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

addition, 70 court-hearing observations were done. The data from this work was collected in a database and shared with the National
Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges Permanency Planning Department. From the initial report and the sample of data,
reviews are occurring more often than every six months. From the snapshot of information collected, having more frequent reviews
did not appear to effect time to permanency. More data will need to be collected in order to draw firm conclusions.
3 rd Quarter Report: Achieved.
3 rd Quarter Federal Response: Did you conduct a review this summer? Have you made a determination? When do you plan to
collect more data?
4th Quarter Georgia Reply: A subsequent review was conducted during the summer of 2003. The data collected from that study is
presently being analyzed by the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges; however, preliminary indications suggest that
although hearings are occurring more frequently, the increased frequency does not appear to increase time to permanency.
4 th Quarter Federal Response: This step is also noted as achieved but the State does not provide any information regarding the
frequency of reviews. From the 4 th QR narrative, it does not appear that this step will be achieved until the data analysis is completed
and the State can determine why the frequency of reviews does not impact permanency.
5 th Quarter Report: There is the capacity within the CPRS to mark the frequency of reviews, however the field is not completed
regularly and therefore, a good report cannot be produced. We will seek better ways to collect data on this action step and benchmark
by next quarter's report.
Judicial reviews are only required every 6 months. When we saw reviews being conducted more frequently during our CIP review, it
usually meant it was a complex case (meaning it was going to take a lot of time anyway) and the judge holding more reviews to push
the case along. Yet, in our sample, it was still taking more than 2 years for the children to get to permanency. See attached draft for
summer assessment report.
What really seems to matter regarding which children get to permanency faster is the activist state of the local DFCS and the local
court. If the court and the DFCS office are both activist and if the caseload is not too high for either group, then the cases move to
permanency quicker. Thus, just doing more frequent reviews may not make permanency happen faster, but lots of problems get
resolved at review time so it is still helpful.
The most helpful reports that the CIP has seen, describing which counties are most effective at permanency efforts, are at the end of
the Office of the Child Advocate's annual report, entitled 'Time from Removal to Finalized Adoption' and 'Time from Removal to
Reunification'. See: www.gachildadvocate.org/pdf/2002ar.pdf
Safe Futures – A Plan for Program Improvement
Georgia Department of Human Resources
November, 2004 Quarter 8 - Work Plan D Page 12