarceration and we act as a backbone organization for several initiatives one of them and that's the one I'm going to speak mostly about today is called the one hundred families initiative and I actually of was hired by restore hope in twenty eighteen and we launched our initiative in twenty nineteen we also have just began a new initiative F.. Re child Arkansas with it which is just about providing more than enough support for by families more than enough adoptive homes and more than enough foster homes in more than enough support for DCFS in Arkansas and then a smart justice initiative which we will hand out inaugural and magazine and today to all of you you can tell I'm very excited about that and a reentry program and housing development arm and a second chance education program. So how we do collective impact what is collective impact so we aligned partners in communities with a common goal that is so important is that we get the community involved it's not just about you know government providing solutions you all know that we need community to provide solutions and so we get together all the parties involved and we form what's called an alliance and that's what we've done with one hundred families as we have launched alliances and six counties now so we started in Sebastian and and then went to Crawford and to Pulaski and to White County and then we found to other organizations that said Hey we really want to launch one hundred families and we didn't have the funding to provide to them and they said we have the funding we wanted we want to launch one hundred families will use your model your methods your system and and and they did And so what church in Russellville and in Polk County M. is launching and a Texarkana in Miller county has launched as well so we use common measurements so as everyone who is enrolled in the one hundred families initiative and these are parents that are struggling there can if eligible parents everyone that is enrolled a matter where they the what organization and rolls them all use the same kind of assessment up front and measurements on the back end so that we can truly track outcomes for families we exist connect to existing community resources so we know that every community has resources navigating those resources are difficult is a difficult task but we help connect everyone in the community to those existing community resources and we provide a hippa compliant. Communication across all sectors so whether it be housing and transportation education employment recovery mental health all of those things we we bring a hip her for both Copa compliant system that allows communication across sectors because the families themselves have given permission for their for their them to have a care team as set up with different community organizations working towards common goals and then we provide that background support. So one hundred families is a community led initiative that helps move families from crisis to stability and on to career and we use those existing community resources we engage community partners and we train them on that collaborative case management system and we recruit them to respond whenever a family is in crisis so trying to not only served you know families that are involved with DCFS so that have a kid a case where their children have been placed in foster care and that also protective services case where their children are still and in the home and have a protective safety plan but also moving way upstream and preventing families from ever entering the child welfare system by helping them immediately during the crisis. So the families we serve M. we serve the neediest of the needy and our communities and one out of three of our parents had a suspended driver's license forty three percent had been a victim of domestic violence one out of every three haddock had been convicted of any felony and seventy two percent had been to jail or prison half of them were in need of child care services half of all our families had no income from any source that intake forty seven percent did not have their GED or high school diploma twenty percent or one out of every five did not have snapped benefits or income and one out of every four were homeless so you can see our families are definitely the the neediest in the communities that that we serve. So ten if it is the fight primary funding source for the one hundred families initiative and so that means that we have to provide tenant eligibility services across the state and we do that through our system we've built this system to pro to help communities be able to set it serve tennis eligible clients and have the proper documentation to show that they're verified is eligible which is a very important part of using ten of money and then we also have a UAMS child abuse prevention grants and so that has it added additional case manager with a warm line forty C. F. ask courts in Sebastian and they actually attend courts many of our case managers throughout the different communities do you attended either you know that child welfare court to M. cases and that district courts know and and even criminal courts as well circuit courts at we have a partnership with public knowledge that is helping us build a parent advisory panel here in Pulaski County and adding differential response case managers and we are building out asset maps so that DCFS this is one of the ways we want to really support DCFS has case managers have lots and lots and lots of training on many things but sometimes resources aren't are are hard for them to find and understand what all is out there and so we're building on those asset maps and training and DCFS on what those those resource connections are so that's something that we're working on for the future to see. And that's a new partnership DHS family stability program so we were able to get some of that you are a committee that emergency rental assistance money to help struggling families with rent utilities incentives to work with case management and accountability I put that in there because that is the premise of all of our initiatives is that we use are programs to help move people forward in life and we want so if a family is in crisis and they need inpatient recovery and that's what they really need right now then that's what we're going to help them get um we're not Janet Janet just put someone with no income that is you know currently using meth into a house we're going to make sure that the proper steps are taken and that people are our service and health but it's in a way that will help them be successful and then we have delta regional authority that's added vocational training and we focus a lot on vocational training and helping our parents moms and dads get into different careers that are long term so we've had welding schools tracking schools different different types of scholarships available. So I wanted to show you the growing number of enrollments in one hundred families that's what this fight is for so you can see in August of twenty twenty one we enrolled sixty three new families that month and you can see in July of twenty twenty two just M. and month ago we enrolled a hundred and thirty eight families and one month so we are growing exponentially and and we believe that this number will probably be above hunt one hundred new families every month from now on and especially as we add new communities. So the progress report and for just the month of July so this shows a hundred and forty seven families and which in include some organise some outside organizations that enroll families that were on that previous slide but there's all nine hundred and sixty four active families so our families that are served in one hundred families on average stay in the initiative for eight months and some of them are in for two and a half years or three years I have I've kicked cases that have been that long M. and then some are are much shorter but an average of eight months because that's how long and it takes for us to get them the services they need and get the move towards stability we have two thousand two hundred fifteen children currently being served and you'll see those that impact as far as out is the actual outcomes that the community is is seeing eighty five percent increase in the number of families who were stably housed there's been a seventy one percent increase in the number of families with full time employment and there's a hundred twenty five percent in an increase in the