Los Angeles County Self-Assessment Report

Local schools, community colleges, and universities have also assisted DCFS in its
recruitment, development, and support efforts of resource families in a variety of ways.
Most are displaying and distributing recruitment brochures at their campuses; MSW
graduate student interns are actively participating in various levels of the development
and planning of RDS events (i.e. “Celebrating and Encouraging Sibling Connections”,
Pasadena office), and assisting with the development and distribution of a Resource
Family Exit Survey for resource families who have chosen to no longer foster. Some of
the anchor sites report discussion on how to best utilize former foster youth in RDS
issues.
Most anchor sites have initiated steps to clean and purify their database on the actual
number of active resource families in their communities. Resource families have been
surveyed as to their current ability to accept placements, which has allowed for the
updating of the number of actual available placement beds. Further, some of the anchor
sites have created an emergency placement database to help make better placement
matches.
Structured Decision Making (SDM):
Structured Decision Making provides social workers with simple, objective, and reliable
tools with which to make the best possible decisions for individual cases and provides
managers with information for improved planning and resource allocation. The
implementation of SDM tools ensures that safety, risk, and needs are assessed for each
child for whom child welfare services are to be provided, including gathering and
evaluating information relevant to the case situation and appraising case services
needs. Generally, the SDM utilization rates have been increasing since 2004:
SDM Hotline Assessment Tool (this
tool was implemented on 07/01/05)
Safety Assessment 85.5%
Percent of SDM Tool Completion
2004 2005 2006 2007
n/a 97.8%
n = 55,614
Risk Assessment 77.1%
n = 29,674
n =26,564
90.3%
n=58,831
81.4%
n = 26,824
99.6%
n = 73,763
90.8%
n = 58,592
84.6%
n = 23,251
98.5%
n = 68,213
92.8%
n = 64,271
83.5%
n = 23,396
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