Senate Children and Youth Committee - House Aging, Children and Youth
Video
Transcript
Machine transcript
May contain errors. Verify important quotations against the official video.
About transcript accuracy
- Source
- Whisper
- Model
- ggml-large-v3-turbo.bin
- Processing date
- October 5, 2026
Unknown speaker
0:00
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Chair
Unverified
4:30
Chair sees a quorum. Thank you for being here this morning for the Joint Committee of the Aging Children and youth first on our agenda today we need to approve the minutes from the February
11th meeting have a motion to have a second thank you all in favor say aye opposed no okay we've passed the minutes next we have a rule review from DCFS director right if you will follow the drill and introduce yourself you are recognized
Speaker 6
5:36
hey good morning Tiffany Wright director for the division of children and family services and first
Speaker 8
5:44
on the agenda is the DCFS policy manual review this review accomplishes a couple things today first it moves all of our internal procedures
Speaker 9
5:55
from administrative rule and relocates those procedures to our internal procedure manual which is supported by an
Speaker 8
6:04
executive order from the governor it
also handles language changes from the General Assembly with laws that had been passed and it also updates the continuing education hours for foster families within that rule. There's also several terminology changes within the rule as well as changing all of the titles of positions from the position title changes that we had in the last session. It also does some clarity
and removes obsolete terms and eliminating outdated requirements in
Speaker 12
6:41
positions that DCFS no longer has. Are there questions by committee?
Chair
Unverified
6:58
Senator Love, you're recognized. Thank you,
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
7:03
Madam Chair. Tiffany, you said that it changed it to an internal process.
Like, what is going to change about the process here within the manual? Because, I mean, repeat kind of the first part that you said because it seems like we were changing a process. Is it not coming to us? I mean, like you're saying it's an internal process now. So kind of explain to me the difference
in what we were doing what's going
Speaker 19
7:38
to what's going to actually happen so it's um it's
um currently um all of the
procedures are within the manual um all of how
Speaker 9
7:48
we carry out the policies and the laws are within the manual and all of that is being removed in in going into
our internal procedure manual at dcfs and keeping um the other necessary requirements okay and that was part of an executive
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
8:04
what does that, what does that change? What, what are we, what are we, what are we trying to accomplish with that change?
Speaker 19
8:15
So for us, um, for DCFS, it will be, um, we'll have the policy,
Speaker 26
8:20
but then how my staff will carry out the policy will be in the internal
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
8:26
procedure manual. Okay. So is that not available? Are you saying this just not going to be
available to us? Or are you saying, like, I guess I'm trying to see what you're trying to
accomplish with this change. It's an available document. It's the procedures of how our staff will operate on a day-to-day basis.
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
8:47
So is it not already internal right now? We
have procedures that are internal, yes, right now, the
Speaker 9
8:58
internal procedures. but it's moving the procedures out of the manual and moving it all over into our internal DCFS policy and procedure manual.
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
9:17
Okay. I'm just trying to figure out what we are accomplishing with this change. That's all. But thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. chairman gilmore you recognize
thank you co-chair um so to get this straight because i do have some questions about some of the changes but to get this straight this already exists we are updating it to be compliant with laws that were passed by this legislature and maybe some executive actions is that correct yes sir okay so that being said looking through some of the changes um
um in this just out of curiosity because i don't know so i'm going to ask we we we make some changes like um under k i think it's on the i don't know what page that is uh page 13 of your handout yes okay so item k we change protection plan to immediate safety plan um Obviously, words have meaning, so we're changing protection to immediate safety plan.
Does it mean that we're only looking at immediate threats, or does it mean that we're not looking at the whole of
Speaker 19
10:34
potential threats? Protection plan was an old term that DCFS used.