number of families that are financially stable. And we actually SS this and analyze this on thirteen different areas so if you ever want a really big outcome report we have on a monthly basis about a hundred different pages we can send you what outcomes we do have quite the large amount of data the total number of clients so far. since it just August first of twenty twenty one we serve one thousand six hundred eighty one with and then two thousand three hundred twenty four today hi I doubt that That this is a for I've been in direct Sir I I've left a financial technology fintech about seventeen years ago to kind of do this professionally and it was all around trying to solve the problem for folks getting out of prison and I thought you know that be quite easy because we're serving was solving hard problems for banks that were acquiring other bank surely we can fix this seventeen years later I'd say it wouldn't quite as easy as I thought it might be but the we are now at a point in Arkansas where we've got scalable infrastructure that can be placed into a community that allows existing resource and community to optimize its connections amongst each other it's a systems approach so instead of trying what what I often did and and and many of my friends and partners often did was we would look at a section of the service delivery community and you try to optimize this section we do really well in a educational program but folks entering the crisis actually or on average and usually three areas and so if we couldn't address housing and you've got children at home and you know you're getting kicked out on Friday it was hard to get someone to come back on Monday to the trucking school program. And so but there's housing programs out there but they're not connected with not to the degree that actually operationalize is the ability to partner together and so that's what we've spent all these years now working on and now we're trying to multiply this to other communities that would want to to actually work together in this way. And these are our family preservation and reunification outcomes were so I am very proud of this so when a family works with DCFS and they have a forty three percent chance right now as reuniting with their children but when we come along side DCFS and we work with the case worker and we help encourage the family then we see a seventy six percent reunification rate for those that are enrolled in one hundred families as well and so that was that S. comes at two hundred twenty six families reunited through our program three hundred and forty four children that were United with their families and and even the greater still in our minds is the number of children that we've been able to keep in their home safely without the trauma of removal and that's two thousand six hundred thirty eight children that safely remain in their homes one thousand one hundred and eighty three families preserved. so this is a little bit about our system it's called hope art kits it it does tend eligibility determination and data collection across and real time data across the state compliant communication we we use the system to help resolve legal issues through a court resolution team and enables our clients to get their driver's license back and then also client goal setting so putting our clients kind of at the drivers we'll and saying okay what what do you want your life to look like from here on out let's let's start working towards that. so I wanted to show you a screen shot at. And I removed the any data that any information that had personally identifiable information in it but this is a screenshot from the system itself and I wanted to show you how and it works this is a real case and it has those octagons and that's our OB gyn hexagons that are up in the right corner there in the middle and does it represent different people on a care team for a family so this is a specific family and those are all the people working together on a care team to help this family and so the care team members on average each case has seven different providers working for the family any provider that wants to go in and see that consents and see if there we are you know hit the for a couple compliant and then they can go in and actually view the consents download and print amend their files and and then that there is a full assessment in thirteen different areas completed the both the intake and then every month there after that we can get and at a hold of the client of course you know that month might skip or something here and there but we maintain this this scale of progress or regress in some cases obviously showing it on a month to month basis where these families are and at the end of the month so whether you work for example the community rescue mission in Fort Smith and and you are a family mission that takes families with children you can enroll in the system use the assessment and we will all join that team and say Hey we're going to be part of this family's care team and whatever you can't do somebody on this care team can do to to help provide support to this family that would include in the care team it could be parole or probation officer in a District Court. Word or in ACC could include case worker caseworker supervisor from DCFS and so the ability in very complex. issues that a lot of our Kansans or that would come into contact with DCFS racy see or District Court and not do well there is some of forties that are that are involved in their lives but they can be added to this case and see real time what's actually going on which a files the group now to coordinate better and so you'll see those outcomes that we were showing earlier out largely is done through the ability to have this constant communication and awareness of what's really happening. And so that is in addition to the area of the system that manages that monthly assessment and tracking progress we also have a message board and that's what you see some clips from is that the compliant communication in the care team where everyone is is is working together to to come up with a plan and solutions for barriers that the families are facing. So R. M. goal is to expand that with the one hundred families initiative and every child which you'll hear about here in a moment to the top twenty five counties in Arkansas and so what every and community needs in order to launch one hundred families to have this initiative is an alliance so you have to have community support you have to have community members that are willing to work together we actually have them sign something called a declaration of participation just basically saying that Hey we're gonna work together we're gonna put aside our own agendas and whatever help the family that's what we're here to do not to for our own glory and so that's why we call it one hundred families is because one hundred families is not an entity restore hope is the entity that provides the backbone support but we want everyone in the community to own one hundred families so you must have an alliance you must use the system which is that Hobart collaborative case management system for both communication and assessment and there has to be case managers you can calm case matters and that navigators community liaisons with lots of different things but basically someone that is going to make sure that this family doesn't get dropped that there is someone that is responsible for the that that constant updates and communication and so you can see kind of a a plan for state wide rollout that we would. Some day like to see. so the expansion methods for one hundred families because we just really we know that this is successful and and and helping families and so we would love for it to expand we can do affiliate green minutes which is of course little to no cost to ten F. and we and I have done some grants in different communities and and then also company stores basically that where we are hiring all of the case managers are self and and running the program directly used to doing direct service as well. so restore hope as far as the backbone of course we own the Hobart case management system we make sure that the system is kept up to date that it's constantly being developed that the data analysis is done and it with with integrity and we are always seeking resources and partners for our counties and so we help them obtain additional grants they can use our data to take it to obtain grants it's their data so it's community data we