[Music] Scott County providing safe healthy and livable [Music] communities all right thank you we will move to item five on our agenda which is our monthly Scott County delivers topic today is on child placement Continuum good morning Chris Harter I haven't said good morning to you yet thanks for being here and I think you're going to get us started Mion we are starting with this conversation about placement continuums this afternoon we're moving into a workshop on child services and all the programs that contribute to outcomes for children and families so I just think this is a um a nice way to tee up um that day um Evan could you go to page nine for me please um there are a couple key themes that I um like to um like us to focus on this morning one is that overall in Scott County there is a very low rate of out of home placement and I think that's a very important thing to keep in mind because there's um the vast majority of work that you're going to hear about today goes into preventing kids from going into placement um so there's a low rate of out of home placements as you can see on the um on the snapshot on the monitor um of the children who are placed in family foster care almost two-thirds of those children are placed with relatives and you're going to hear a lot about that this morning and then the third key theme I think is that for a very small number of children their needs are so extraordinary that finding the right placement setting to meet those needs is difficult um I think you're going to hear some about the challenges and some of the creativity that comes around serving those youth as well um so um we're happy to have a group of people with lots of really great experience to talk about that I'd like to start by asking the people on the facilitation side to introduce yourselves um who you are and what department you're with um and then Gretchen if you could if the people on the panel could introduce themselves and um which program area they work in we'll get started Cindy Community Services Kate ofic Environmental Services Lisa freze Transportation Services licensing Renda M Community Corrections at the jaff Melissa her children's Disability Services Samantha Goldman child protection Steve Brown Children's Mental Health truancy and chemical dependency good morning Nikki Conway child welfare manager great thanks all for being here this morning um Kate did you want to start with your first question uh yes so um kind of going what Chris said the narrative explains that the placement numbers are down overall but youth are presenting more often with complex needs can you explain that more what challenges you're facing yeah um I think overall this we've talked a lot um in Scott County about the placement Continuum so I think maybe to start off we can draw your attention to page two there's um there's a graphic that sort of shows what the Continuum of Care looks like um so obviously from a philosophical perspective we know that kids thrive in their own families right we want kids to be with their own families um and living you know living in that world as much as possible um you can see on the bottom that's we start with own family and it kind of that's the least restrictive setting and it kind of goes up from there um to the locked correctional facility which would be the most restrictive setting so I want to highlight that this Continuum is not necessarily like you can enter it at any point right it doesn't necessarily flow exactly um in a straight line uh but there are a number of different ways that we can um Can intervene there so so number one to your question I would say that um yes we are seeing young people with a lot more complex needs but what we are also is a is a Contin of care that isn't fully built out so um we don't have all of the right types of placements and settings so um rather than framing it like kids are impossible it's more like our system hasn't hasn't um really been Nimble enough and flexible enough to meet the needs of kids and families um but I'll give it to Steve and Samantha maybe to talk a little bit more about what challenges they see with u with families and complex needs of young people yeah that's a it's an interesting question because there's I mean they mean one family next one child to the next is is quite different we're seeing an increase um you know some of the families might see are um children who have autism and also have aggressive behavior uh and so they don't respond to you know your traditional therapies or medications even and so it takes specialized um Community providers to be a do that and it's the families the the aggression in the families and these might be families who have their own well-being issues in terms of their own mental health or they might be really uh highly functioning parents who just can't meet the needs of their own child who are aggressing towards them who are running out the doors into the streets who are um being challenged uh challenged daycare providers to be able to meet their needs they aggressing towards other children so these are um these are the most difficult children to address needs I would also add that um we see a lot of children who return into the system so you have a child who have made achieved permanency through um the court system when they were younger um the relative provider or the traditional provider wasn't given um substantial resources to support that child and so as they become a youth their behaviors um increase based on the lack of support they've received and so we find ourselves um working with families and youth who have disrupted placements and return to the system and either remain in foster care until they age out or we work um jointly with children's mental health or children's um disabilities unit to create a plan that will meet their needs and help stabilize them I I would also add I think that um there are specific behaviors and kind of combinations of things that do make it really difficult based on the limits of our system so um I know Brenda works in the Jeff and they see this quite often right if you have things like sexual acting out behaviors or um aggressive behaviors uh and or are um in Melissa's World sort of on the cusp of um of uh caddy waiver developmental disability and with an IQ sometimes placements just struggle with um being able to handle all the different types of kids in the in in the setting at the same time so I don't know Brenda if you have anything you want