Speaker 8
10:39
Now we use immediate safety planning. It has the same effect for DCFS staff. protection plan was what we were doing when we wanted to um when we're trying to keep kids safe in the home with their parents and we feel like
Speaker 45
10:54
we can implement a protection plan we've changed
an updated terminology to safety plan okay
so like right above that in j we have safety factor which to me seems more broad now we're going to safety threat
Speaker 45
11:08
same thing just updating terminology also updating terminology with um how things across the nation are moving and
Speaker 47
11:14
in terminology as well so just trying to be progressive okay okay so you're you're basically telling
Speaker 48
11:21
me we're maybe changing vernacular but we're
not really changing procedure correct perfect okay thank you
representative ladyman you're recognized thank you madam chair i appreciate you let me ask question. I'm not a member of the committee. Director Wright, a couple questions. I know why you're doing this because we passed laws and the governor issued an executive order, so you have to do it. But my question is, will this make your department more efficient? Will it make you be better able to serve the people that need your services? I would say yes. And why I say yes is
we sometimes when we're implementing procedures or how we're asking our staff to do
Speaker 9
12:11
things when we start it's not and maybe it doesn't work right or we need to adjust and so instead of having to bring back an entire policy change this allows us to change our procedure and direct staff to
Speaker 56
12:23
keep ensuring that we're putting things like safety and permanency first so I think yes it allows us to be able to move more fluidly through the changes that need to happen within our division So
is the language more permanent and more consistent?
I mean, would that be one of the advantages? Yes, I would say yes. Will this also improve how people in general and people that use your department view your department by using different, as the senator said, words have meaning, some words have great meaning. So will it improve the image of your department for those people that need to use your services?
Speaker 54
13:04
I would say yes, in that I think it helps us to be aligned with the day-to-day usage of what they're hearing my staff
Speaker 56
13:12
say and talk about when they're engaging with children and families.
Chair
Unverified
13:17
Thank you. Seeing no further questions, without objection, we're going to consider this rule reviewed. And next on our agenda, you can keep your seat. we
Speaker 50
13:33
have another report, well, several reports, quarterly reports and a biannual report from Director Wright. So whenever you're ready, you may begin. So
Speaker 63
13:43
I'm going to go to the third quarter performance report
because you'll see second and third quarter next to each other in this document. And as a reminder, just in case you're curious about what
Speaker 9
14:00
counties or areas of the state, The front of the book outlines, when I talk about areas,
it outlines which area your county may fall into. I'm going to start on page one of the booklet, just demonstrating that in third
Speaker 8
14:21
quarter, so third quarter is January 2026 to March of 2026, there were 8,610 reports accepted
at the Child Abuse Hotline, and 6,919%
of those, or 80%, was assigned to the Division of Children and Family Services. And then you can
Speaker 9
14:40
see the two investigative pathways. One was assigned to 5,490 were assigned to investigation, and 1,429 were assigned to differential response. On page 2, you will see at
the top of page 2 the percentage of the investigations that were accepted that were found true.
All investigations accepted between both DCFS and CACD is 22%. At the bottom of page 2, you will see that the most common report type that was accepted with a true finding was for neglect at 69%. and you can see the breakdown further within that chart. On page four, you will see the timeliness of initiating investigations for the third quarter.
You can also see all the prior quarters as well. And then at the bottom, you will see the timely completion of those child maltreatment reports. This is only for the Division of Children and Family Services. And in third quarter, we did have a decrease again. We have two areas of this state that are being impacted by some turnover, and we've been sending staff from our
Speaker 8
16:14
central office from around the state to support those
counties that are struggling because once once that cycle starts we have to keep initiating and closing reports
Speaker 56
16:25
and so we've been sending support staff we've also been having with some of
Speaker 9
16:32
those counties and areas daily calls so setting goals for them helping them guide through the work
and just trying to keep them on track and ensuring
Speaker 63
16:47
that we are keeping kids safe. On page 6, you will see the reoccurrence of maltreatment within 6 and 12 months.
Arkansas remains below the national average for reoccurrence of maltreatment within six months, 4%, and within 12 months, 5%. At the top of page 7, you will see the number of in-home
Speaker 9
17:18
cases and how many children each of those cases involves. So we had 1,788 open cases in the quarter involving 4,500 children.