have a case management training course that we require case managers even if they work for other organizations to to go through so that they can you know understand their their ethical requirements as far as when you work with a family in need we have technical assistance but the calls with each coordinators of the coordinator role is extremely important in each community holds the alliance together and brings along no new organizations that want to be a part and then of course we a monitor any affiliates our sub brands this next initiative that which is very new is that ever or until there's more than enough for every child is what I. the goal is that there would be and that for every child in Arkansas and that I explain to you a little bit about what that was and in just a moment ago but we work together to line all the organization serving children before during and off after foster care so many of the the organizations you probably have heard from in this in you know in these different in this legislative committee are are on a team and communicating frequently which we know communication is key to really making add change and and removing duplication of services and just helping our families to have better outcomes so we communicate through worker and working groups and we've hired a coordinator Shane Baker he's a foster adoptive parents and in the past and a pack and and of. And a pastor as well and he is is leading the effort and we've had over a million dollars pledged in private funding this is all been paid for through private find funding so far and we've been using shared measurements for success so your this is like I said it's pretty new but we're going to be looking at you know are we increasing the number of foster homes that are open to specifically around the needs that the department has another words if they need homes opened for children that have special needs or they need them for teenagers or larger sibling groups you know how are we targeting to get those kinds of families and and then of course we will be looking at reunification and the decrease of DCFS turnover and know how are we affecting that by supporting the CFS by AM by letting him know that we do you know care and support and know how difficult their job is and that we we we we know that whatever there's turnover that that causes a great deal of of hardship for families and so we want to help with that and that's what one of the the goals of this initiative is. I'm smart justice and so we're very excited about this and this is a an outcome of a series of trips up to Winthrop Rockefeller institute called I. R. three it's just it's called incarceration I re entry you reunification recidivism and we were in a as we work together on different working groups at I. R. three and it would drop Rockefeller Institute we realized that people in general just don't know about and these different ways to support the community to reduce incarceration to reduce foster care to provide supports in communities to provide alternatives like in district courts that we're seeing across the state of Arkansas diversionary courts and and we get a lot of our families actually enrolled through those chords but so smart justice is is that is our our method of getting the word out to and I hope that you get a chance to read these articles I mean they are just out standing and they're they're well written and I'm I'm just really proud of it so and then we will start a series of podcasts as well I and those will the first one will be released on September seventh Yeah that will release the same we're releasing two per year after we kinda climbed we ascended Petty Jean mountain and the wisdom of the group comes out we will then come out of that meeting with the particular subject in which there's a unified voice on a particular deal so this one's about the family the importance of the family in justice issues whether be child welfare or otherwise the next one will be around the importance and the opportunity that we have in Arkansas by engaging folks in District Court. because there's a very particular way you can identify some folks that are starting down a a slide into real trouble and we can find them there and offering help and a way out. Okay I am I am I know we're kind of short on time the rest of these are and are really self explanatory there smaller initiatives that we work on in the City of Little Rock shell and we have a housing development arm there just just also came out of W. R. I. which is we saw the great need for affordable housing in the state of Arkansas and we know that it's not being developed because nonprofits that want to provide transitional housing and different types of housing don't necessarily know how to access the funding so since we have that expertise on staff we're going to begin to help and communities doing that we have several communities that have asked for that help and then also a second chance education grants do you want to talk about that hello grant in nineteen ninety four with the passage of the crime bill we stop allowing program to be used in jails and prisons a number of years ago there was an experimental program in Arkansas it was shorter college an ASU Newport that were allowed to do program inside of prisons it looks like next summer that that's going to become widely available to all title for schools we added two more schools in the expansion of the experimental step this summer it was C. York in pine bluff and I think it was finder Smith what's the other one and so in a partnership with the arc we're. helping them launch with thirty students and follow and Cummins so incarcerated students there with the idea that if we can get some best practice and some faculty that would like to travel and work for multiple schools then we can help colleges and community colleges roll across Arkansas win second chance bill becomes widely available next year actually start to turn our jails and prisons into opportunities for job twenty four thousand truck drivers in Arkansas today it takes one month to get there there's money in and workforce did we and many other department of labor that would actually get someone there. And so how do we scale the ability to train truck drivers and loaders. Right we would entertain any questions if you have any at this time. All members you can see why I was so excited to get them before you and to hear the actual change that we're seeing in Arkansas families due to the efforts of this group. do we have any questions I'm not seeing any questions do we have your contact information so that if we want to is it. In that you know that this is my first time here. Representive I will make sure that you have what can we give it to you would get if you will send it to Blake and then he will send it out to our members right thank you very much if you do we have a. All right thank you so much thank you for being with us. Next on our agenda we have Christy when from project zero operations have the need your familiar with project zero raise your hands okay quite a few of you have that some of you have not they have a wonderful Facebook page if you want to go and not right now but later you can going to their Facebook page and see some of the exciting things that they're doing and that it will break your heart but also inspire you said Christie thank you for being with us today and that I think we're going to get your slides ready to go well I am add definitely not as deep into a at a presentation but I have a couple of of things that I want to show you in a few minutes that I just want to say what an honor it is to be here today it's an honor to be able to share projects the road work but it's even more of an honor I had to get to be a voice for the two hundred and ninety two children who today are waiting in Arkansas foster care for a forever family and to get to be there face today is an absolute honor to be before you so thank you I want to start out a little with just telling you a little bit about myself and I am a wife a mom and I have six children that range in age from thirty five down to thirteen and we have two daughter in laws the son in law and five grandchildren so it's like family circus every day in our house except that we just moved our nineteen year old to college on Saturday which left this one at home and we're like what do we do with ourselves it is just crazy that about my adventure into foster care and adoption started almost thirty years ago on a random January