SUBJECT:

PURPOSE:

In New York State foster care services are state supervised and locally administered. The Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) is charged with oversight of foster care services provided by local social services districts, which may provide those services directly or through contracts with private agencies, also known as voluntary agencies. Services provided to foster children and their families are often referred to as "case planning services." Case planning includes, but is not limited to, providing services or making the appropriate referrals to children and family members, ensuring foster children are receiving timely and appropriate health and behavioral health care services, supervising family visitation, monitoring foster homes to ensure that children are safe in placement, certifying of foster homes and parents, assisting in the adoption process, providing independent living services, assisting foster care youth in obtaining appropriate educational services and/or scholarships, entering of progress notes, development of appropriate permanency goals for the children, attending court appearances and completing permanency reports. These services are essential in ensuring that foster children receive a high quality of care and experience the best outcomes possible.

A few local districts throughout the state choose to provide case planning services to children and families through "direct foster care" instead of contracting with a voluntary agency. The trend statewide has been for local districts to move away from direct foster care and to assign case planning responsibility to voluntary agencies. Currently the New York City Administration for Children's Services (ACS) contracts out to voluntary agencies to handle case planning for the entire foster care population. The quality of case planning services a foster child and family receive, whether from a district or voluntary agency, directly impacts the health, well-being and permanency of that child. As ACS continues to expand Improved Outcomes for Children (IOC) and place additional responsibility on voluntary agencies, monitoring of these agencies is increasingly important.

While local districts and voluntary agencies perform much needed services to thousands of foster children throughout the state, OCFS, ACS, and child welfare advocates have consistently reported on the varying degrees of case planning performance. Measuring, tracking and holding districts and agencies accountable for the quality of the services they deliver is essential. Doing so requires that OCFS and local social services districts have detailed insight into the quality of care foster children and families are receiving. While local districts may employ various performance measurements tools, OCFS is ultimately responsible for ensuring that these tools are adequate and that high performance standards are met by districts and agencies throughout the state.

The quality of care children receive while in foster care is vital to their ability to live happy and healthy lives. Therefore, it is imperative that local districts hold voluntary agencies accountable, and that OCFS hold local districts and voluntary agencies accountable, for the quality of services foster children are receiving. Despite some agencies across the state reportedly performing better over time, advocates continue to report that foster children are not receiving medical services, foster parents are overburdened and under-prepared, children continue to age out of the foster care system into homelessness, and casework documents fail to provide necessary information about foster children. In summation, foster children continue to fall through the cracks.

The Assembly Committee on Children & Families and the Assembly Subcommittee on Foster Care are interested in hearing from OCFS, local social services districts including ACS, court officials, law guardians, advocates and foster care agencies on the mechanisms currently used to monitor the quality of foster care services delivered by voluntary agencies, as well as local districts, and where access to and delivery of services can be improved. Foster parents and children are also welcome to share their perspective on the quality of foster care services they have experienced.

Please see below for a list of subjects to which witnesses may direct their testimony. Persons wishing to present pertinent testimony to the Committee at the above hearing should complete and return the enclosed reply form as soon as possible. It is important that the reply form be fully completed and returned so that persons may be notified in the event of emergency postponement or cancellation.

Oral testimony will be limited to 10 minutes. In preparing the order of witnesses, the Committee will attempt to accommodate individual requests to speak at particular times in view of special circumstances. These requests should be made on the attached reply form or communicated to Committee staff as early as possible. In the absence of a request, witnesses will be scheduled in the order in which reply forms are postmarked.

Ten copies of any prepared testimony should be submitted at the hearing registration desk. The Committee would appreciate advance receipt of prepared statements.

In order to further publicize these hearings, please inform interested parties and organizations of the Committee's interest in hearing testimony from all sources.

In order to meet the needs of those who may have a disability, the Assembly, in accordance with its policy of non-discrimination on the basis of disability, as well as the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), has made its facilities and services available to all individuals with disabilities. For individuals with disabilities, accommodations will be provided, upon reasonable request, to afford such individuals access and admission to Assembly facilities and activities.

SELECTED ISSUES TO WHICH WITNESSES MAY DIRECT THEIR TESTIMONY:

1. Are children in foster care receiving appropriate services?

2. Are OCFS, and/or local social services district currently providing appropriate oversight of foster care services?

3. How are local social services districts and contracted agencies currently performing in the following service categories:

   1. Obtaining identification documents for foster children such as birth certificates and social security cards?

   2. Resolving immigration status of foster children?

   3. Timely filing of court documents?

   4. Accurately and completely filling out progress notes and entering them into CONNECTIONS?

   5. Ensuring that foster children have access to quality medical, mental health and behavioral health services?

   6. Training foster parents, including providing them with information pertaining to Medicaid and educational services?

   7. Ensuring foster homes are certified and safe?

   8. Making legally required home visits?

   9. Facilitating visits with the foster child's family?

   10. Involving family member in permanency planning?

   11. Achieving permanency goals in a timely fashion?

   12. Ensuring that children are receiving appropriate educational services and supports, and or/ assisting children in fulfilling educational goals through assistance with college applications or applications for scholarships such as the educational training voucher (ETV)?

   13. Ensuring that youth aging out of foster care are prepared to live independently?

   14. Meeting State and Federal standards for foster care services?

4. What tools does OCFS use to monitor and measure the quality of foster care services provided by local social services districts and contracted voluntary agencies? How do these tools determine whether quality foster care services are being delivered? How does OCFS hold local social services districts and contracted voluntary agencies accountable for the level of case management and case planning services provided to foster parents and children? Please explain.

5. What tools do local social services districts use to monitor and measure the quality of foster care services provided both through direct care and by contracted voluntary agencies? How do local social services districts hold contracted agencies accountable for the level of foster care services provided?

6. How do local social services districts determine whether to grant, renew or terminate a contract with a voluntary agency? What type of oversight, if any, does OCFS have over this decision making process?

7. What type of oversight does OCFS provide to ensure that reimbursements to contracted agencies for services provided is accurate? How do local social services districts verify correct reimbursements and ensure that contracted agencies accurately report the services they provide?

8. How is ACS ensuring that high quality services are being delivered by contracted agencies under the Improved Outcomes for Children model?

9. What supports are provided to voluntary agencies to help them reach high performance standards? What supports are currently needed?

PUBLIC HEARING REPLY FORM

Persons wishing to present testimony at the public hearing Oversight of Foster Care Services are requested to complete this reply form as soon as possible and mail it to:

Jennifer Marrero
Committee Assistant
Assembly Committee on Children and Families
Room 522 - Capitol
Albany, New York 12248
E-mail: marreroj@assembly.state.ny.us
Phone: (518) 455-4371
Fax: (518) 455-4693

I will address my remarks to the following subjects:

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