On page 8, you will see the monthly home visits occurring in
Speaker 9
17:45
the second and third quarter. third quarter was 72 percent so those are um seeing caseworkers seeing children in the home with their parents where we're providing services and using community to support to safely keep those children in their home and
then on the top of page nine you will see the victimization rate among children
Speaker 9
18:09
who received in-home cases and prevention services it was an increase
so we dug into this data and we know which counties um are struggling it would not surprise you all um that it's also our counties that are struggling with turnover and so we are navigating with our teams and reviewing some of those cases around um what services were put in place that kind of thing and do do we offer the right service what was the right service was it the right service and how do we continue to support this family on page 10 at the top you'll see at
the end of the quarter the number of children in foster care at 3,420 and at the bottom of page 10 you can see in the third quarter 578 children entered into foster care 478 exited you can see
Speaker 9
19:04
the entry reasons into foster care, 55% for neglect, 40% for substance abuse. And then just as a reminder, a child can enter into foster care for more than one identified reason.
At the bottom of page 11, you will see 47% of children reunified. And then we did, in this quarter 75 percent of children discharge foster care to a relative or a parent so priority being that
Speaker 9
19:39
kids are returning homes to their families when they're exiting foster care whether that is through permanency related to reunification with a parent reunification with a safe and
appropriate family member or fictive kin on
Speaker 71
19:59
page 12 I just want to point out the placement types
for children in the middle section the placement types for children we still are leading the effort in children in foster care being placed with relatives and then secondary to that is in foster homes but overall 44% of the children are either on a trial home visit or with
family of some type on the top of page 13 you will see the caseworker visits to children in foster care the the top chart is face-to-face visits by case workers the second is by any DCFS staff and then on page going to page 15 the permanency rate for children entering foster care within 12 months is 36%
just barely trending lightly than the national standard and we are focused on how do we safely achieve permanency for kids in foster care and keep focusing on that at the bottom of page 15 re-entries into foster care 4.5 percent so when we have reunified 4.5 percent of the time we have to remove the child again into foster care on page 16 the number of children available for adoption at the
end of the third quarter was 156 and as a reminder we do a 10% because we know that kids will that are currently have a case plan goal of adoption will be adopted by their family members and so that brings our number of true children that we're recruiting families for to 140 for the quarter and then on page 18 Finalized adoptions, 28% of
Speaker 9
21:58
our children this quarter that were adopted were ages 10 to 17.
So that shows our effort that we've been making as a state to finalize adoptions and focus on our older youth who are in foster care are moving to permanency through
adoption. And then on page 19, I just wanted to point out the ribbon, the blue ribbon on
Speaker 9
22:24
the right side of the page. and just read these numbers to you all at the end of the quarter for our case loads there were 3,202 investigations of child maltreatment and 659
differential response 3420 foster care cases 1788 in-home cases involving 4568 children and 689 prevention cases across the state and 39 cases where we're supporting children who are here through the interstate compact placement and then you can see that we had a total of 418 social service workers who are managing those cases across the state and that is
Representative Justin Gonzales
Unverified
23:14
there questions from committee okay representative Gonzales were then you recognize. Thank
you, Madam Chair. I have a couple of questions. The first one's on the bottom of page two, the table at the bottom, the percentage of children and true allegations of mistreatment with neglect being the highest. I know you mentioned, I guess, the previous page one, the reasons, you know, I guess what I'm wondering is, are those, do you have a
break a breakdown of the the cause for neglect and I know there may be more than one area but is is is there's a way we could look at that by chance I think there
Speaker 82
24:04
is um I I need to ask and double check but if I there is a way that I can provide that to
Representative Justin Gonzales
Unverified
24:12
you um I will okay um the reason I'm asking is because um for neglect if it's you know I'm wondering I'm just curious as as far as the basics food shelter you know clothing
etc and i'm wondering in in these economical times
you know as well you know what's going on there with with the neglect the type of neglect that that we're seeing in arkansas um that's that's one
Speaker 83
24:38
question and it will be commonly those things food shelter um yes okay okay
Representative Justin Gonzales
Unverified
24:43
and then on page 11 at the top um kind of uh between the the table that we were just looking at there's some overlap of the kids that have these um true allegations
of maltreatment and then placed in the foster care system and neglect is is at the top of the list again the ones that are the same I wondered on the sexual abuse does that also include sexual exploitation or is that lumped together or is that separate just
what curious since it was separated in the other table I think it does but I will make I will clarify for you and then the child's behavior I'm
very just concerned and curious related to the behaviors because I know