afternoon as I sat in a rocking chair rocking my one year old daughter. Who is now thirty with two daughters that around and as I began to rocker I begin to look just into her sweet little face she was asleep in my to preschool boys were at in bed which was a miracle and absolute interface I just begin to think of all the children who had no one to rock them on that after name and the Mamas who were struggling and the families who are struggling and how blessed I was to be able to sit there in that moment and rock my child and in the course of about thirty minutes my life changed forever because I felt like god said to me in that moment it is time to do more than say you're pro life the world is seen enough marching and picketing and judgment what they need to see from you is action. And I'm I it he gave me the words to a song that I sang and when Jeff got home from work I sang in this whole song and I think he thought I'd been with preschoolers a little too long but I said we've got to do something and I don't know what that something is well that something let us add to nineteen years of foster care eleven with the private nonprofit adoption agency where we foster newborns it was like being perfect perpetually pregnant fought constantly at fostering a any born and then our last year's were through the state of Arkansas for that for eight years and so it might my journey began in foster care in adopting our two youngest children and then a huge shift came and changed to advocacy as I founded project zero in two thousand eleven at project zero is if it's privately funded five oh one see three with one goal and that goal is to have zero kids in foster care in this state. Who are waiting to be adopted. Once we get there will help other states we get that question all the time would you be willing to come to you know New Jersey or wherever. No we've got to get to zero at home and so that's our goal. At the end and the kids are the reason that we do what we do everything we do revolves around them we are thinking about them twenty four seven we are fighting for them twenty four seven and and and so that that that is that's in a nutshell it's very simple and we do that by doing three things that started this way in two thousand eleven it is grown it has morphed into bigger and and more we started in two thousand eleven by kind of going off the chain and cutting an album we thought why not let's go to Nashville and cut an album so we did that it bond like because we didn't know how to we didn't have to promote an album but we we did it because we wanted to raise awareness and it is still available we only ordered thousand copies and we still have those available so feel free to get on our website in order when I will throw in free if you just want to tell us you want one the first way we do that is by raising awareness and that involves several different things one of the things is when Mr took office six years ago I think I'm not sure I we took over the state's heart gallery we were already doing that and I have we just took it over and so the heart gallery is a collection of photographs at by professional photographers who come and shoot photos of our kids showing their their personalities they're at just who they are it's just it's a beautiful thing and so we have that online we have three traveling galleries one at in Northwest Arkansas that travels down Fort Smith in that area and then two in central Arkansas that travel south and and whichever other way they need to travel and it is so there's something about hearing you know they're two hundred ninety two kids here waiting and that number you think me and you know that that's a lot of kids but when you walk up to the heart gallery exhibit or you get online and I would challenge you to get online and I would challenge you to look in the faces of our kids. You need families it will move you so when you hear the number it's it's profound but when you see the faces it compels you. And you can't look away because it's your child and my child and something has to be done but then we begin to realize that okay you've got a picture in that compels you what else could we do so about eight years ago we began working with filmmaker Nathan Wallace who now lives in New Orleans and comes back to Arkansas because we won't let him go I had to shoot short films featuring are waiting kids and those films give kids the opportunity to share their own truths in their own words and in their own way as much or as little as they would like to share and we have seen some profound out comes from people who never dreamed they would adopt walking into that we had it we had a boy who had been waiting for six years and the family had opened their home they had two little boys and they plan to adopt a little girl they saw his short film and they looked at each other and said we we must pursue him. And he went from being a child in foster care in a facility to being assigned simply because he was able to share his own story. So I want it you know that the neat thing about the short films as they can be anything from light and whimsical where you know siblings are poking each other in giggling and saying you better back off during the thing it can be a child that says well if I got adopted I would probably turn into a rainbow you know and he did get adopted I don't think he turned into a rainbow that and to just fine thanks for the talk about they want to be in the NBA and they love candy and if they had a million dollars a by a truck loaded candy. There are times most times when Nathan and I sit there as the filming is going on with our heads down. Can tears in our eyes as we listen to the truth is that these kids share. They want to be home. They want any chance. And so today I selected one of those hard ones I'm simply because I want you to understand the depth of what we're dealing with and so I want to introduce you. Two fifteen year old Samuel and Blake's gonna start this for me and I in the way okay and and and this is just a little taste we've shot every three hundred and fifty short films probably closer to four hundred now S. the one of the work to get adopted. In the buildings or on. Completely. One Samuel the last time. I'll write video game that late. Favorite sport is baseball. A baseball team is. Davison's on their team of all is on it is on grass now each day. My report card said that I had isn't being now as in now what do you want to do after you're done with school. Well I was thinking about like either. Going into the army or being a police officer. One thing it would be at. I. My whole life. I don't have to go through this. I've been in the ninety S.. Most of the times. It sucks. She is like the others dad my stepdad. Foreign caring now. Is because. He had done some stupid stuff. In. I don't call the cops every day so on now right now one Davis K.. So how do you think getting a doctor change your life. Those are all this. I'm asking in this. Still questions one only. John eighteen. All. Bring down. Well this. It's all my fault but it's really not. Watching. God loves you. Is there a reason. Sun. All not just me but for you to. Don't give up. There is still hope in. In the world. Hello. As you can see The short films will break you and will cause billows of of righteous indignation to rise that and make you want to scream it from the rooftops as an adoptive mom I know it's not easy I know what I'm asking people to do. I understand every piece of the puzzle but I also know that Samuel is worth fighting for every day. And as a result of that short film DCFS adoption staff are working with the family for Samuel. is is is not final there's a lot of things going on and it takes a lot of of ins and outs but the good news is they're moving in that direction and soon he'll be home. And for that we can cannot be more grateful. The second way that we help reach our goal is by building hope in waiting kids. And as a foster parent I learned that the longer kids languish in foster care waiting to be adopted the more hope is lost it just takes a minute to look in their eyes and to see To see that hope vanish so pre covid we were hosting events once a month all kind of events from razorback games to beauty shop deals to frozen tea parties to our project from where we invite girls here going to prom and we all had to Dillard's and by. Prom dresses and shoes and purses and jewelry and of course banks and all the things you need to go to prom and then we all eat lunch together we