Los Angeles County Self-Assessment Report

Los Angeles County Self-Assessment Report
Interagency Delinquency Prevention Program (IDPP): IDPP replaced Start Taking
Action Responsibly Today (START) Program effective May 15, 2007. IDPP is a
collaborative effort between the Departments of Children and Family Services, Mental
Health, Probation and Los Angeles Unified School District to provide intervention
services to dependent youth most at risk of delinquency. This team works together,
along with care providers, DCFS Team Decision Making facilitators, and other
stakeholders, to produce a comprehensive assessment and a shared intervention plan
to address problem behaviors. Since the beginning of the program IDPP has serviced
22 youth in the Torrance office.
Faith-Based Committee: The Faith-based Committee is comprised of 45 churches
working in partnership with the Torrance Office to support the most vulnerable children
and families in the community. This Faith-based Committee is working on three
initiatives: Recruitment and support of resource families, Visitation Centers, and
Prevention. The initiatives are aligned with the departmental goals of reduced abuse,
reduced timelines to permanency, and reduced reliance on out-of-home care. Two
events were put on by the RDS workgroup, a Faith-Leaders Conference and Family Fun
Day. The events' purpose was to enlist churches to recruit potential adoptive families,
resource families and mentors. At the Faith Leaders Conference, 45 churches signed
on to help in recruitment of adoptive and resource families within their church. All the
resource families from SPA 8 were invited for the Family Fun Day event. Approximately
4,000 people attended and 78 people were interested in becoming adoptive or resource
families.
The Faith-based Committee has partnered up with the South Bay Center for Counseling
to plan how churches can support the Department through preventive services. In
addition, a small pilot project will be headed by the faith community to reduce timelines
to permanency by developing Visitation Centers throughout the Torrance region.
Casey Foundation Anchor Site: As an anchor site for the Family to Family Initiative,
the Torrance office receives technical support, funding, and specialized training from the
Annie E. Casey foundation in order to help implement strategies that improve outcomes
for children and families (e.g., building community partnerships, team decision making,
recruiting, developing, and supporting resource families, and evaluation). As an anchor
site, the Torrance Office is assigned a Family to Family Liaison that overlooks and
manages the Family to Family organizational structure and coordinates the sharing of
information and work plans among the various workgroups and committees that do the
work of Family to Family. The Family to Family Liaison assists with coordinating events
and meetings that maintain, strengthen, and preserve community partnerships and
conducts outreach efforts to increase the quantity and quality of partnerships.
Implementing the Family to Family strategies should result in a reduction of children
entering foster care, more children being placed within their communities, improved
service delivery, greater support for resource families, and reduced timelines to
permanency.
Adoptions and Permanency Resource Division (APRD)
Concurrent Planning Redesign: Concurrent Planning Redesign (CPR) has been
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