Children’s Services Coordination Committee

Minutes

March 21, 2002

Members in attendance:

Doug Barton / John Bowater 1 / Mary Harris 3 / Harold LaFlamme / Deana Mulkerin 4 / Jim Persinger 6
Harriet Bemus / Marri Derby 2 / Mary Kavli / Clete Menke / Robin Park 5 / Bobby Santillan
Karen Blanco

1 – representative for Stephanie Lewis3 – representative for Larry Leaman5 – representative for Tony Rackauckas

2 – representative for Carl Holmes4 – representative for William Habermehl6 – representative for Benjamin de Mayo

Members absent:

Supervisor Coad / Judge Cramin / Mark Horton / California Youth Connection

Agency Staff:

Alan Albright / Frances Dowdy / Jim Harte / Carole Mintzer / Joann Nichols / Marcia Schoger
Theresa Arzate / Paula Fitzgerald / Glorious Lawrence / Jeff Nagel / Linda Oyoung

Members of the Public:

Michelle Berelowitz / Lani Daily / Dan McQuaid / Brook Whitaker / Nancy Young
Agenda Item / Discussion / Action / Follow-up Activity
1. Introductions / Announcements / Orange County has had its first abandoned baby since the Safe Arms for Newborns Act became law. A mother took her baby to Western Medical Center. The hospital offered the mother a health questionnaire to complete, but she declined to complete it. The hospital also called protective services, which placed the infant in a foster home. The baby is healthy. If the mother decides to reclaim the child, she probably would be interviewed by Social Services to discuss her situation. If there were no grounds for concern, the child would be returned to the mother. The good news is that the hospital was prepared and handled the case appropriately. The Grand Jury recently conducted site visits at several hospitals to see whether they were prepared to accept abandoned infants. All hospitals that were visited knew about the law and had their procedures ready.
There have been public service announcements in some counties on the new law. Orange County is printing 10,000 copies of a brochure describing the new law. The brochure will be available in English, Spanish, and Vietnamese. All hospitals will receive copies, as well as Family Resource Centers and County agencies. SSA also is coordinating with the Children and Families Commission on a media campaign to promote child safety and well-being. The Safe Arms for Newborns Act will be one of the topics.
2. Review and approve minutes / The minutes were approved unanimously.
3. Program / project updates
  • CORE Program
/ The CORE Working Group is developing a gaps and barriers report – it should be completed in 3-4 weeks. CORE continues to conduct 1-2 case reviews per week. The program is in a temporary site and anticipates moving into its permanent location soon. OCDE has signed a contract with SSA for three educational counselors and one support staff to serve dependents ages 14-19, including those placed with foster families and relatives. The counselors will gather and assess student records to determine whether the students are on track for graduation or vocational careers.
  • Children’s System of Care
/ CSOC has completed its move to a permanent location. Following last month’s recommendation by the CSCC to fund Joseph’s Hope, meetings have been held to work out the mechanics of transferring the funds to Joseph’s Hope. The CSCC requested quarterly updates on projects for which they have recommended funding.
Referrals for case reviews continue to be made and staff are recognizing the value of having gaps and barriers identified through this process because they are reported to the CSCC. / Schedule quarterly updates on CSOC-funded projects.
  • Wraparound
/ Fifty-five children are enrolled or in the process of being enrolled in Wraparound. Two children will “graduate” from the program in the next month.
4. On-Time Program / Nancy Young, Director of Children and Family Futures, presented information about the On-Time Program. Written copies of the presentation were provided. On-Time has four mentors who have been trained in motivational enhancement therapy and are out-stationed at the dependency court. They assist/motivate mothers with a current or recent history of substance abuse and who have had a child removed from their custody to make behavioral changes in order to recover and reunify with their children. The project was funded for three years by the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment under the Knowledge Development Grant program. Orangewood Children’s Foundation is the grantee, in partnership with Social Services, Children and Family Futures, Southern California Alcohol and Drug programs (Heritage House), and UCLA Drug Abuse Research Center. During the intake period, 245 women enrolled in the research component of the project. About 40 percent of women in Children and Family Services were eligible for this program. Of the women recruited to the program, about 60% have a high school education, 33% are homeless, 32% are on probation or parole, and 4% were incarcerated. The average age of initiation of primary drug use was 19.2 years and, for 46% of the women, the primary drug of choice was methamphetamine.
