Adoption Oversight Committee

September 28, 2010

Meeting Minutes

Present:Rosemary Jackson, MSU;Anita Peters, DHS;Nicole Leitch, DHS;Martha Ballou, DHS;Kim DoBiesz, Oakland County DHS;Kathrin Neal, Wayne County DHS;Jeanette Bridges, Foster Care Review Board;Casey Anbender, SCAO-Child Welfare Services;Kathy Yates, St. Vincent Catholic Charities;Dona Abbott, Bethany Christian Services; Betsy Boggs, AFSN; Vicki Orleans, Orchards Children’s Services;Eric Washburn, Lutheran Adoption Service; Pedro Alvarez, DHS Adoption Subsidy;Staci Bladen, DHS; Olivia Jefferson, DHS; Brenda Konieczki, Office of Children’s Ombudsman; Lauran Howard, Oakland County Circuit Court;Bill Johnson, MCI;Saundra Deeghan, DHS;Cathee Hover, DHS; Heidi Raubenolt, MARE; Michelle Parra, MARE; Loren Sanders, MARE; Sheila Boardman, MARE.

Welcome and Introductions – MARE Staff

MARE Program Updates:

Heart Gallery & Upcoming Events: Sheila Boardman shared that Heart Gallery child registration is now complete and almost all children have now been matched with a photographer. MARE will be hosting itsUpper Peninsula recruitment event in Marquetteon September 30, 2010. It will be a public informational session on adoption put on by MARE and area agencies.

November is National Adoption Month! Order forms for adoption “goodies” and teddy bears will be going out to courts around the state for their use at local events. Agencies may also request “goodies”.

Heidi Raubenolt shared that on September 13, 2010the “Lasting Impressions” Narrative Writing Training was held at the MARE office. It was facilitated by two national trainers from Adopt Us Kids, who provided a Train the Trainer curriculum. MARE staff, as well as supervisors and workers from several agencies from throughout the state were in attendance. MARE will use the information gathered to train the field at new worker CWI trainings and MARE Update trainings for agencies. Agency staff who were in attendance were asked to take the information back to their agencies and train their departments.

The trainers also provided technical assistance to MARE and DHS staff on September 14, 2010. As a result, the MARE Child Entry Form is being updated to gather more thorough and appropriate information from workers in order to write quality narratives. Need severity levels have been defined in alignment with Adopt Us Kids’ standards and will be made available on the MARE website so workers have better direction when completing the Child Entry Form.

Out of state inquiries were discussed with the trainers as well.MARE is finding that although every child photolisted on MARE is also listed on Adopt Us Kids, a national photolisting website, and numerous out of state inquiries are coming from families, workers are not giving these families the proper attention. MARE is working to educate the field on the requirement to give every family, regardless of where they live, equal consideration for the child they inquire on. It is against the law to not consider out of state families. The updated Child Entry Form will no longer include the option “Child must remain in Michigan”, and MARE will not include this in the child’s narrative on the website.

MARE and DHS have developed an Adoption Tax Credit Brochure to be distributed to families and agencies. When printed copies are available, MARE will notify agencies.

DHS Update – Anita Peters:

Anita introduced Nicole Leitch, the new Adoptive and Foster Parent Recruitment and Retention Coordinator for DHS. Nicole and Anita provided an update on County recruitment plans. County recruitment plans went out to Program Managers and Directors of each county on September 22, 2010 along with county statistics to aid in the development of the plans. Completed county plansare due by October 31, 2010so they can be included in the settlement monitoring report.

CountyDHS offices should be collaborating with private agencies in their county and only one plan per county is to be submitted. It was shared that many private agencies are being asked by DHS offices to submit their own plans to them instead of creating one plan through a collaborative process. The reason the recruitment plan information and data was sent only to countyManagers and Directors was in an effort to get the county offices to take the lead on developing the plans. Nicole will send statistics to the private agencies for them to work from as well.

Recruitment plans are compiled by Anita for reporting purposes. August 1st will be the deadline for recruitment plans going forward. This year’s deadline was pushed back to October 31st because of problems getting the needed data. After the final report is compiled it will be shared with the field.

Nicole explained an upcoming recruitment campaign being sponsored by Comcast. Free PSA’s from Adopt Us Kids (“You don’thave to be a Perfect Parent” ad campaign) will be broadcast periodically On Demand for Comcast customers in the Detroit, Flint, Lansing and Grand Rapids markets. Viewers will be prompted to click a button on their remote for more information. Subscriber information will be sent to Adopt Us Kids, and filtered through MARE. The campaign will roll out on December 6thand will run until the end of January or beginning of February, 2011.There was a great response to this campaign in the Chicago area, and it is anticipated it will be very successful in Michigan. This campaign is at no costto the state.