that that's also something that behavior overall that we're looking at in the schools and just seeing what's going on with the
child when it comes to that the types of behavior I guess is what I'm thinking yes I don't
Speaker 8
25:45
know if I'll be able to break that down for you further based on the types of behaviors but since it's I can explore I would
Speaker 82
25:53
like to explore what I could what I can share back and as far as types of behavior
Speaker 8
25:58
okay um but commonly what we what we will see is it is
Speaker 9
26:02
um parents who uh are just at wit's end with their children they may be aggressive um and they're surrendering them to foster care or they you know you see the bottom line there also says ordered in through fins um so but i'd like to dig in and give you some more information about that
Speaker 12
26:20
um so the committee can understand that thank you vice chair bentley you're recognized thank you chair thank you director
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
26:33
wright for being here today i'm just looking quickly at
the very beginning can you tell me how many calls were the hotline received organized major drew later but we have 8600 we're finding this we're split between you guys but do you know how many they received this past quarter like in total the hotline
Speaker 67
26:48
received i do not have that i'll ask major
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
26:51
you later okay on page five when we're talking i know you were talking about the timeliness of the um the reports and them getting completed so i know we're we're struggling across the state with staff and getting staff replaced so can we go over what you're doing currently now to get
some more staff and how we're looking at those particular counties that we're struggling to see some improvement or what's
Speaker 94
27:14
our strategy at this point so um so we have sent
Speaker 8
27:18
i have sent um administrators to help with the hiring process to get the interviews done I'm working on with our communications team a pay like a page for DCFS on the website that shows our available positions why do people want to work here photos videos that we have from our staff also we have called people who
have left us and said will you come back and work for us again offering extra help or other opportunities they can to support the work going on across the state and so we're just putting every effort we have into um retain uh recruiting and supporting the workforce we are also been doing some efforts around retention so we actually just stood up a critical response um partnership with uh uams to help with secondary trauma and responding to
critical situations um to help around mental health and burnout um and so just also i was going to share at the end but I can share now we are standing up new staff training effective July one that came out of this committee as feedback that I think I was like it's a goal and so that is one thing we had heard from people who were leaving that the training they didn't feel like the training was enough or quality and so we have a new staff training model that starts on July it's July one but it's the first opportunity that of higher date and we're very excited about it they'll
get some we have a learning classroom that's actually a house so they're going to be they'll be sitting in a house like what they may go to when they're doing the work we also have some simulation training that we'll be doing with them as well and and we're shortening it but not getting rid of the critical pieces they need to know how to do their work as well as revising what we call as practice coaches which are um old-term field trainers from the different universities across the state um changing a little bit of what they've been doing um and so we're hoping that all of that
will help retain the workforce as well um as then get people to want to work for dcfs so what um
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
29:25
just remind us what are the education requirements for somebody to be a caseworker
Speaker 8
29:30
in arkansas um we say a bachelor's degree but we do take years of experience and apply that so you don't necessarily have to have the bachelor's degree if you have experience working with children or criminal justice or anything like that we are evaluating all of those applications.
Chair
Unverified
29:49
Okay great thank you chairman. Senator Dismanke
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
29:56
you're recognized. All right thank you real quick on
the behavioral and we were just talking about as far as we're processing the kids and processing these cases you know the public school systems have adamantly opposed any type of ace testing done at the school district level and my question is are we doing ace testing on these kids as they're going through the program or you know going through this process I should say so that we are able to have something that follows their record that we can give to the school districts maybe help them if they're willing to ever use them help them assist the children dcfs is not
doing ace testing we do something called the pace evaluation but it is not that actual ace test okay is that something we could
incorporate at some point sitting and begin at school districts adamantly are opposed to
being involved in that in any way i believe it to be a major problem as we're identifying issues with children um and then how to handle those issues is that something that maybe we could take in or on as part of this process since we're having to do some testing anyway are you saying that the pace overlaps with the ace testing so that maybe it's not needed
Speaker 6
31:10
i don't think the pace overlaps i think it's just um maybe some additional conversations um and talk about how
Speaker 8
31:15