For the study, a comparison group of families served by Children and Family Services with similar severity of alcohol and drug problems was used. There were no significant differences in demographics between the study and comparison groups. The study showed that the On-Time women were more likely to stay with the drug treatment program in which they enrolled, which demonstrates more stability and a better match between the woman and program to begin with. On-Time women had significantly fewer positive urine toxicology screens between detention and the juris/dispo hearing than the comparison group. The program also is measuring time to reunification or permanent plan, family reunification services received at six months, and client satisfaction. The research protocol should be completed this fall.
Demand for the program continues. There is need for a transitional year as the Steering Committee determines the appropriate place for this program, who should employ the mentors, and the extent of County support to continue the program. This year also would provide time to complete the outcomes evaluation, looking at permanency and safety outcomes. The budget to continue the program for the next year is $305,000, which would continue the mentors, establish a liaison with Children and Family Services, continue the liaison with attorney groups, and continue outcome monitoring. Many counties used CalWORKs funding for substance abuse services to serve this population, but it is now proposed to merge those funds with the entire Social Services grant, so there would be no special set aside for mental health and substance abuse services.
Mentors meet with clients at the court, provide support, and make referrals for treatment. They use motivational interviewing techniques, which helps the client establish her own goals in light of her current situation. There is a feedback form that helps the mother make a connection between where her life is now and how substance use has contributed to that. This is used to motivate changes in behavior. This technique is based on the neuroscience of addiction – for a time, the addict is driven by neurotransmitters that have changed the chemistry of the brain. The mentor provides an intervention and structure that competes with the neurochemistry of active addiction. The mentors also help the mothers recognize what they need to do to regain custody of their children. The mothers are very vulnerable when they enter the system and have fewer rights in dependency court than they would in a criminal court. Social workers don’t have the time to spend with the mothers, so the support the mentors provide is essential.
Although it would be desirable to have a male mentor to serve fathers as well as mothers, the program in Orange County is restricted to mothers at this time. The mentors work with the women to make changes in a number of life areas, including domestic violence and sexual risk. The women’s partners often are the ones who provided them with drugs. The women also are warned that if their partner has recently been in prison, the partner will not pass the Social Services background check and will not be able to live in the same home with the children.
One thing the program has learned is that the mothers need the mentors for a longer period of time than initially planned. The intensity of the services needed rises and falls over time.
The original program with the research component stopped accepting new clients in February. At present, there is sufficient funding to keep the mentors active through June. The question now is whether the program should be sustained and who should fund it.
A suggestion was made for the CSCC to discuss the effects of next fiscal year budgets on children’s services. Members were asked to be prepared to provide a brief overview of FY 2002/03 budgetary impacts on services for children and adolescents. The CSCC does not have its own budget, support for the CSCC is provided in-kind from the participating agencies. However, the CSCC oversees three programs, Wraparound, CSOC, and CORE, and receives budgetary presentations on these programs. The CSCC also advises on the expenditure of unspent CSOC funds. Part of the reason CSOC has unspent funds is because it received its initial annual allocation half way through a fiscal year. These funds can be used for one-time costs as long as the expenditures fit within the requirements of the program and are approved by the State. Agencies also have other funding streams that are not as restricted as CORE, Wraparound, and CSOC.
It is especially important as agencies face budget cuts that they coordinate and share information on anticipated changes in programs. Information shared with the CSCC will need to be general while the County budget process is ongoing because the budget is a moving target. / Probation, SSA, HCA, OCDE, Regional Center, and Public Defender (re: impacts on dependency court) were asked to provide general budget information for the next fiscal year.
5. Conditions of Children Report / Most of the data for the report has been received. Most of the indicators will have 10 years of data to show longer trend lines. A revised timeline was distributed to the CSCC. The preliminary draft will be distributed at the April CSCC meeting, a second draft will be distributed at the May meeting, and a final draft will be distributed prior to the June meeting so it can be approved at the June meeting. The report should be ready to print in July. The headings in the report are changing from “implications” to “why is this important,” and from “summary” to “what is the local significance.” During the review, agencies should consider whether they have additional information to include under these headings.