to add to that um yeah I would say for like I think of one of the Scott County Youth that we worked with that her history had made it just more challenging for her to find any type of placement brother be with foster parents um or anything on the lower end of the spectrum was that she came with us with so many mental health diagnosis a history of traumatic events um I do believe that there was some developmental disabilities and for her just trying to be able to find that most appropriate and safe setting was really really challenging to which is what led to her being an out of home placement with us address so um I have two questions one is is um Steve last week at the budget conversation commiss commissioner beer asked you what kept you up at night and you said that what kept you up at night was when there wasn't the right service for somebody and you had to try to piece something together um to make it work for that individual so two questions one is can you be more specific about exactly what is missing and two can can like the three supervisors sort of talk about how you're building like how you're creating something when nothing exists yeah when you forget that CH I mean yeah so you're asking questions we're processing at the same time because these are very difficult questions and we're all struggling with it right I mean all counties all states um the complexities when you get a child who um aggresses towards a staff a professional um or a parent or an adult or a teacher those are the most difficult ones to find because they when you look for a potential placement for stabilization a qrt qrtp or a prtf residential setting to address their mental health concerns they also have children there who are potentially vulnerable and they have staff who are um potentially exposed to violence and so a lot of times that's a criteria to say like we we we can't manage the the needs of this this child and so there's lots of NOS across the board for various settings um and we'll go through a long list trying to find a placement for a child when the parent says we can't meet their needs um so that's that's pretty exhausting a lot of times what happens either they're sitting in the emergency room or parents are like struggling day in and day out with these very very dangerous behaviors um and so uh we last resort we we knock on Jeff's door and say can we I mean kind of as a last resort knowing this is not the best interest child knowing we are really trying to establish safety so safety and a finding a provider that can U meet their needs who specialized and understanding the diagnosis and are well staffed so if you look at can we go back to that Continuum for just a second can you do you can you say with more specificity like where are the gaps in that Continuum that you are because it sounds like some places exist even that won't take the children you're trying to place so like where are the gaps where where where are the holes in the Continuum where a resource does not exist so a lot of our data here will show that and like you pointed out Chris at the beginning that most of the time we are very very successful in Scott County with um placing kids with their family if they can't be at home with their parents or coming up with creative arrangements for example where grandparents can move into a home and provide some safety so there their vast majority um of young people and Families needs are being met in that in that family home the other part about it is we know that Residential Treatment one of the reasons Residential Treatment doesn't work well is because you're taking the child out of the environment right and then not doing a whole lot of work with the family in the meantime and then putting the child back in the environment and and the cycle continues so um to be able to continue to work with that family unit is Paramount so I want to make sure to continue to focus on that um but as you sort of move up here I think what we've seen is um when Steve talks about some acronyms prtf is psychiatric Residential Treatment Facility so that would be sort of in between this children's residential home or treatment and in patial hospital or treatment so DHS created uh um funding or I I don't even want to say funding created some opportunities to implement some of those beds um several years ago and none of them came to fruition in the same way um that they were supposed to so there were supposed to be like 300 added beds um to sort of alleviate some of the pressure on the impatient hospital um programs and things like that those didn't come to fruition some of the children's residential treatment beds were sort of repurposed into psychiatric Residential Treatment um and we could get into a whole rabbit hole about how all of that works but um there's a clog there I would also think that or point out that uh crisis respit is another area where there's really a gap um so we see this inpatient Hospital the goal there is to sort of get kids in and out of that like that's not intended to be a long-term solution um because it is so restrictive and there's a gap between that and what is the next step um so I think Samantha and U Melissa could talk a little bit about like utilizing cadd waivers utilizing safety plans how do we how do we address those gaps when they exist in the Continuum I think to answer your question I would I would point to when a child needs to be removed um for safety concerns and we are looking at what service do we provide to be the least restrictive um which ideally is to keep the child within the family unit we look for Community Resources we look for mental health services we look for other support services that are intensive that can be brought into the home to support maintaining that child or youth within their family unit and so one of the gaps I see when I look at this Continuum is I see that um there is like everywhere there is a lot of missing inh Home Services there's a lot of missing intensive in home therapeutic services um if you were to ask me 10 years ago I would say yep I could make that referral to um this organization within the community they would come in two to three times a week and work very closely with that family to support like Nikki had mentioned those behaviors within the home and make progress um towards safety or child wellbeing or both um that there is a missing Gap there and so when we don't have that there are things that we work least restrictive I can think of an