we could implement that and do it the right way and then how does the paperwork travel with the with the child who enters foster care so i think it's a conversation you and i can have maybe with some other folks who i have an assistant director who has an education person underneath her and so maybe we can work through some of that with them yeah
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
31:35
because if the districts are going to continue to refuse to lead or even allow for implementation or guidance for that matter on how
to do the testing then maybe the state of arkansas needs to be the one to step up and do that that way we're having some greater assistance or the ability to assist for the kids that just doesn't exist
Chair
Unverified
31:59
conversations about thank you seeing no further questions thank you for this report and you may continue with
your next one so the next on the agenda is the overturned
investigations report so this report is required to be presented by annually from a act from the 2017 session and so what you see here is data from July 1st 2024 until June 30th 2025 and if you go across the columns by county in the state it will tell you oh it will tell you a number of hotline calls received the number reports accepted for investigation number of investigations found true
what that percentage was how many of those were appealed what percentage was is that and then how many
Speaker 8
32:57
were overturned and what percentage is that as well and so um this is more of a monitoring report um that we bring to you all to show you when we're finding true what appeal the appeals look like are there any questions
Chair
Unverified
33:31
by committee okay seeing no questions excuse
me sorry oh representative Springer you're
Representative Joy Springer
Unverified
33:37
recognized good afternoon and thank you madam chair how does how does this information compare to the previous report that you do that you've done
you mean the one I presented it a year ago yes I did not compare the two reports okay
Representative Joy Springer
Unverified
33:55
so I think it would be interesting to know whether or not the number of calls have gone down on the hotline and then number of investigations and particularly whether
or not those investigation have been found true of not true I think that's important so I would just like to know that information if you have it thank you okay thank you no further questions
Chair
Unverified
34:24
okay thank you for your report and thank you for the work that you
do. Madam Cherry just had one other thing. This weekend is our Project Zero Disney extravaganza. So it is our second largest statewide matching event that we do for
kids who are waiting for foster care. And my team and the Project Zero team have been working on this for
Speaker 8
34:47
months and they will bring every waiting child that we can safely bring to Little Rock for this event. And I just wanted to say if any of you are in Little Rock on Saturday and interested and seeing the work that Project Zero does for DCFS to ensure kids are no longer waiting, you can reach out to me and let me know you're coming, and I'll be happy to see you
Speaker 88
35:07
there. What's your location for that? It's at the Summit Church. Okay.
Chair
Unverified
35:25
for your time today. I'm not. Representative Garner. you're
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
35:28
recognized thank you um tiffany this is not i know it's not exactly for you but i have some some questions about some of the things that are happening with aging and meals on wheels closing in northwest arkansas is there someone here that can help answer those questions
i can't see behind the column okay could could we connect then or just let us know who needs to be sending out i would love to know how many are closing what the funding differences are in in those dhs changes and what we can do to help our seniors that are now getting no food thank you okay thank you appreciate it thank you and that's what she
Speaker 50
36:15
wanted was it kind of on the
record but didn't see anyone in the audience that would that
Chair
Unverified
36:21
would answer that okay next on our agenda is commander drew from Crimes Against Children division if you will recognize yourself then you may begin your report and major drew before you begin if if you would like since your second report
also includes your first report you may just include or present your second but you present however you want I'm only giving you permission
Speaker 117
37:12
major Jeff Drew CACD Arkansas State Police all right
Speaker 119
37:19
we're gonna jump right into the annual first of all good morning chair and good morning committee
we're gonna go over the annual report for 2025 on page two you'll see the comparisons for the last five years from 2021 through 2025 you'll see the hotline received 67 987 calls in 2025 there was an increase of 3031 calls from the previous year there were a total of 37 986 calls accepted for investigation between cacd and dcfs that was an increase of 3584.
if you look on page 4 you'll see where 2024 and 2025 the call breakdown by month that comparison what was received accepted and what was taken by fax or mrp which i should probably line through facts we no longer accept those and on page five would be an additional breakdown of those calls
And from, excuse me, page 6, we'll show you what the documented miscellaneous categories were from page 5. Page 7 is the hotline of roll statistics for the priority level totals. Page 8 will cover the Priority 1 and 2 allegations by month in allegation type in this category.
And from page 10, it will reflect the quarterly breakdown of the CACD investigations. As you see, CACD investigations was assigned 6,539 cases. We got 5,933 closed with 1,641 of those being found true, which gave us a 28% substantiation rate. Are there any questions? Are there questions by
Chair
Unverified
39:38
committee? Vice Chair Bentley, you're recognized.