invite volunteers to come in and be fairy godmothers and be matched up with kiddos to add to serve that mom role and we I can't even name all of the things we do but there's all kinds of events that we recently hosted to back to school bash events where we invited and I didn't say this these events or for children waiting to be adopted children and teens but we also invite into the process families who have completed the process and are waiting to adopt so we don't want to waste any opportunity for families and kids to meet and so at our two biggest events of the year our our Disney extravaganza which that was in its fourteenth year this year minus two years for cabin so I guess it would be twelfth annual but anyway I we were able to jump back in after twenty seven months of no events and host this year's Disney extravaganza I want to share a little bit and I'm gonna show you the video which will hopefully be a little light more light hearted and Samuels short film ADD but this year's Disney extravaganza was attended by seventy one percent of the waiting kids in Arkansas from every corner of our state and over four hundred and fifty volunteers at hosted seventy Disney themed booths for kids a hundred and thirty DCFS staff and transporters adoption staff DHS staff from the top down attended and almost a hundred waiting families the governor and the First Lady were there which was wild but the biggest and best thing that I can tell you that happened in that three hour period that we call the Disney extravaganza is in that by. Omit of time thirty six children met their forever families. That is so humbling and it is such an honor to be a part of that before I say this or other event that will be coming up in December is our Candyland Christmas event where we work with the CFS intimately to get Christmas list from every single waiting child in the state so it's not a toy drive we've done it before but these are lists that come in we have recently put them online and enabled at an able to folks to to adopt a list we had a lady of Vermont to bite gifts and ship them we have people from all over the place at work to do that and the last two years we've partnered with the Arkansas trucking association to drive gifts to at thirteen Santa stops around the state and drop off Christmas two kiddos and so we just and I and I'm getting ahead of myself but we love to think outside the box I always worry when I can diminish a with an idea if she's gonna think you've gone a little too far this time but so far so far as she is she at has as been an amazing partner and that this is this year's Disney extravaganza to show you a little bit and about at what we do and then I wanted that from there. This is in the manual Baptist church parking lot. The resident strategies we are at Disney extravaganza this is our fourteenth annual Disney extravaganza which is our biggest connection and the year after not being able to do it since two thousand nineteen. Well that is the extravaganza was born fourteen years ago when I learned that people together sometimes and had adoption picnics where they ate hot dogs and sat around and maybe families were may maybe they were so we thought you know if we're going to do something let's do it for the kids let's do it so being in so much that they just are having a great time and it's a non threatening environment for families and kids to. It is our first in man and twenty seven and it's crazy that we're going to start back with such a bang. We have about seventy Disney theme dates and they're sponsored by local businesses churches individuals and it is amazing to see the creativity and the passion that goes the then two people taking a stand and just running with it that brings joy because we couldn't do this event without our volunteers about people committing to doing these. And it makes it even more special when they just take it and they make it just. Thank you table this event is one way we try to get everybody child in our state to come and then families from around the state your opening approved in waiting to adopt we have ten areas in our state every county one of those areas so you just been working with the CMS to get kids registered we have such an amazing partnership DeCSS. We have over a hundred and thirty staff have driven from all corners of the state to bring over two hundred and sixty seven and we're building helping the kids they're having signed their feeling valued in hopefully they're finding their forever family. We met our son here at Disney extravaganza three years ago we were an open adoptive home so this was just very first. And to that we knew that even after we want to come back and volunteer and just be a part of what happens with project. For this year's event obviously yes being able to hack our kids and build. This is really important after twenty seven. It's for the day they don't always get and we want them to be last time out. What if one child and family it was worth it all it was worth the tens of thousands of dollars that was words every headache every prayer everything is one child. That's what it's all. The work is hard it's very well worth it these waiting in Sir have show up for them and just to show our support and love on at eleven well. Every day every prayer every hour away is about kids findings and so we want this to be so over the top that they will always remember this is where I'm at my family. As you see at you heard mission there and DHS added an ad DCFS added a new little at Conneaut this year a parade and it was so much fun ADD directly at not director Secretary Gillespie and the whole crew was all on on the floats that going by so is really special but finally the third way we helped add to reach the goal of the euro at is by working with the in a close partnership with Arkansas DCFS obviously there's no way we could fight this battle without them we work with every single and option specialist in the state on a daily basis we work with everyone at the central office all working together for one goal and that's to find a family for every waiting child we believe that everyone in child is unique precious valuable and they deserve the opportunity to have the very best family to meet their needs and to help them heal and grow we have had the honor and to be part of helping eleven hundred over eleven hundred kids meet their forever families and for that we are incredibly grateful but there's so much work left to be done there are two hundred and ninety two as I said before children and teens who are waiting right now to find their way home. And only one yes it would just take a yes to make that happen every day that passes in the life of a waiting child is a day too long. three weeks ago at our back to school bash I was standing there in it a boy came up and touched me on the arm he's fifteen and he said Hey and I said how are you today he said Hey do you know any adoptive families. And I said yes yes I do and he said where are that way because I want to be adopted. And in that moment I just thought you know our kids should not have to be in a position where they're looking for families they should be kids and we should be taking on that burden for them and we're we're I use the word honored so match and I and I I see that just repeated everything I say because I truly am honored to get to carry that that wait for them. We want to cast a wider net we want to utilize all types of formats anything we can do to help people know about our waiting kids and to get every single one of them home we we use a quote really often that that's from an anonymous source and it says this there are no one wanted children just and found families and we are passionate extremely passionate about finding those families where we would love for brokenness to be healed for lives to be restored for deep dreams to be born for destiny's to be realized envisions to be fulfilled where hope lives peace abounds faith is lived out laughter flows Joey rains family is amended in truth and unconditional love and we're god dwells we believe that when we serve waiting kids as project zero with love intentionality purpose and excellence we show a watching world that they're not at a foster kid. That they are precious and valuable and unique and they deserve to be fought for. I would just challenge you if I could if I may to get on our website and look at the faces of the children that belong to us there in Arkansas state custody there Arkansas's children and they legally have no