example where we had a youth who had significantly High needs um and actually qualified for disability services and So within our work together with children's Disability Services we were able to locate something a placement within that realm that met the needs of this youth or this child and um was least restrictive for her but also provided the support and service that she needed which generally would not have been able to be successful in anything probably below a family foster care setting within this Continuum okay thanks so and I would add that when these families are so stressed that they're saying I'm done sometimes they just need like a little bit of a break um and there's not me that would be a gap sometimes there's just a like a place doesn't need to be a Medical Response it doesn't need could be a a jaff response but some like and sometimes it's foster care but there's there's there's gaps there a place where we could say e call it emergency rest but for stabilization just to give the family A Break kind of regroup and that little space of time can sometimes be enough for a family to go thanks now we can step back in it and continue to move forward thank you two more things to add sorry um I think there's also gaps with um specific age groups right so uh a lot of the ways that facilities are licensed are around specific ages and I know this is something Jeff struggles with at times too when you we don't want to have an 11-year-old with a 17-year-old um and there are some needs for variations um uh in order to meet those needs and then specific types of placements so like DHS has has done a lot of work around um accrediting like placements for youth who have potentially been sexually exploited right so you have um certain YP of things that that exist in the same way and there's curriculum um that is developed staff are trained in a certain way all of those types of things um and the hard part is you never know what's going to happen at the at the right time right so it's like all about balancing what's best for that kid at the right time in the right setting all of those things so it's hard to maintain some of those specific settings when you might have five kids that need it today and zero kids that need it for the next year right so how do you kind of keep Workforce um balanced and all of those things and the second thing I would add is um part of the issue is our system is siloed right um and we are doing a lot of work internally in Scott County to break down those silos but in a state um from the state's perspective and the federal perspective it's very siloed so we have Correctional Facilities that are licensed Correctional Facilities we have um foster care which is licensed by DHS then we have the um developmental disabilities which is a whole different area and so when you have young people who are human and exist not in silos but as whole people and have all of those things going on at one time it's really hard to find the type of setting that's going to meet their needs so a correctional setting might not be able to handle it because there's too many mental health things going on a mental health setting might not be able to handle it because there's too many behaviors or their IQ isn't high enough so all of those things sort of contribute to these like Perfect Storm situations yes yeah thank you madam chair uh I just want to back the bus up a little bit Samantha you talked about some gaps I think you talked about some a few years ago not that many years ago that you had opportunities to call on for some of these gaps that we have today can you expand on that because I want to understand that a little bit better and what is missing did we have some or there was something there was something as I'm interpreting that then you're and now there isn't that opportunity so what what is that I think Co changed a lot of how providers um work with families prior to covid and even earlier than that families would get inh home services and supports and a lot of partner organizations whether they were within Scott County Carver or surrounding counties would um come to the home and do intensive services with the change of covid and um from my understanding that is how I would see it change I know there might be a different um reason but lately what we've seen is we we struggle to find in home Support Services that will come to the home and do the work whether it's because the mental health field struggles to hire and retain um qualified professionals or they don't want to do that work I'm not sure um but for me it is being able to see that there was that area within the last 10 years and that has shifted and it's either virtual or it's in office So Co blew it up but it was kind of Deep crescendoing before that is is the labor crunch so so the so the option is there still sort of but the delivery is very different which makes night and day I think the delivery yes I think the delivery is different I think if you were to reach out to Community Partners and ask what services they offer that is something we hear often that they no longer offer um and why they do that is unique to each organization um but at the end of the day it is they don't offer it so we assume that there is a struggle on their end to meet that need and prior to ctss ctss is a BAL service prior to ctss it was a Count's contracted for inhome family therapy so the county had more I mean you could develop your own resources you could contract with them you could develop the quality and and what that looked like so you could there was there was more providers then when we went to C ctss billable model we I think we we lost some and then it came back up but to go into the home and Road time costs money especially if they don't inser the do so then you're going back to the office so it's it from a provider standpoint it's hard to deliver and and that is a gap do we deliver it does the Mental Health Center provide it ctss in home oh in home well with the ctss yeah I mean um they do at um within the the right um setting with the right therapist we have had success at times where they have been able to go in and do inhome Services okay so and one other followup too Steve you talked about the um ability to have a respit moment or or you know that catch your breath kind of we had more of that and now we don't did I hear that right or we did not have that okay we've never really I mean that that's why we partner whether caddy folks is is to