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
39:41
Thank you, Chairman. Thank you both for being here today. Thank you for the important work that you do. Can you tell me what the training is for these people that are sitting on the hotlines? It's a very important place, right, for people to be able to sit in that hotline and determine what's true or not true. So can you tell us the training that these individuals receive and how long that training is
Speaker 119
40:03
and what the requirements are for them to be hired? The requirement for them to be hired is a high school diploma along with customer service experience. What takes place in the training, they'll be given various calls to look through.
They'll be provided the maltreatment act, our policy, And then they'll sit down and do scenarios first to see how they'll come out with it. Then they'll go into recorded calls. These are calls that have already been taken that they're having an opportunity to listen to to see if they'll come up with the same assessment as the operator that's already been released has or consistent with what should be accepted. And then they'll move into live calls to whether it be monitored by a supervisor or a person attached to them, listening to the way that it takes place,
they'll come into play assisting them along with that call and all these things take place within the month time period as
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
40:53
a follow-up chairman if that's okay so um how many what's the length of that training from when the first from the reform we start until when we're actually it's a four week time period four weeks what when you say customer service experience what do you tell me which a little more specific on what you would mean by
Speaker 124
41:15
customer service experience basically if they've got it could be
Speaker 119
41:20
something as simple as a grocery store attendant
they're making contact with the public where they're having to interact and ask questions but it's most common in administrative work when they're making talking to someone like over the phone asking questions and doing types of follow-up questions to where they'd have to do some type of invest I don't say investigatory work but they have to do follow-up questions so they'll be able to relate more once they get to the hotline is there a length of time they have to
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
41:49
have had customer service experience a week a year two years six months is there you know you've had customer service experience but
Speaker 123
41:56
how long does that have to there is a time period i'd have to verify what it
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
42:02
was i want to say it's about two years i'll make sure though okay um and so do we i know we're doing evidence chain is there is there a specific
Speaker 119
42:12
training with evidence chain that they that they go through like i don't know there's everything with with the computer systems uh i'm sorry chris uh evident change uh decision making uh too all that stuff is a part of the training that they're going through uh prior to getting released yes ma'am okay and
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
42:27
then i know we had talked before but what's the uh salary
the starting salary for these individuals the hotline operators
Speaker 119
42:37
uh the beginning salary is 43,088 ma'am plus benefits yes ma'am okay so um do we know have you ever
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
42:45
looked at seeing what other states require training-wise are we similar with the surrounding states around us at all or i know we always look at what's what other states are doing do you know if we're not offhand i can check though
Speaker 119
42:58
ma'am okay all right this is really important
Speaker 81
43:02
thank you thank you chairman I appreciate it
Chair
Unverified
43:06
thank you are there any other questions by committee seeing none thank you for your report and for the work that you do thank you ma'am next on our agenda we have a report from the director of child advocacy centers director pulley if you will introduce yourself for the record then you are recognized
Speaker 128
43:43
good morning Elizabeth Pulley executive director at the children's advocacy centers of Arkansas well I am very excited to present our report to you this year. I'm very proud of what we have accomplished in 2025. The Children's Advocacy Centers of Arkansas is a non-profit organization that supports the growth, development, and sustainability of Arkansas's network of 29 CACs, Child Advocacy Centers, and 64 multidisciplinary
disciplinary teams throughout Arkansas. Our role is to provide training, mentorship, technical assistance, and resources to coordinate the response of child abuse and neglect across the state. Our key accomplishments over the last year, we provided and hosted 259 trainings for professionals at Arkansas state police dcfs prosecutors and local law enforcement this was an increase from the year
before we also will continue to develop our best practice initiatives to ensure that there is access to services across the state and similar top quality services across the state promoting innovation and supporting growth we also hired a project program manager to increase our training and our consistency in data collection across the state of Arkansas so we can provide support to our CECs and MDTs our CECs our