parents and I would encourage you to share the truth about them to your constituents to people in your your community because two hundred and ninety two children waiting to be adoptable adopted is doable it is absolutely doable it's just a matter of finding the right family for each waiting child so thank you for the opportunity to share about project zero thank you for your support and and we're just we're just grateful to do the work we do. Questions Christy thank you so much for being with us and now. I think we may be a little bit speechless right now let me see if we do have some questions. Representative cloud thank you madam chairman just wondering like when you make a connection like at Disney extravaganza with the child and the family right what about the legal services the fantastic yes help with that yes and the way that works is and families you know we we do exams with them before to kind of lay out what it's going to look like because we want to do everything DCFS and project zero wants to do everything with respect to the kids so it we don't want to be at a show of any sort we wanted to be fun for the kids and all about them so what happens is if I meet little Susie and I want to know more about about her and then at the end of the time you saw that mailbox at the end that big red mailbox we were children not around families come to that and fill out an information sheet with all of their information and the child's name at goes in that box it goes to our logistics coordinator and she compiles the list and before Monday morning at that weekend sends it to every adoption specials in the state they begin the process then of if there are five families that inquired about one particular child they will pull those home studies and be reading those home studies to find out are any of these families the best family I have for that particular child we begin then partnering with the adoption manager at two weekly host phone calls where we are going through every single inquiry in this year I think there were two hundred and forty one enquiries so we are going through every single one of those to make sure that nobody nobody's fault the cracks that we know where we stand and so DCFS is handling all of the legal at process to that families are already open and approved this of all of our events are closed to the public so every family is vetted by DCFS before they attend so we know that if they inquire they may be the right family. At but that's here all handle on the DCFS and and we don't make the selections either I might add that but I will say that our hat we have the inquiry piece of the puzzle on our our website and last year we answered over ten thousand enquiries about Arkansas waiting kids from spare from every corner of the country from from Europe from. Just everywhere so as word is getting out about about our kiddos. I hope that answer that question it did an. The representative McKenzie. Thank you madam chair and thank you for all that you do have been falling projects here for some time now could you give us more information about the process the time the criteria for a family become approved so they can attend these events right absolutely we you know we do not we we kind of have a one track mind as you can tell by the way I talk today and that's our wedding kids so what we do if a family rights in and they say how do I docked you know we start out by saying do you live in Arkansas are another state and I say I live in Arkansas so we begin we lay out how they can get open here and we give them all the information they need the website for DCFS for the call if they want to be a foster family we add some other entities and there to help them and then we let them know once you go through that process then you're back to ask because then you beginning getting all the emails saying you're invited to this and you're invited to that and I would say that the process and this is just a gas would take anywhere from four to twelve months depending on and Mr correct me if I'm wrong that and depending on your availability to attend training and all you know the person's availability and and all of when is when things are available and that type of thing that you know it can be done fairly quickly if you're at ready to to roll and ready to get your physicals and all the things that you need to get done and done and then once they do that final walk through even you know we had families that they have their final walk through the day before Disney and they can't they were able to count because of the CFS was able to get them that ad and make sure they were open. We really need to move on as quickly as we can because we still have some reports can we get your if you would send your contact information to Blake and he will send that out to everybody and that way they can connect with you and get some more answers thank you so much for being with us or have. Next we have family preservation services report that's exhibit Eads from Mr Martin director Division of Children and Family Services department of Human Services commission have we all know you by now but for the record if you would introduce yourself to the committee yes good afternoon I'm Mr Martin on the Director of the Division of Children and Family Services man is it hard to follow up after restore hope and projects as zero two of our strongest partners but I hope what you also walk away from besides just amazing things they just said and shared with their partnership with you is my take away is also that children are not meant to be raised by the government so whether it is restore hope working with families to get children back with their families and if that's not possible then they do move to the adoption we have an amazing partner a project zero that helps us find and identify homes because children should not be raised by the government that sometimes foster care is the necessary intervention to keep children safe but it should be a short term intervention so we are so thankful for our partners and there's more than just these two but these two are super amazing so I'll jump into the family's preservation's report and I thought I saw representative Clark to click Tucker the representative M. this report is something I mentioned in the last meeting that we had because you had asked about and I think we followed up over email but I just want to make a point to point out that this family preservation's report does show a lot of the data over the prior two years so can show more of trans it is similar data that you see in both our annual report card in our quarterly performance R. T. P. R. that I present to you and and different at different meetings and you'll probably get the annual report card in the next meeting what's really cool about this report is if you will flip to the back as I'm going through it almost every data point that I talk about is broke out by county and now the sections that. I'm going to go over our by area but if you'll just move to the appendix in the county in which you cover you can see what area their end so you'll know when I reference an area if it a quick stir your county that you represent so the back has all the county level data while the the me of what I will go through does speak in areas and see can reference back so I'll start on page two and again this is similar data that you get in the annual report card but shows trends over the last two years and just to make sure on the same page this is for calendar year twenty twenty one so this is a little bit older and and we do not so much uses as a management tool because we do have more data that is that we use a tool called safe measures as well as other reports that we pull that come to us every three days that we get more up to date data so I don't your worries lady uses as a management tool not really because it's already added eight we have tools and data that are at our fingertips but this does show is good trends over prior years in is required by the legislature to report so starting on page two you accepted reports of child maltreatment you can see that there was a death in twenty twenty which was the beginning of the pandemic in March of twenty twenty you saw that start back increasing in twenty twenty one we have continued to see an increase there were four thousand three hundred and ninety three accepted reports of maltreatment to the child abuse hotline M. and then I'm not gonna hit every single chart because I know we're pressed for time but