|
(Lincoln, NE) Gov. Dave Heineman today announced a series of directives designed to improve how Nebraska manages the cases of foster children and other state wards.
The directives focus on decreasing the length of time children spend in the system by achieving permanent placements earlier – particularly for young children – and freeing up resources to allow workers more time to focus on high-priority cases.
“Government is not the best parent, nor did we ever intend it to be,” Gov. Heineman said. “We are at best a facilitator helping to ensure the proper placement of a child in a safe and stable environment where each child can have an opportunity to flourish. We have made significant progress in recent years, but there is much more to be done.
“Based on what I have learned, I am directing Health and Human Services System to take a series of immediate and specific actions to ensure we continue to improve the services we provide to children and their families.”
Changes ordered by the Governor include:
• Nebraska Health and Human Services (HHS) will place a priority on resolving the cases of children between the ages of zero and five. There are 1,455 such children in Nebraska.
• HHS will place a priority on achieving permanent placements for children who have spent 15 or more of the last 22 months in state care. Nearly half of the children in Nebraska’s child welfare system meet or exceed those parameters.
• HHS will prioritize the resolution of the approximately 600 cases where children were never removed or have either been living safely at home for seven months, but have not yet been released from state custody by the judicial system.
• HHS will begin working with Nebraska’s K-12 schools to decrease the number of truancy cases referred to the state so front-line workers can focus on protection and safety issues. In 2005, HHS caseworkers handled more than 750 cases involving truancy, curfew violations, ungovernable youth and runaways.
• HHS will explore the feasibility of cross-training current workers for a concentrated, coordinated effort to decrease caseloads over a defined period of time.
• HHS will work to build stronger relationships with other partners in the child welfare system to encourage greater cooperation with Nebraska’s courts, county attorneys and law enforcement agencies.
During the previous administration, Gov. Mike Johanns initiated a series of reforms that focused on child safety and preventative action. Nebraska hired approximately 120 additional workers. Since then, HHS has improved the number of children placed with relatives by more than 52 percent since 2001. Adoptions of state wards have also increased from 289 in 2001 to 342 in 2005.
The state has also designed and put in place a system of employee evaluations and accountability measures that have helped HHS make significant improvement on 11 of 13 performance measures with regard to child safety. However, a recent national evaluation of states’ performances in child welfare showed that Nebraska fell short of national performance standards. The number of state wards is also at an all-time high.
As of April, Nebraska had 7,803 state wards, which is a 16.4 percent increase over the 6,704 wards in April 2003. The state also continues to have one of the nation’s highest rates of children in out-of-home placements. In 2003, Nebraska had a rate of 13.8 per 1,000 children receiving out-of-home care, compared to the national median rate of 7.2 per 1,000, according to the Child Welfare League of America.
Gov. Heineman said, “Our front-line protection and safety workers have been striving to improve our ability to intervene on behalf of children. By working together, we will continue finding creative solutions to the challenges we face and I want Nebraskans to know that we are far from finished. I know that better performance is within our reach, and I am committed to helping ensure that we achieve that goal.”
|