develop so the way to access the caddy waiver has a menu kind of a service to be able to access um resp Services there or we use a you know we patch together with our um licensing folks to see if there's a we can make a match with um a licensed foster family to do that but that takes time to do that versus kind of the in the- moment response to have a kid go somewhere part part of the bigger picture here too is that a lot of uh the young people we're talking about maintaining at home right now five years ago were in residential treatment centers right so because we have um like we want to maintain them at home and the the service array hasn't sort of caught up with that um and it is difficult you know I mean we're we're all struggling to parent and do all the things that we need to do um but the it's the it's the good consequence of you know lessening the the um dependence on that deepend services so now we've got folks who are sort of unprepared and untrained to deal with the same types of things in the community so I have a question um you know you it it looks like you're going to focus on in the future Family Resource Center and some of these other other centers what have you seen so far that they provided that was that helped eliminate people from getting into Child Protection in the first place can answer that um so when I think of Family Resource Centers when we have child protection reports and we meet with the family to address the child protection concern a lot of the concerns can be alleviated by referring that family for resources so whether it's Mental Health Services basic needs um maybe they we connect them to get apply for medic medical assistance and some food support to help financially make sure they're stabilized um or is it parenting support because they aren't sure how to respond to their child when they do X Y or Z so what we see is that when we refer those people to services and they can easily access them the number of placements are reduced and the the need for deep in services or Case Management Services within Child Protection go down um because we are providing upfront services and support before they get into a further crisis that would warrant further Child Protection intervention I don't know if this is appropriate sorry but Melissa can you speak to some of the services that waivers can provide to families too yeah absolutely so um if a child is determined to have a diagnosis that meets criteria for either developmental disability or mental health or physical disability there's a whole menu of services that can be available to them um for the purpose of this conversation I think crisis resfit is the one that we look to the most um the challenge with that is there's only a few providers out there um and they fill up quickly and they're working with some of the most complex kiddos out there and so a lot of times those providers are they're focused on who is in their care so when you're saying do you have space do you have another bed it's like well maybe it's not just a guarantee like they have to think about the safety of their kids in the home and do they have staff to cover the needs of multiple children so that I think often becomes a barrier um we also have providers that we just haven't met yet um I know Jeff daker spoke to this last week in front of the board about um it's fairly easy for providers to get licensed by the state to provide a list of services and one of those is that crisis resit but it does not inherently guarantee the staff providing the Direct Care have had specialty training working with complex um diagnosis and that becomes really hard and that's a safety concern too for the staff and the and the child um so there's a lot of kind of informal vetting that has to happen by us as supervisors and our case managers having those conversations of you know what is your experience do you have um the ability to take on supporting another kid right now um whether that be to provide a a short-term break for the family or maybe an indefinite to see if the child can return home um so that's one of the issues that we we handle there and then additionally when we need a long-term placement those are also very limited to find um and it takes a lot of time and if we have scoured every single provider that we know and we'll look in the whole metro area I mean we want to keep them as close to home as possible I me you think about things like they still need to go to school there might be other some family members that if you're too far away they W even have a visit you know opportunity to do that um so longterm um if we check everybody and nobody has availability then I work with Gretchen and we do have the ability from the state to request permission to develop a new bed like a a single site for somebody but generally you have to provide at least 10 denials of all the places you've checked you have to keep following up on it and then you have to find a willing provider um and say we need you to develop a single site um and that involves basically like if you think you want to go buy a new home that's what it is you got to find a property you got to make a you know all that stuff so it takes a lot of time um but I have in my work seen that be successful and it does happen it just takes a really strong partnership there has to be a lot of trust and a lot of patience um but it does happen but that would like our kind of Final End like tried everything else so you brought up um some recruitment work I'm wondering um facilitators if you have questions related to recruitment can we talk a little bit about what we're doing to sort of fill in I just haven't been able to jump in yet but U one of the things I wanted um all of you to talk about or the appropriate people here is to talk about the fight the uh foster care efforts that you've been undertaking the last couple of years and in your um narrative you talk about the applications are up but the number of new licenses don't seem to correspond with the applications and what are some of the barriers to Bringing these um interested families both uh relative and more traditional into the foster care program and uh what can be done to kind of fix that issue that's me um so the the numbers um overall I think the the numbers are still were fairly small um I think the just the piece you're pointing out there around the difference in between people completing the application and completing the licensing process um because we do a really