I'm always happy to take questions or talk after committee so I'm gonna skip over quite a bit because they do cover this data and you have do you have and other what it in the report itself I'll note that timely initiations of investigations on page three that could be either twenty four or seventy two hours depending on the severity of them out treatment we did see a decline in twenty twenty one AM in twenty twenty one we facing. If I can't turn over and workforce challenges we're starting to come out of that but twenty twenty one was a very difficult for at difficult year for **** with workforce challenges in it is reflected in some in some of our numbers but not all of our numbers and this one is the key on timely initiation investigation but you can also see on the bottom of page three that you break it out by areas well several of our areas that have more stability and work for such as areas eight nine and ten. I had better initiations of investigations were areas that we are struggling with and you'll see across this report includes area six which area six is Pulaski County it's our only area that is one county. Moving on to a reoccurrence of mount treatment which is a substantial number on page six I we did sabelo the national average which is a good thing because that means that the kids that we did investigate and provide services to only six percent of those kids had a reoccurrence of some maltreatment within twelve months I'm impasse over different response which is on six and seven and move on to open and home cases which you'll see on the page of at top of page nine we have seen an increase in an home protective services cases that is the the length of time that we are keeping open and home service cases and in some ways that's good we now have across the state though not complete implementation the funding and and contracts for intensive in home services and many of those services are a longer period of time than we have traditionally kept in home cases open those are six to nine months so we may see increase of in home cases do the length of time that we are keeping them open and which could be a good thing A. for working in offering services in getting this families on the right path moving on to page eleven you can see that we we were at our lowest number of kids in foster care the month before the pandemic started we actually went below four thousand and two hundred kids in foster care as a pandemic hit we saw increases and as of twenty twenty one we had four thousand six hundred and thirty one children in foster care as of yesterday we had four thousand four hundred and forty five so we are Dick decreasing again. You can see on the pace well the talks about placement in proximity of a child placement to their home county or neighboring county we want to keep children and their own County so we did decreased by a percentage point in that area place it's continue to be a struggle for us but we are working through that and that's a whole long conversations I won't go into that but placements in keeping kids in their home county does continue to be I struggle for at S. M. but on that same note looking at page fourteen you can see placement of kids in care who are with relatives and at the end of twenty twenty one we were at over forty two percent our own data our own Arkansas data even though the national data supports this that relatives when safe and appropriate or the best placement for kids and while they're in foster care on Arkansas data demonstrates that relatives that kids who are placed with relatives have more stability less likely to suffer any maltreatment and more quickly to permanency than any other type of of placement so and as you can also see on the ribbon on the on the left about relative placements and six years ago in twenty fifteen the relative placement rate was less than twenty percent so the division over the last six years has made it a substantial priority not only to place children with relatives or fictive kin but also to make this placements same day so that children who come in the foster care if they can be prevented from being placed with this stranger they never go to a stranger they go to a relative or fictive kin you can also see the break out by area of how relative placements are going on the bottom of page fifteen and you can see like there's a range from thirty one to fifty one percent the all areas are seeing some increases in relative placements and as I mentioned a second ago you can see on fifteen that are placement stability rate continues to decrease. And we are still above the national average but you can also see in the ribbon in twenty fifteen the placement stability rate was seven point five for which means the placement stability which is explained at the top placement stability is measured by the rate of placement moves for thousand days in foster care for children who in our care over a twelve month period so seven point five four percent was horrible five point two percent is not good but we are making progress to more placement stability and relatives are a key to making that placement stability better. And again you can look at your own counties in the back as we as we let me through this permanency within twelve months on the on page sixteen M. sadly as the pandemic hit we were slower to move children to permanency said this goes back to what I was saying at the very beginning beginning children should not be raised by the government and if we if we do raise them it should be for a short period so permanency is really important that we foster here's a short term intervention we move them to something more permanent whether adoption reunification with their family guardianship we struggled with the pandemic hit and as in twenty twenty one we are right at the national standard of forty percent of our kids moving to permanency discharges from foster care also aren't that contributing factor to increases in the number of children that we have in foster care we have not seen an increase of the number of children entering foster care it has been a decrease in the children exiting foster care now on a positive note we have seen improved permanency in twenty twenty and as you will also see on page eighteen is that we actually fell below that which is good I have to be real careful about these nationals it's good on this one that we fell below the national standard of eleven months to adoption and that's the first time in many years that we have been below the national average of eleven months now to me eleven months from termination to adoption is way too long but that does include the kids who have been in care for a substantial period of time who working with project zero and there's we find an adoptive home said that that does hurt our numbers as well right but we totally want kids who have been in foster care to find adoptive homes so that just keep giving that information says you understand that number but we are proud that we are reducing and then twenty twenty one at the. In from September to November we did a huge part campaign in partnership with project zero hopefully you've seen that are kind of our branding right now is every day counts and every day counts is saying to not only are staff but the community that every day counts for our kids and so we need to be moving towards permanency we need to make sure that we're making good safety decisions and so from September to November with our every day counts messaging we partnered with Christy and project zero to make it all about adoption and had some really successful finalization seven options in those final three months of not final thirty minutes at September October November of twenty twenty one and you can also see we are starting back on the up trend a finalization of adoptions which declined in twenty twenty and we were setting records the three prior year so that and over nine hundred adoptions so we did have a significant decline that first year the pandemic we are back on the upswing of number of adoptions finalized. You can see a better lay out of our strengths and weaknesses that I have just done on page nineteen and then on page twenty I'll move into well being and we talk about and both page twenty and twenty one visits we should be DCFS should be seeing our children at least once a month which is which is required if not more than once a month and you can see the data on that and we have struggled with in home visits at only seventy six percent and twenty twenty