child advocacy centers served 13 568 children and families in 2025 that's about a 3 000 increase from the year before not necessarily due to an increase of the hotline but really an increase in strengthening of our relationship with our statewide partners very proud of that we our cecs across the state of arkansas provide vital services to child abuse victims you know
and our goal is to continue the work with dcfs cacd and local law enforcement and prosecutors so that every child victim has access to services again i'm really proud of the work our cecs are doing statewide our strong partnerships that we've had with our state agencies we've come a long way in 10 years and so i'm very proud of that and i'm happy to ask if y'all prefer
director wright and major drew to come back up and we can kind of talk about our partnership and how we work together but that's an option for you all but thank you very much and i appreciate all the people that have come and toured our CACs over the last year and if you haven't we would love for you to come and be a part to see what we're doing. Thank you. Are there any questions about committee? Representative
Representative Justin Gonzales
Unverified
47:14
Gonzalez-Werthin you're recognized. Thank you. Thank you Madam
Chair and thank you for your report. You mentioned you have 3,000 additional um individuals or or
kids that you are serving compared to last year um i was curious as to on page 15 of the report um i think these are this is where all of the cases are reflected or the number and i was curious as to how um the how how the what does the funding look like
for all of the um for the centers the children's
advocacy centers i mean i i've did i have toured the one in my county um and i'm just curious
as to what what that looks like across the state um for funding state funding is it all the same is it based on population etc thank you sure i can
Speaker 128
48:12
answer that for you so our centers are funded with a combination of state funding federal funding
and community support and that varies from county to county of exactly what that looks like our federal funding has been a bit unstable in the last couple of years and governor sanders has helped us as with the community assistance grant for this year And so that has been very helpful in to stabilize our funding for 2026.
Representative Justin Gonzales
Unverified
48:54
Vice, oh, she's, oh, sorry, okay, sorry, I had a follow-up, the funding, the state funding, is that, is that just the same for all of the centers, or is it, that's, I was curious about that as well.
Speaker 128
49:14
That is the same for all the centers. So it's not based on numbers. No, it's
Representative Justin Gonzales
Unverified
49:21
a very small amount of money okay that is so the centers that have you know large numbers
versus those who have smaller numbers it's just the same amount across the board correct it's 70 to
Speaker 128
49:31
75,000 for every center with state funding so it is a very small amount okay thank you vice chair bentley you recognize
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
49:41
thank you chairman thank you for being here today director pulley so i know we had legislation that established the cac's that representative fight put into place did in that did we have um standards of care that each each one of the centers follow or is that was that just funding i was just curious what and i'm sorry i should
Speaker 128
49:59
have looked at beforehand but i'm just so there are certain guidelines that our cac's have to follow and then there's also national standards that our cac's have to follow so not only is arkansas under those national standards but all states and we are in development right now of working on state level best practices for our cac so even taking the national standards and saying we could do a better job in arkansas and that's what we're working on currently
Chair
Unverified
50:33
great thank you thank you chairman any further questions about committee okay seeing none thank you very much we also are very proud of and thankful for the work that you do and the progress that you've made thank you very much and seeing no other business before us this meeting is adjourned
Agenda
A. Call to Order
B. Consideration to Approve February 11, 2026, Meeting Minutes [Exhibit B]
C. Department of Human Services – Division of Children and Family Services (DCFS) [Exhibit C] Rules Pertaining to DCFS Manual Revision
D. Department of Human Services, Division of Children and Family Services (DCFS)
E. Review of Arkansas State Police, Crimes Against Children Division (CACD), Jeff Drew, Commander, CACD [Exhibits E1 – E2]
F. Children Advocacy Centers of Arkansas Annual Report [Exhibit F]
G. Other Business
H. Adjournment
Documents
No documents posted.
Speakers
Chair
Unverified
Speaker 6
Speaker 8
Speaker 9
Speaker 12
Senator Fredrick J. Love
Unverified
Speaker 19
Representative Jack Ladyman Chair
Unverified
Speaker 23
Speaker 26
Senator Ben Gilmore Chair
Unverified
Speaker 45
Speaker 47
Speaker 48
Speaker 56
Speaker 54
Speaker 50
Speaker 63
Speaker 71
Speaker 76
Representative Justin Gonzales
Unverified
Speaker 82
Speaker 83
Representative Mary Bentley
Unverified
Speaker 67
Speaker 94
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
Representative Joy Springer
Unverified
Speaker 88
Speaker 61
Representative Denise Garner
Unverified
Speaker 117
Speaker 119
Speaker 124
Speaker 123
Speaker 81
Speaker 128