nice job with relatives um and also a really nice job of working on that reunification there can be times when children are returned to families before the licensing process is completed and so they make they well I'm done then like that I don't need to complete that process um or they might apply and life happens something else comes up and they're they've decided that they're not able to continue with that process so I think that those are kind of our biggest factors of why folks might not get through the process um and then to talk about a little bit what we've been working on as far as foster care recruitment um so we started a work group in the fall of 2023 um and we have a focus of um Community engagement so getting out and getting information about foster care out into the community um internal strategies what things can we do um to better um communicate about placements to support Foster families um and then just that ongoing um support and retention of the folks that we do have that are licensed so those have been kind of the main areas the work group has focused on and then um we're looking really to recruit homes that reflect the the cultural diversity within the community so children are placed in homes that they feel comfortable in when they do need to come into foster care um homes that can care for teens and help them navigate um Independence and identity issues as they they go through their teenage years um and then as we've talked about before homes that can support youth um affected by trauma and mental health one of the things that I picked up in the discussion was the how foster homes might be able to help with uh the rest care that's needed and what does it take to kind of bring families who are in the foster care um uh Arena along to be able to do that and support which is something that's been identified as a gap for families right yeah so um when we work with families like that's often something we'll talk about is respit care is a nice way for them to kind of get a short-term experience of what the care is like um you know usually when kids are coming and when they're leaving um that's a a good combination I think it's oftentimes I think the that matches up with you need folks who want to care for teens and um that sometimes is maybe a little more scary for folks team can be a little intimidating but um that's a that's St definitely something we're looking for but oftentimes folks who want to care for teens we will talk about would you just be willing to start with some respit and we'll see how it goes I this is a big Continuum too I think um and toward the conversation around partnering with Community uh and getting upstream and figuring things out right we have our bureaucratic system so respit care could be through a fully licensed foster home or there could be some Creative Solutions so um DHS just in the last week or so um came out with a new process for children's mental health rest fit care which is where we're getting most of our rest fit requests from um around this teen population and there might be some ways to be a little bit more creative in that and we are having some active conversations with some different Faith communities around that too and um partnering with like Shepherd of the lake for example has a group of folks that they're calling empty nesters who are folks where their their kids have gone and moved on and are looking um to have some things to do with their time so we're trying to talk to them about what that means to create rest care so that could either be this fully licensed situation or it's things like how do we get to a camp or get to um the YWCA or whatever some kind of programming that's going to give the parent a break right um I don't know about anyone here I coach a lot of Youth Sports for my own family and I feel like I provide a lot of respit care for a lot of families across my own Community frankly I'm like oh you just get to drop your kid off and leave and I'm just over here doing resfit so um we got to figure out some ways to to be creative in that realm as well can you oh go ahead sorry I feel like I need to add this um so when you think of resit the other thing that we do with inel protection is we utilize family for informal respit so we'll get together the um a network of people and if there isn't an opportunity for a formal foster care provider to provide respit um we'll work with the family unit or their supports to create a plan that gives respit to the parents um informally with a weekend planned or a monthong plan or something similar um or if we have a foster parent who is willing to provide rest bit we're bringing them into the family unit to be part of that plan to help support the family so it can go both ways it doesn't have to be formalized respit care um it also can be informal Family Planning yeah the goal is really to normalize it as much as possible and at least restrict it and you to try to it's it's those most difficult kids with the families and that's part of the complexity as well as these families sometimes are moving in from State they don't have F they're not connected to a church and so they're they're really quite isolated so those are the most difficult so then you are looking pretty quickly to more the the formal Services a question on this slide 17 on page 17 and this does a breakdown of the different age groups um and I noticed that there was a decrease in um out home placements uh for birth to two went down significantly and then also 15 to 17 so um I know we care about all the youth but um do you know what factored into those decreases were you focusing on certain age groups and um in addition to you are you concerned about different age groups um so speaking to birth to2 I believe is what you had indicated 21 to 11 this year um specifically for that age group I think over the last couple years in partnering with the court system um and other professionals within Child Protection um the focus is how do we keep little children within their home um because we know that's best we know that children need to stay with their parent and if we can create informal plans or formalized plans through what we would call a snap plan um or snap Arrangement which would be a safety Network action plan arrangement we are going to work with that family on a voluntary basis to keep that children or keep that child or children from entering placements while staying within their home but having safety in place so we're