an overview georgia program improvement plan - Department of ...

6 th Quarter Report: The CPRS Basic Training and the CPRS advanced training both have a Visitation screen that is designed to document
the visitation plan for children with their parents. In SFY 2003, 1200 workers and their supervisors were trained in either Basic or Advanced
training. In SFY2004, 377 additional workers and supervisors were trained in Basic, Advanced or Supervisory training. In each session,
visitation of parents and children was stressed and staff were instructed on how to document the visitation plan in the Case Plan Reporting
System. New Worker Training includes training on documenting the visitation plan in the CPRS.
6 th Quarter Federal Response: Are you going to evaluate visits between parents and children and the location of visits by June 2004?
H5: Continue to report progress
7 th Quarter Reply: The Action Step and benchmark speaks to documenting the occurrence and location of visits in the case plan. A
cumulative Qualitative Case Review for the 10 month period 10/03 – 06/04 shows that in 60 relevant cases, 51 cases (85.0%)
indicated that visitation took place. These visits took place in a variety of venues that included agency offices, the parents' home and
were supervised by agency staff or relatives. Other visits took place in restaurants or treatment facilities. The State recognizes that we
are currently 5% behind in goal achievement of this action step. However, the baseline from the ACF Final Report was 66.6%, the
85.0% indicates a significant increase. Training efforts will continue to reinforce the importance of preserving family connections and
emphasize documentation as the appropriate measure of success.
AFCARS Data Frequency Report for Foster Children (10/01/2003 - 03/31/2004) reports a total number of 19, 426 children receiving foster
care service during this time period. There are a total of 12,378 visitation plans documented in CPRS. The number of case plans in CPRS is
exaggerated due to several factors. During the migration of plans from the original CPRS to CPRSv2, duplicate cases were created. The
counties were not aware that they needed to close the original plan, so the duplicate plans remain. Other plans should have been closed when
their case was closed. The division is now providing training to supervisors on how to identify plans that need to be closed and how to close
them. Additionally, supervisors and workers are receiving training on how to create a new plan and review existing plans. The developer for
the system will review the system for “junk plans” and delete as appropriate. In addition, even though the State has mandated CPRS usage it
is questionable that data input is occurring, as it should. To date the State has been not been able to fund the additional staff resources needed
to monitor staff input. Another factor impacting Georgia’s challenge with capturing and evaluating this information via CPRS is that even
though the case plans may document the requirement for visitation, all the cases may not adequately document each time and location a visit
occurred, nor whether the occurrence and quality of visits is in compliance with the court order. Thus far, the QCRs seem to be the better
approach to measure whether the visits are occurring and evaluating the quality of the visits.
The CPRS Basic Training and the CPRS Advanced Training both have a component that discusses visitation. Woven throughout the
training documents are references to and instructions on how to input and retrieve information pertaining to children in placement.
This content includes specific references to efforts to assure sibling visitation and documentation of the visits.
7 th Quarter DOCUMENTATION:
Safe Futures – A Plan for Program Improvement
Georgia Department of Human Resources
November, 2004 Quarter 8 – Work Plan H Page 2