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State Has 30 Days to Detail Compliance Plans in 4 Key Areas
June 30, 2008- A Judge in Washington State has ruled that the state’s Department of Social and Health Services must keep the promises it made four years ago to dramatically improve the care and protection of the state’s 10,000 foster children.
In its latest ruling on June 30 in Braam v. Washington, the Court agreed with plaintiffs that the Department has failed to comply in four key areas, and has failed to provide adequate data about the children in its care. The National Center for Youth Law, Columbia Legal Services, and attorney Tim Farris, representing the state’s foster children, filed a motion in January seeking Court enforcement of the settlement in four key areas. The Department has 30 days from the date of the Court ruling to detail how it will comply: - Monthly visits – The Department must provide monthly visits to all children in its care starting September 1, 2008.
- Caseloads – The Department must commit to reduce caseloads of foster care workers to adhere to the standard of one caseworker for every 18 children in care or 8 children with special needs.
- Sibling Contact – The Department must provide twice-monthly contacts between siblings separated in foster care.
- Mental Health – The Department must provide child health and education tracking screens (“CHET Screens”) within 30 days of entry into care.
The Court ordered the Department to determine whether it needed funding to comply, and to request that funding from the Legislature next session. The Court also found that the Department had “fallen well short of its obligation” to provide sufficient data about foster children, and ordered it to provide such data. The Department must show “demonstrable” progress within the next few months, the Court said.
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One of the more exciting developments in the reform process is the recent agreement by the monitoring panel for Braam v. State of Washington to conduct a foster youth survey. The survey will be a valuable way to gather information about the day-to-day experiences of foster youth by asking the youth themselves.
The survey is designed to measure Washington’s compliance with two of the benchmarks: (1) the percentage of youth receiving appropriate independent living preparation services, and (2) the percentage of youth receiving a six-month pre-exit staffing.
The survey may also include questions covered by a previous survey of foster parents, such as frequency of visits, availability of mental health care, child safety, and quality of foster care services. The survey provides an excellent opportunity to compare data received from foster youth with that from foster parents. Not only will the foster youth information supplement the earlier data, but might also illuminate important differences in the measurement methods.
The Panel will form a working group -- comprised of Plaintiffs’ counsel representatives, Children’s Administration representatives, foster youth, and other stakeholders -- to begin nailing down logistics of the survey, including the number of youth to be surveyed, their age range, and the survey time frame.[1]
[1] The Panel has suggested that the survey be conducted from January through June 2008, with the survey collecting information from the year 2007.
Listed below are several of the key benchmarks for implementation of the Braam settlement. In some cases, no data has been provided by the state Department of Social Services, while other benchmarks are under review by the Braam implementation panel. The status of all the benchmarks listed is noted accordingly.
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