working with a relative or another family friend who we've identified as a person who can provide safety moving into the home temporarily or having that family unit stay with them so that they can work with us to address the safety concerns while not actually entering a formal placement um because what we know is that children who enter placements um that's a traumatic event so we're trying to reduce any traumatic events children as well as work with the family on what is it that you want what what plan do you want to see for your child knowing that we have this concern and we need to address it but also making you the you have the ability to create your own plan that meets safety on page 13 my question is is more how many of these kids are in this continuum for a longer period I saw that 83% are moved in with relatives or something to that effect what is the amount of time that they spend with those before they can either return home or that they're until they're permanent with that relative and so how do you explain these numbers you know with ongoing needs and and where where do they how many how long did kids usually stay in placement right I don't know that we have specific data on average length of stay overall but what I'll say is that over the course of years on this slide and the previous slide we were just looking at on page 17 these are duplicated kids from year to year so the each year it's an unduplicated count right but a lot of those young people like when we look at there were 92 and 23 and now we have 75 through 24 a lot of those 92 have carried over right into into this year um there is a snapshot about timeliness to permanency too I'm trying to remember what page it's on where we we do a pretty good job making sure that um we have permanent outcomes for young people in the course of 12 months that's legal permanency um so that you know it's important for young people to know where they're going to end up and be um so that's that happens often I would say that the other part about um even the age slide is uh a lot of these young people who are 12 to 17 when they're entering the system or they're counted in these numbers that's not their first time entering the system um most of the time time we're talking about these young people have been in Care at different times over the course of their life um so it's not just the first time that we're seeing them at age 16 right um and I would think that our our numbers there like that's the population we're really talking about today as far as being those young people that we have a hard time finding placements for when when we do have those few that happen um and uh yeah I guess I'll leave it we have nine youth over the last two year years still seeking permanent homes so that means that nine of our youth the youngest we have right now is 12 or 13 who we are actively recruiting either for a permanent home through adoption or there's long-term custody to the agency that we are teaching them how to be an adult we are working with them till they turn 18 we're hoping they stay on with us after 18 and we help teach them life skills to go into the world a little bit prepared for what adulthood has and so of those nine youth for a multitude of reasons we haven't been able to secure permanency for them or what they're doing right now and working towards Independent Living is what is best for them where are those kids at um some of them well one of them is with a relative which we hope that they will um be able to live with that relative permanently and and there was a lot of work that that particular youth was um at jaff and then that youth went to um a traditional foster home many many miles away and then through our um relative search efforts we were able to locate family members who helped us um or we helped them decide whether or not they want to be a formal like placement for this youth so the other youth um are either in waivered homes um or they are in like a group home setting or they are um in an independent living setting and extended foster care all right um I know we're going to talk a lot more about many of these issues um later today but I wanted to just give people a chance to to just respond to um I have two questions actually one like what is one thing that you did differently this year that you are hoping to see a positive change going forward what is one thing that happened differently in the last year I I could speak to um a little bit of that so I also oversee our contracted agencies who provide disability case management um and as we contract out more cases there's just there's more cases that are not being held internal um and we've had several cases this last year that uh raised to kind of Crisis level and and said you know we're not sure if they're going to be able to stay in the home and so um I've worked really hard with one of my lead staff um and the other departments to come together routinely and just talk about it and I think that wasn't something that we were always making time and space for like you'd hear a little bit here or there but we're really um being intentional about everybody who's involved needs to come to the table we need to be there routinely so we make sure we're not missing anything and just really support one another throughout that make sure we're following the law but but also being creative with our Community Resources um and I think that has made a big difference I would agree I think the um the decision making um you you know you have enough experience to know that um this is a long-term struggle for this family and this child and having them bounce into foster care into prtf to a care KTP backend the home into maybe jav like how do you prevent that and how do you mainstream that how do you work closely with um caddy how to get them smed how to get them on the men choices assessment and then it you know just there's lots of hurdles to do that do we need a single family home and there's just lots of to-dos are we tracking our 10 denials so we're I think we're doing a better job communicating internally making quicker decisions and then doing more frequent communication to sure it's aligned and and on track I would my answer to that question would be I think the continued development um and in um of the Child Welfare work um so taking a look at how do we hone in on the specific type of child welfare cases that is a voluntary prevention um service Outreach to Target those high-risk populations from ever