• Home
    • Welcome
    • About the CDHS Community Performance Center
    • Colorado Department of Human Services
  • Data Makes a Difference
    • Division of Child Welfare Goals
  • Data by Topic
    • Data By County
  • Help With Data
    • Make a data request
    • Glossary
  • Report Child Abuse
CDHS Community Performance Center
Connect with CDHS

In Recognition of May foster Care Month

5/22/2014

0 Comments

 
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. 
Over the last two years, our system that protects all Colorado children and youth has transformed under Governor Hickenlooper’s child welfare plan “Keeping Kids Safe and Families Healthy.”  Along with many initiatives, Colorado has undergone a culture shift within human services aimed at utilizing data to manage performance at the county, division, unit, supervisor, worker, and provider level.  Using performance management strategies and tools, we are proud to be able to work more closely with our county partners to identify our toughest cases and work together to overcome seemingly insurmountable barriers standing in the way of permanency.    

Using Data to Make A Difference for Kids
Addressing permanency for youth in foster care is just one example of how we are using performance management to change the lives of kids.  We all have a shared value that children deserve a permanent family, and we recognize that when kids age out of the child welfare system without a family or permanent connections we've failed. 

Through C-Stat, we set a goal for 98% of youth who are legally free for adoption at the time of discharge to achieve permanency. Permanency means a legally permanent, nurturing family for every child and youth. Through permanency roundtables and family engagement, state, county and community partners are working together to address barriers for individual youth and these strategies are paying off. Last quarter, of the 119 of youth who were legally free for adoption who exited out-of-home placement, 91.6% achieved permanency through adoption or relative guardianship. 
Child Welfare C-STAT Goals
Data by Topic
Data by County
Data and Outcomes Updates
GOAL: Timeliness of Assessment Closure: 90% 
Status: Colorado state performance: 89.4%


Timeliness of Assessment Closure measure performance increased this week from 88.4% last week to 89.4% this week, with 41 of the 64 Colorado counties achieving the goal of closing 90% of assessments of concerns of suspected child abuse or neglect within 60 days.

This week Arapahoe, Logan, and Montezuma noticeably improved on the measure: 
  • Arapahoe improved from 72.4% last week to 82.0% this week;
  • Logan improved from 89.5% last week to 95.0% this week;
  • Montezuma improved from 70.0% last week to 71.4% this week.
Even though our statewide backlog of overdue assessments increased slightly to 3.6%. We would like to recognize the staff in Huerfano (-12.5%), Montrose (-9.4%), and Pueblo (-2.4%) counties for significantly reducing the backlog of overdue assessments. 

Click HERE to learn more and download this week's data update on Timeliness of Assessment Closure.
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Data Update

    The Office of Children, Youth and Families, shares regular updates highlighting trends, data and outcomes for the Division of Child Welfare. 

    Archives

    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014

    Categories

    All

    Subscribe to Receive Updates
CDHS Community Performance Center 
Colorado Department of Human Services
Data Making a Difference
Data by Topic
Data By County
Help - Frequently Asked Questions