Olivia Jefferson, formerly an intern in the Adoption, Guardianship and Permanency Unit was recently hired on as the DHS Adoption Analyst, a newly developed position. Olivia will work part time until December and then will move to full time. Her job duties will include data collection and contract monitoring. Olivia has also created an Adoptive Parent Handbook. Kate is currently reviewing it and when it is finalized, it will be made available online and in print format.

Anita is attending the Policy to Practice Dialogue Conference in Washington, DC next week. She is looking forward to obtaining good information from the workshops for managers.

3.5 million dollars has been awarded to Michigan in Adoption Incentive Grant funds. This is the 3rd highest amount awarded to any state in the country (behind Texas and Florida).The state is working on a plan on how to utilize the money. It is on a 2 year cycle and must be obligated by September 30, 2012 and spent by December 31, 2012. The funds cannot be used to create any staff positions and must be for initiatives that can sustain after the funding cycle. Funds may be used to enhance current programming.

The Permanency Forum’s county teams are asking for suggestions for statewide post-adoption, recruitment and other initiatives to support families that could be supported by this funding. Michigan is still struggling with older child and special needs placements. Formal suggestions are due by October 22, 2010 to the Permanency Forum. Meeting attendees were encouraged to get feedback from the Federation and other agencies and share those ideas with the Permanency Forum members. Kathy Yates indicated that Kathryn O’Grady suggested at a recent press conference that the money was already obligated. Anita will ask for clarification.

Contract Updates:

The ARC program (Adoption Resource Consultants) is up and running. ARC’s are currently reviewing 54 cases from Wayne, Genesee, Macomb and Oakland counties.

Betsy Boggs provided an update on Adoptive Family Support Network’s newly acquiredParent to Parent contract. AFSN has been providing post-adopt support services in Kent County for the past 20 years, including a “warm line” for adoptive parents to call and connect with other adoptive families to obtain advice and guidance on navigating the system, obtaining resources and developing self-advocacy skills. The Parent to Parent contract will enhance current servicesby hiring six part-time Adoptive Parent Consultants who will provide support to other parents and connect them with service providers in their county. The program will be developing an extensive resource and support list for adoptive parents’ use as well as developing relationships with agencies throughout the region. The program will launch in mid-October. It is a pilot program, and if it is successful, it may be put back out to bid again in the future.

There has been some difficulty getting the Adoptive Parent Training bid through the contract office. The contract office is evaluating whether or not they want the bid to give the contracting agency the task of developing a new training curriculum, so they are looking at other possible options. If this contract does not end up goingout to bid, the money will not be absorbed back into the legislature; it will still be available for use.

Subsidy Updates:

Anita shared that per Karen Iverson, the Subsidy office is currently working on complete packets submitted through September 1st. Staff are working to stick to a 30 day response time if the packet is not complete. Workers then have 30 days to submit the missing documents. If they do not respond, the subsidy office will return the packet back to the worker.

Because there is so much debate about what a complete packet looks like, and it often depends on which worker is looking at the packet, Karen has developed a subsidy packet checklist that will come out soon. This checklist is meant to alleviate many of the current documentation issues, including providing clarification on what supporting documentation for DOCs should be required.

Martha is working on a policy update with regards to subsidy packets and is honing in on what exactly is required. The policy is drafted but not yet complete. This policy needs to be reviewed with the foster care policy writer to ensure subsidy is not requiring documents that don’t exist in foster care policy.Since this is not a high priority policy for foster care, it may take a while to be completed.With regards to DOC’s, per the consent decree, the DOC policy must be reviewed to add an appeal process

The lawsuit settlement monitors regularly ask about subsidy as a hold up. Lauran Howard stated that subsidy is a huge hold up in OaklandCounty. Pedro suggested working with DHS monitors on getting documentation and identifying counties who need training and clarification on documentation requirements. Kim DoBiesz noted that the time lag at the subsidy office is still contributing to the problem of documents expiring

Vickie Orleans pointed out that sibling packets are sometimes being assigned to different subsidy workers and different documents are being requested. Contracts are also being sent out at different times. Pedro stated that packets are being assigned to workers by region, but some sibling groups may be getting split in order to catch up on the backlog. Another issue noted was a child under 3 years old that was given a subsidy contract because of siblings, even though the siblings were placed separately.

It was asked who handles Non-Recurring Adoption Expenses. Bonnie Watkins is the subsidy staff member who oversees NRE requests.

Extension of Care:

Each state must figure out on their own how they will address issues of documentation and verification if a youth is living on their own, at college, etc. and who will receive the foster care payments when a youth is not in a traditional foster home placement.The guardianship policy will be the same as adoption policy. The courts will need to determine how they will handle extending juvenile guardianships beyond 18 years old.