entering Child Protection um and what works what's not working and what do we do differently and I think over the last year we've looked looked at that differently around how who are we going to respond who is going to respond how are we going to respond and what has been successful in that so that would be something that I think we would continue um and hopefully see a decrease in long deep and placement services for youth I would say in the recruitment work the um engagement in in kind of relationship building we're doing with Community Partners um whether that's in the faith community the cultural community all of that um I think that's good work to do and um important because those folks don't typically interact with our systems and so how do we build those relationships so that we can have those connections and um maybe develop more of those informal services or different parts of the population those organizations and I would say for us at the jaff it's really recogn in that yes the draft historically has been a correctional type placement but we in the last few years have seen so many kids who were coming to us from the social services from Child Welfare rather than kids who are coming because they um have gotten any like legal trouble or connection with the um Juvenile justice system so it's more of us internally taking a look at what are we currently doing for the Youth in our care and how do we best help support them if it's meeting like their mental health needs kind of some programmatic changes on what we're doing just so that we can um maybe prevent like further um escalation into that Continuum of Care I would Echo all of those things and say from a big picture perspective really just continuing to try to break down those silos so um I think this group is a representation of some work that's been done to do that already within Scott County and I think we're also doing some work to um at the state level to lobby for some of that around some of the legislation too and just partner better together because again our systems are really set up um in ways that don't effectively serve kids and family when we're operating in those Silo departments okay thank you m CH wow thank you I'm sure I have a lot of notes written and a lot of uh you've sparked a lot of additional conversations we need to have so thank you for this work um comments from my colleagues already asked a question go ahead yeah I wanted to go back to the recruiting um which I think was um for foster care because I hear that I'm just curious like what does that look like so you have nine kids I think you said or any any number could be want whatever uh what does that recruiting look like because I'm just curious like I know they might not want to hear this but like how could we help in that like what does that look like um so for children who are the term is freed for adoption um there is a state adoption exchange and every youth or child is registered on on that um and we have a worker who regularly reviews that website and a lot of times some home studies or people who are interested based on what is talked about around the youth or child is um they do an inquiry and then the worker has a conversation about what is who is this child what are their needs how do you as the potential placement fit into this child's life and so it's really a thorough assessment of can they meet this child's needs and if we think that that's something that's a possibility we start very slow and we actually depending on the age of the child we'll talk to the child about what is it that they want to see we have some youth while they are on the state adoption exchange have voiced very clearly they don't want to be adopted um and we honor that because they're almost 18 years old and so we well we have to do that formally we are talking with them about instead of being adopted and doing Recruitment and finding somebody that may have not been in their life before how do we maintain or form connections for them that they can continue to reach out to Beyond 18 so that's our Focus rather than recruitment um but it is a very it can be a very formal process through the state and a lot of assessment a lot of questions and um I would say a lot of judgment on our part because we want to make sure that you are good enough for this youth or child that we have become attached to because we frankly are their parent and know everything about them and want what's best for them so it is a lot of questioning so the goal is to try to so the database is sort of the central or the number one area at this point so the goal is to get registered or whatever on that database so the people are looking into it from throughout the state yes um yes and also I forgot to mention relatives so sure yeah no yeah that's good I know that's always I just wanted a little followup there with with and I think your question specifically specifically was about Foster Care Family recruitment right and I think there's a a narrative out there an old narrative oh which is was true and still is true maybe a little bit of the time I'm going to be a foster care parent I'm going to get a lovely nice little baby who sleeps all night that I can love and cuddle or a nice 5-year-old we can go biking and I think what we've learned over the decades is if if that child can stay home they're going to stay home the children entering our foster care system have some some very critical needs that don't fit that Narrative of come and be a loving Foster family so how are we how are we communicating the reality I mean first of all the reality of it that it's it's a lot harder than that narrative but number two that it's also that much more important and should be more rewarding like literally life saving life saving role but the reality of what it means and and what a day might look like with a child who needs placement Scott County because I I think that's a big deal we can see the social media posts be like sign up be a foster parent feels really good but what do we do to communicate the reality of it I think that's some ongoing work too with the relationship building that Gretchen was talking about so rather than just going in and doing a presentation around hey here's what Foster carriers and here's what this is this is ongoing meetings with certain Community groups um and faith-based organizations to really get a picture of that and try to figure out where people are at and then specific cultural communities too