We are beginning a series of blog posts focused on our wildly important goal - the safe reduction of congregate care - with an exciting announcement.  In November, we will begin a new strategy that will help us achieve this goal, a Treatment Foster Care Pilot which will begin November 1, 2014 and conclude May 1, 2015.  Counties, providers, and state staff collaborated for more than a year to develop this important alternative to placement in congregate care. The pilot period will help inform us about the strategies that work, modifications, and rule revisions that may be needed to support adding Treatment Foster Care to the continuum of service for children, youth and their families involved with child welfare.

Below is a slide presented during September Cstat presentation representing the number of children and youth in congregate care through the child protective system. As you can see, there are 990 children in congregate care. Our goal is to safely reduce this number by monitoring all placements to ensure that children are receiving the right services, in the right place, at the right time. 

We measure what matters.  Colorado is ​boldly ​l​eading the nation in bringing awareness of the educational outcomes ​for youth in foster care through an innovative collaboration between: 

• Colorado Department of Education (CDE)​; ​ 
• Colorado Department of Human Services (CDHS)​;​ 
• Mile High United Way​; ​​​
• University of Northern Colorado​; and the
• Morgridge Family Foundation​

We ​are collaborating to determine key factors that affect these outcomes and create a road-map for system-level reform.

CDE and CDHS entered into an innovative data-sharing agreement which enabled Dr. Elysia Clemens, with the University of Northern Colorado College of Education and Behavioral, to conduct a five-year trend study examining the graduation rates and dropout rates for these students that was published this week. This is all part of our effort to increase transparency.  ​

Click HERE to download the study.

The study revealed that:

• Fewer than 1 in 3 Colorado students who were in foster care during high school graduated within four years;
• Approximately 1 in 11 students dropped out one or more times; 
• Students in foster care dropped out earlier in their educational careers than other unique populations; and
• One in three students in foster care was identified as having a disability and eligible for special education services. 

​If given additional time children in foster care are more likely to reach important milestones such as graduation or a GED. 

This is the first time we have had this type of baseline data. We now know that we have ​work to do to ​ensure educational success for every child, every time​.  ​T​his study lays the foundation and groundwork to move the needle. 

Colorado is among the first states to engage in the process of bringing the educational outcomes of youth in foster care into plain sight. These students have been described as a population with an “invisible achievement gap”. 

With the insights from this groundbreaking study and the ability to measure graduation, completion and dropout rates annually, Colorado can now make more data-driven decisions to meet the educational needs of youth involved with child welfare system.

​The data also shows that homeless children did better educationally than children in foster care.  ​This emphasizes the importance of family.  
 ​​
Next week, we will begin a series of blog posts focused on the safe reduction of congregate care - our 2014-2105 Wildly Important Goal.  ​Every child deserves to grow up ​with a family.  We all ​have a​ role to play as we work to achieve this goal.  What can you do to help?

Where are the children and youth in your community living? 
Take a closer look using this Community Performance Report. ​​

All the best,
-- 
Julie Krow, MA, LPC 
Director of the Office of Children, Youth and Families
P 303.866.5414  I  F 303.866.4453  I  C  720.205.9020
1575 Sherman Street, 2nd Floor, Denver CO 80203
Julie.Krow@state.co.us  I  www.colorado.gov/cdhs

I had the pleasure of traveling the state with the CDHS executive team over the last couple of months visiting with our tribal leaders and listening to community partners through our strategic planning process.  It has been a great way to kick-off the new state fiscal year and an inspirational reminder of the amazing work being done to improve practice and, in turn, improve lives of children, youth and families.  

Last year, we focused on many important child welfare measures, but highlighted one specific measure, Timeliness of Assessment Closure. Thanks to all of you, we have achieved this goal for several months.  When we started measuring this goal, we were performing at 50.3% and today, because of counties efforts, our performance is 90.3%. While this measure will remain in our CSTAT slide deck and we will continue to monitor progress, it is time now to turn our laser-like focus to a new measure.

I have more wonderful news to highlight this week! We have reached another one of our C-Stat goals - Caseworker Contact with Parents.  As I've mentioned in previous emails, we have been focused on this measure of Family Engagement regarding in-home and out-of-home visits by caseworkers.  It is commonly referred to as the Performance Improvement Plan Item 20 or "PIP Item 20". States are required to submit Program Improvement Plans (PIPs) when their child welfare services are determined to be out of conformity on any of seven outcomes or seven systemic factors assessed in the Child and Family Services Reviews (CFSRs). 

Below are our goals for this measure. Visiting with parents of children in out-of-home care keeps them engaged in the process, and visiting with parents of children who remain home help caseworkers assess the safety of children involved in our system. Colorado needed to meet both these PIP performance goals by September 30, 2014 to avoid a fiscal sanction, estimated at this time to be $115,883. I'm very proud of the way our Division of Child Welfare staff, ARD and county human service agencies have worked together to ensure that we were able to keep this funding for services to help abused and neglected children in Colorado rather than paying a fiscal sanction. 

GOAL: Caseworker visits with the caregiver – IH Negotiated Improvement Goal: 75.10%  
Colorado state performance - 77.5%

GOAL:  Caseworker visits with the caregiver – OOH Negotiated Improvement Goal: 76.9%
Colorado state performance -  76.9% 

To all of the county caseworkers and staff who have this weekend off, have a happy and safe Fourth of July! And, to all of the county staff that will be working this holiday weekend, an extra special thank you for all that you do for Colorado's children, youth and families. 

Julie Krow, MA, LPC 
Director of the Office of Children, Youth and Families

May is National Foster Care Month.  According to the most recent data published on the CDHS Community Performance Center, there are 5,523 youth living in an out-of-home placement, 3,553 of them are in foster care.  

We, undoubtedly, need community involvement to help create better outcomes for these kids. In particular, we hope that the people of Colorado will consider fostering or adopting an older teen. Of the 137 teens that emancipated last quarter, 71% were removed from their caregiver when they were 15 years-old or older. 

This is Public Service Recognition week. I hope you will join me in celebrating all the wonderful work our state and county human services staff do to keep kids safe and families healthy. This is a time to reflect and be proud of the difference our employees make in the lives of Coloradans. We work with children and families in crisis and as a result it can sometimes feel like we, too, are in crisis. But, I encourage you to consider the number of children that you have served over the last year and the difference you have made in their lives. 

I am so proud that we have launched this new public website to share county child welfare data. Colorado is one of only a few states to show child welfare data through an interactive site.  We are also one of 11 states that have been working with the University of Kansas School of Social Welfare to collect real-time Results Oriented Management reports, better known as ROM reports, to track progress and measure success. Colorado is the first of this group working with KU to offer reports to the public in this way.  

Through this weekly update we will share the same data and county strategies for success that we have been sharing with county partners for more than a year.