A special working group has met twice to plan the special section on children’s physical health. The draft special section will be distributed to the working group in April, and will be included in the second draft of the report that is distributed to the CSCC in May.
A booklet version of the report will be prepared this year. A skeleton version of the booklet was shared with the CSCC. The booklet will include a summary of all the indicators in the report, showing the change from a prior year as well as a comparison to state and national data when available.
The Board of Supervisors approved the contract for the 8th Conditions of Children report on March 19. There are 120-150 copies of the 7th Annual Report still available.
6. Subcommittee reports
  • Emancipation Services
/ Four days of training by the Casey Family Foundation on assessment of 14-15 year olds was completed. Forty-six individuals were trained from Probation, group homes, Social Services, and foster parents. A follow-up meeting is scheduled.
Jerry Jahn, who has supervised the emancipation program for the County is retiring on March 27. Cheryl Alexander will take be the new supervisor of the emancipation program.
  • Evaluation
/ The five large counties, excluding Los Angeles, are meeting March 26 and 27 to discuss evaluation of Children’s System of Care. Curt Condon and Jeff Nagel will attend from Orange County. It is an opportunity to learn what other counties are doing regarding data collection. The five counties are Alameda, San Diego, Riverside, Orange County, and Sacramento.
  • Gaps and Barriers
/ The Gaps and Barriers Subcommittee continues to meet to develop recommendations on the gaps and barriers that were not addressed in its first report. It also will discuss gaps and barriers identified through the CORE and Wraparound programs.
  • Early Childhood
/ The Early Childhood Subcommittee has met once – it was a good opportunity to share information about services for the age 0-5 population. The next meeting will take place in April.
7. State legislation / budget / Counties have encountered problems claiming SB90 for the handicapped students program in mental health. A formal hearing is scheduled on March 28 before the Commission on State Mandates. This is an effort to get the claiming guidelines changed. This issue has an impact of $100 million statewide for mental health. It also will impact education and the ability to serve these children. Agreement has been reached with the Senate and Assembly budget committees to include AB3632 issues in the legislature’s version of the budget, if necessary.
The Governor’s proposed budget would cut the Children’s System of Care budget by 10%. The Senate version of the budget would restore this funding. It is likely the Assembly version also will restore the funding.
8. Foster Care Task Force / The Foster Care Task Force met last on February 14. At this time, its primary activity is centered around two subcommittees. The Emancipation Subcommittee is exploring the development of a mentoring program and a drop-in center for emancipated youth. Orangewood Children’s Foundation is taking the lead on finding a site for a drop-in center. They hope to find a site in the next couple of months. Options for developing a mentoring program are being explored. A meeting took place between SSA and Project Together, which currently provides mentors to children served by Children and Youth Services, to see whether the Project Together structure could be used to provide mentors to older youth.
The Foster Care and Adoption Subcommittee is focused on developing a marketing plan for recruiting foster and adoptive families. They would like to change the public image of foster and adoptive families and find a long-term approach to successful recruiting.
The next Task Force meeting will take place April 17 at the Santa Ana City Hall at 2:00 p.m.
9. Matrix of interagency programs – status report / The program profile of the CORE program was distributed to the CSCC. An abbreviated version will be posted on the CSCC web site. The profiles provide program information in a standardized format.
A list of programs on which profiles could be developed was distributed to the CSCC. Initially, profiles were to be developed of interagency programs for high-risk children and families. The CSCC was asked whether the list of programs was still valid and appropriate. One program was removed from the list because it no longer operates. The CSCC also was asked what criteria they would like to use to select programs for profile development. Two program suggestions were On-Time and Shortstop. Committee members were asked to share their ideas with Carole Mintzer.
10. Public comments / Assemblywoman Patricia Bates has introduced a bill (AB2514) to require the Department of Social Services and the Department of Alcohol and Drug programs to create a strategic plan about substance abuse issues in child welfare.

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cscc minutes 03-21-02 10/16/18

HCA/Office of Quality Management