Effective October 1st and going forward, all plansneed to be approved by HHS before implementation. Instructions from the federal government were received at the end of July, and Michigan is working on its plan. If the plan is received by HHS by December 31, 2010, Michigan can access funds from the previous quarter, so the goal is to get the state plan approved by then.

Guardianship and adoption subsidies have been extended to 20 years old for youth who entered care after 16 years old through Title IV-E funding. Statutory changes have been drafted. The federal legislation says subsidy should be provided until age21, however Michigan only has the funds to pay until 20.

Policy and Form Updates – Martha Ballou: Adoption policy has been updated, Martha is just waiting on signatures. A draft of the updates was distributed to the group.These changes came about as a result of questions and suggestions since the new policy came out last October. Major changes include, but are not limited to the following:

  • Adoption activities must begin within 7 days of acceptance of the adoption case transfer.
  • Child Adoption Assessment timeframe for completion is changed to 45 calendar days from acceptance of the case.
  • Quarterly Adoption Progress Reports need to be completed in addition to supervisory reports when a case is in adoption supervision.
  • The DHS-255 must be provided to adoptive parents at orientation, in addition to private agencies’ program statements.
  • Signature of adoptive parent(s) acknowledging receipt of the AFA addendum is now required. (The DHS-612 will soon be updated adding a signature line)
  • All youth with the goal of adoption (with or without an identified family) must be registered with MARE within 30 days.

An L-Letter was distributed outlining policy changes with regard to practice involving incarcerated parents. A summary of legal requirements from the Fostering Change Conference on September 23, 2010 was also distributed. In the past, Michigan has not done a very good job of documenting efforts to give services to absent and incarcerated parents. This policy provides clarification on how and when parental rights can be terminated on parents who are incarcerated.

Other Program Updates:

The DHS Central Registry auditors review is complete and available on the DHS website.

Adoption Contracts should be coming soon as thebudget is coming close to being finalized. Current contracts will not be extended until the budget is approved.

The Foster Care Review Board has encountered two recent cases regarding medical marijuana. This raised the issue of how medical marijuana is being addressed in foster and adoptive home approval/licensing. This issue is already addressed in the medication and substance use areas of licensing policy. Licensing addresses such issues during the assessment process by determining if there is a safety issue and if and how it affects the care of the child. BCAL has licensed a few homes with medical marijuana licenses.

MCI/Consent Update:

Expedited consent requests are taking about 30 days, regular consent requests are taking 6-8 weeks. Competing party cases are taking 2-3 months to review. The MCI office is receiving an influx of consent requests. Bill encourages people to be judicious in asking the status of a consent request, as the department secretary is inundated with phone calls and emails. If it is a cohort case or a request that was sent a long time ago, however, workers are encouraged to contact MCI for an update.

Bill has had several Section 45 hearings recently. There have been consistent rulings at the court of Appeals which is giving other judges guidance on how these hearings should be.

A continuing issue that seems to be getting more prevalent is consent requests for very young children in a foster home with parents who are more than 50 years older who wish to adopt. Suggestions to address this issue include making policy firmer and looking at the first placement as possible last placement. Workers should always be looking at concurrent planning and this needs to be considered by licensing as well when recommending ages of children on licenses. The root of this issue appears to be that the state of Michiganis in need of more appropriate foster homes that can serve as permanent placements if need be.

Subcommittee Updates:

Legal and Policy: The suggested legalchecklist for courts is complete. Copies were distributed.The last step is to distribute it to the courts around the state, which will be done through SCAO. This subcommittee is looking for new projects to focus on.

Service Provision: Meetings are held the second Tuesday of every other month at Lutheran Adoption Service-Southfield. The next meeting will be held on October 8, 2010 from 10am-12pm. The group is formulating and solidifying their focus.

Post-Adopt: Members are currently serving on the medical subsidy workgroup. The next meeting will be held on October 8, 2010 at 1:30PM at Orchards Children’s Services in Southfield.A job list has been developed, mostly around policy changes. Draft language will be brought to the next meeting. This subcommittee is also looking for new projects to focus their efforts on after their work with the subsidy workgroup is complete.

Recruitment:This subcommittee is expanding and now includes Nicole Leitch and some of Michigan’s Wendy’s Wonderful Kids recruiters. The group is collecting resources for post-adoption services for parents and recruitment resources for workers to be used in conjunction with the upcoming child-specific recruitment plan requirement. Counties are looking for technical assistance and best practice information on how to best recruit for targeted populations, so this subcommittee is working on how to meet that need.

Next Adoption Oversight Committee:November 16, 2010 from 10am to 2pm at the Lansing Training Center, Room 2D.