Safe Futures A Plan for Program Improvement - Department of ...

Further interviews reveal that while permanency issues are being addressed in court hearings, but are not being properly documented.
A report has been written from this data and has been distributed to DHR and is posted on the CIP website:
http://www.state.ga.ga.us/courts/supreme/cppp/
A second CIP study is being planned for the summer of 2003 and the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court judges has again
agreed to do the data analysis.
3 rd Quarter Report: Achieved. The first GA CIP study was done in preparation of the CP Conference. Many courts were found NOT
to be doing permanency hearings timely or the courts were NOT doing proper documentation of permanency hearings (i.e. addressing
permanency issues, but not labeling such hearing as a permanency hearing). Recent judicial training emphasized that permanency
hearings must be done and documented. A follow up study being conducted this summer and will look for improvement. The 4 th Child
Placement Conference is scheduled for November 2003.
4 th Quarter Federal Response: This step is noted to be achieved based on completed trainings again. However, the measurable
benchmark is that timely permanency hearings (PHs) will occur for each child. 3 rd QR (where the action step is noted as being
achieved) shows that courts are not conducting PHs on a timely basis nor are they properly documenting these hearings. The step
cannot be achieved unless each child has timely PHs…according to the action step and benchmark. The State needs to continue to
monitor this action step.
5 th Quarter Report: The Court Improvement Project (CIP) has done another review and is preparing another report based on that data
which includes whether and when permanency hearings are done. CIP will have the report completed by the next quarter. A draft
document is attached, but it is not ready for public distribution. CIP also has the capacity built within the CPRS to mark when the
permanency hearing is occurring, however that field is rarely completed, so we cannot produce a good report. We will seek better
ways to collect data on this action step and benchmark by next quarter's report.
5 th Quarter DOCUMENTATION:
Draft - Summer Assessment Review 2003 - A Snapshot of Juvenile Court Performance in Child Deprivation Cases and
Recommendations for Continued Improvement.
BARRIERS TO ACHIEVEMENT:
2 nd Quarter Federal Response: Identify the reason/s for partial achievement.
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Safe Futures – A Plan for Program Improvement
Georgia Department of Human Resources
March, 2004 Quarter 5 - Work Plan D Page 9