right related to um making sure that our providers are representative of the kids who are needing foster care in Scott County um but that's that ongoing development and that's why I think it's also difficult because it it it doesn't happen overnight in that way and it shouldn't because it's so important right and we are seeing more of a trend of this disrupted permanency as the term or youth who have been adopted and then um the the adoptive parents are like oh didn't know what I was signing up for can't do this it's too much right and that's the most traumatic thing those are the saddest stories that we see really on a regular basis so um and then the other part is really also with these Community Partners trying to build up those supports um in the same ways that we're doing for regular families right how do we make sure you have the right training how do we make sure that you have a crisis number you can call where someone's actually going to respond to you at 2 am when the child is having a tantrum or something is happening right or destroying their room all of those things that that are reasons why kids end up in placement are also reasons why it's tough to support foster care so kind of it's a parallel process I guess in that way thank you I didn't mean to hi question go back to you someone's got to clean it up so I appreciate that uh another question um kind of talking about the industry changes like the at home isn't there like it used to be um so now we're you know trying to hey how's it going oh things are great um so along with that I know business is different than government I get it um sort of is there opportunities with that where some providers or best practices that used to be no longer are because the world's changing and there's new opportunities and new potential unknowns that could be good tools and is that something that we by we I mean you are seeing happen out there in the industry in in this world um or not so much not adapting as fast as business which I I get yeah I mean I hate to bring up the workforce conversation again it's really a reality yeah it is real it is real I don't think it's about not knowing what is what what are the best strategies or tactics or things that are needed and it's more about having the resources to fulfill those needs and I know that's not always the prettiest answer answer but it is the reality I think um in the way of who's going to provide those services and who's going to help which is again why we try to build up family connections to do that too and it's always not pretty and perfect either with family members who have a lot going on um but it it seems to be the most sustainable over time right because it's a natural support and if it's billable you as a provider if I'm a provider and someone's going to make a referral to an in home service and I have an in Office business it's a pretty big Financial RIS to drive you know your road time you know hour and a half and then have a no-show so there's got to be more incentives to provide the inhome services people don't do this out of the they only last so long thanks commissioner do you have no I don't have any wonderful um couple things I want to highlight and and then maybe we can follow up one thing I'm just so glad that you know the folks from the different silos on the the panel and you've been talking about that and I challenge us Lori in the room she's not going to like this but um I really challenge us to think about our staffing and I I look at think about you know Samantha who's been in this position for a while and I think used to be on our videos for Future Leaders and things like that and we want you to keep doing Child Protection work but we have people who do Child Protection work who then become supervisors who become managers and who do all this do we have some ways as people need to transition and don't feel like they can do that work all the time that they can still do some of the work and do some supervisory work is there possibilities where people like Melissa can be a developmental disabilities case worker and a child protection case worker I I know we don't usually do that we stay in our our silos but just the work that you've talked about let's really think about the infrastructure that we can also change on that level as far as Staffing positions Union contract I mean there's a lot of things in there but it could be really really good because it could be less duplication and and yes I bet you there's lots of people lots of children and Child Protection who are also in developmental disabilities and we need to just say here's the truth and we have this percentage of the population let's serve them the best we can instead of having four different case workers and programs and things they're doing so I really appreciate that and I hope in all your free time you can think about what we need to change in the system to best promote that I I really appreciate this graphic I think it helps us and I think it's going to continue to help us as we talk about this issue at the legislature because just in Workshop earlier I think for us when we're going to talk about funding and appropriate funding for child protection and child welfare we think gosh we have less kids in our home placement why is this costing more and and I need to understand we all need to understand more we're doing segue story legislature last year was counties are bad and they take kids away from the families and nobody's placing with kin and blah blah blah look it this is opposite of the story that was told at the legislature this I mean it was Terri terribly opposite and we need to be there being like stop lying um back to where it was this family with support that costs us money in time and we probably need to understand that and then show and say legislature we're doing exactly what you're asking and this costs some money finally Suzanne's not here today but she's like Barb finally you're getting what I'm trying to tell you um even though we have less kids in out home placement so thank you you if nothing else you help me understand something that and I won't ask Suzanne every other day to explain it again to me so thank you I have other comments but I know we're short on time um great panel great conversation very pertinent with the work we're we're just starting to deal with on policy changes and funding anything else no thank you very much all right thanks everybody and uh as you clear out we'll get ready to go