one now you will see a break out on the bottom of page twenty and as you can see Pulaski County an area six was definitely pulling down our average they only saw their kids thirty six percent of the time and I think as I've done in the past we have a whole plan that I'm more than willing to present again around the how we are supporting Pulaski to move them out of crisis. And then that is pretty much conclusion of family preservation to report and I just would encourage you again to look at the appendix where you can see each county and I break out of how they're doing in comparison to the past two years. I would much rather talk about kids but that wasn't my finest today. Thank you director Martin I'm not seeing any questions of thank you for being with us I'm sorry our representatives Tucker. Thank you senator Jeff or sorry sorry Senator second. I take it as a compliment sorry. I am too long so first what is what thank you for pointing that out up I really appreciate the year to year comparisons and I don't want you to just representing Pulaski County I don't want to ask you to go into a fifteen minute discussion Pulaski County but especially that last number I'm just curious if you could just give you a kind of a summary explanation of why it's so different and then just you know quickly again I don't want you to have to go into great detail about what what your plan is for questions right well and I want to re frame that question because I don't think that Pulaski is so different I think we get in trouble when we start having K. at counties in crisis that like to think of themselves is that so different now there numbers are different because they they have gotten into crisis and what happens in child welfare is a snowball effect so when things start taking a turn it quickly snowballs in the past when I had a county snowballing we would call in every other area and work force to lack Hey stop the snowball effect right well the snowball started it was starting right before COVID hit hard right when Code happen I'm losing staff from other areas this state we're quarantining we're having placement crisis there was no real ability to call in reinforcements to stop the snowball and I did call in ten percent over ten percent of central office staff we have about a hundred staff and actually was not twenty percent I lost most of that this act that I called into that to come in and and crisis to help them Class B. so we had a snowball effect we had over a hundred percent we had it was over a hundred percent you ask how do you have over a hundred percent you actually have multiple positions turn over twice in the same year so when you lease a hundred percent of your family service workers in Pulaski you are in full crisis now we implemented the whole plan and came to you guys and ask for positions we got approval for at one of the one. Of the national experts public knowledge which is working with restore hope and is even pulled in a leadership team to manage we have invested more resources in intensive in home services to try and provide better services to the family if they're not getting it from our case managers and I'm talking off the top of my head right now but we like going through this there have been several ways that we are trying to stabilize Pulaski I do think that they are headed in the right direction at this point but twenty twenty one it was a very very difficult year for us in plastic County. Representative berry. Thank you madam chairman and a director Martin I just want to say And thank you for the extraordinary work that you do not only and DCFS but the metrics and the data and everything that you provide us every time you do on these reports is extraordinary and it is very well done I just wanna thank you for all the hard work and effort that goes into a document such as this thank you thank you thank you mention. Representative Thurman. No. Okay all right thank you so much thank you for being with us our last report today is from major drew the commander of Arkansas state police crimes against children division the quarterly oversight report from April to June of twenty twenty two and that is exhibit at. Want to share our committee members of major Jeff through CACD commander apologized representative right off our report to look as nice as that last one. All right because in April through a through June you look on page two a show the call volume hello C. fifteen thousand eighty six calls eight thousand eight hundred three of those calls were accepted CACD hello one thousand seven hundred seventy eight of those DCFS out of five thousand six hundred seven while one thousand three hundred and thirty eight with differential response. On page three where it will reflect the allegations by Tate. And the monthly break down. If you go to page four it was so the case reported by you mandated reporters. I don't page five you'll see a monthly breakdown of the case is open in the case is closed within the three month period there one thousand six hundred seventy eight cases open and one thousand six hundred twenty eight closed of a one thousand six and twenty cases close five hundred seventy one of those were found true with substantiation rate of thirty five percent. There are two thousand eight hundred six cases active with a hundred sixty nine of those being opened over forty five days. Pages six and seven will reflect the breakdown by county. Other cases assign. Pages nine through ten will reflect the reported allegation tight end alleged victim groups. For ages eleven through twenty two. Reflect relationship between the alleged offender and the victim and the age groups of the alleged offender is. The pages twenty four through thirty one is a break down of the judicial district prosecuting attorney's cases submitted and if so which ones were filed decline and which ones are pending if you go to page thirty one. We have those numbers listed for you. See what we submitted a total of six hundred thirty one charges. Out of those two hundred thirty five charges were filed we have two hundred fifty one still pending and a hundred and forty five the client. I'll be glad to take any questions that you have. Thank you measure a recently on social media I've seen some. Complaints about the long waiting times when people dial in a report to the hotline can you help us with that. We're working on it we have a shortage there in the hot line right now we have thirty five positions in the hotline well we only have twenty six of those position feel right now and two of those a part time today to bring the just concentrate on faxes alone but there is help on the way we work in on the automated system when the testing process now I don't want to give to the portal at this time but it's President work also if you know I'm sorry get it myself in a speed up the time of the call wait and hopefully with the the measures that were put in place hopeful bill to get all those positions feel pretty so we're seeing more Africans that than we had before with some changes that were made. I think with school starting also that we'll see an uptake in calls as we usually do when there haven't been a lot of eyes on the children to the summer and then teachers and school staff are starting to see things that concern them so it'll be good when we can get those positions filled in the same issue we're facing cross the state with finding people to work with there any other questions raised representative berry thanks madam chairman and I think you answered a couple of my questions were provided for the chairman of men and I will say you are the best dressed state trooper that we have so you're you're report may not be that pretty but Thank you all right ready or anything that you're doing good so majored in comparison to the on the the number of calls that were received for the time frame of April may and June is that up from the same time period last year. Would you know by chance are you seeing more now than we did back then. Which were still in the you know if the covid fireman. Related to the home. This is. Just trying to compare the last year because received at this point we're about Three hundred and fifty nine fewer calls mmhm okay at this time last year market thank you manager. All right I'm seeing no additional questions thank you so much measure true thank you thank you all. And seeing no other business before us unless someone has an announcmenet. Seeing nine we're ready to adjourn thank you for being with us today.