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

April 2002 Aug. 2002
5th Quarter: Per
Evaluation/Renegotiatio
n Report, the State
requested an extension
to July 2004 to allow for
monitoring via a survey
sampling of SAAGs
Vivian Egan, TA: Michelle Barclay
Annual training will include session on the federal
review.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
Achieved. SAAG's received training regarding the findings of the Federal Review.
4 th Quarter Federal Response: The State articulates that this has been achieved, but provides no information. When was the training
done? How many SAAGs were trained? We need more clarification on the evaluation piece.
5 th Quarter Report: It was decided that a measure of just basic SAAG performance should be done first and that the local DFCS
offices would be a better source of information than the judges. After getting 100% response rate from the DFCS counties, it was
discovered that just a small core of SAAGS were not meeting with their own clients. The results are posted on the website:
http://www.gachildadvocate.org/gasurveyresults.html
6 th Quarter Report: Achieved. The evaluation process was modified to yield more useful results. See results posted at the above
website.
6 th Quarter Federal Response: J3: Information reported in Q5 and Q6 is inconsistent between the two and with the benchmark.
Furthermore, the survey which the State cites was developed to assess DFCS' satisfaction with SAAG representation on behalf of the
agency. It has nothing to do with child and family involvement in case planning.
7 th Quarter Report: The State has Achieved this action by the following means:
(1) SAAG training has been conducted to review the findings of the federal review, including this item on family involvement in case
planning. The plans for annual SAAG training could not be met due to budgetary constraints. The next training event is planned for
July 26, 29, and 30, 2004. Documentation of the States Legal….is attached
(2) A sample of judges has been surveyed to measure compliance. The Court Improvement Project staff conducted the most recent
survey of judges. Of the ten judges interviewed, most were aware that families and children should be involved in the case panning.
However, most said that they just assume that the SAAGs and caseworkers are involving families and children in their case planning.
Safe Futures – A Plan for Program Improvement
Georgia Department of Human Resources
November, 2004 Quarter 8 – Work Plan J Page 18