Department of Children and Families (1999)

In 1999, the program review committee conducted a study of the mission of the Department of Children and Families (DCF) to determine the appropriate roles, responsibilities, and structure for carrying out the state's policies for children. The committee concluded it was time to look beyond trying to "fix" DCF and proposed a comprehensive reform of the state system for serving children and families. The final report contained a set of legislative recommendations aimed at establishing a structure and system to promote the well-being of Connecticut children and their families by:

• creating a community-based, integrated service delivery network for children and their families based on individual needs and family strengths rather than funding categories and target populations; and
• restructuring children's services so attention and resources are directed to each major mandate area.

Under the committee's proposal, children's behavioral health would be transferred to a new division in the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS), all juvenile justice responsibilities including juvenile detention would be placed in a new entity called the Connecticut Juvenile Authority, and all protective services responsibilities would be retained in DCF. Authority to coordinate policy and resources for children's services along with overall responsibility for planning, research, advocacy, and implementation of the statewide community-based service network would be centralized in a new, independent, cabinet-level position, the secretary for children.

Bills containing portions of the program review committee's proposed structural changes were considered during the 2002 regular session of the General Assembly but did not pass. The department continued to make progress in addressing a number of deficiencies identified by the committee through administrative actions. The current status of DCF corrective measures in three key areas, based on information submitted by the agency to program review staff in February 2003, is summarized below.

Service coordination and integration. The committee study showed multiple agencies were and will continue to be involved in providing services that impact children and their families. Effective service delivery, therefore, requires interagency coordination and pooling of resources. Since the program review study was completed, several interagency efforts to improve children's mental health and substance abuse services have been undertaken that reflect the integrated, community-based service delivery concept advocated in the program review report.

During 2002, DCF, with the Department of Social Services and DMHAS, continued to develop an integrated behavioral health system for children and adults as required by state statute. The three agencies anticipate an Administrative Services Organization will be under contract by July 2003 to manage the new Behavioral Health Partnership, a service delivery system that incorporates flexible funding and comprehensive, community-based programs and supports.

As of November 2002, the children's services component of the partnership, "Connecticut Community KidCare," was comprised of 27 community collaboratives (formerly known as local systems of care) that serve all towns in the state and provide an array of mental health and related services to children and their families. At present, service availability varies by region and requests for many KidCare services exceed current resource levels.

DCF, with the Judicial Department is also implementing a plan for meeting the mental health needs of children in juvenile detention as required under the Emily J. consent decree. The plan, which includes an improved evaluation system and added community-based treatment services, was developed after the state was found in noncompliance by the federal district court in February 2002.

Proactive management. The program review committee study found DCF management is reactive and crisis-driven in part because the agency is dominated by its protective services mandate. The approval of an exit plan for the Juan F. consent decree by the federal district court in February 2002 represents a major breakthrough toward more proactive agency management, particularly in the area of protective services.

The exit plan contains a set of performance and outcome measures in the areas of child safety, permanency, and well-being, specifies the timetable and measures for assessing compliance, and requires comprehensive case review by the court monitor and DCF to assess agency work quality. It also establishes a framework to allow termination of court jurisdiction over specified outcomes after 12 consecutive months of compliance.

To make protective services management more effective and less crisis-oriented, the program review committee recommended DCF adopt a differential response system (DRS) for abuse and neglect reports. The department has initiated DRS on a pilot basis in the Hartford region. Under this approach, agency staff can place more emphasis on assessing needs and providing services to children and families as early as possible rather than on gathering evidence against parents and only offering services after a formal determination of abuse or neglect. The pilot program is still in the planning phase but research from other states indicates differential response systems result in faster and more effective assessments, less adversarial relationships with families, and decreased protective services reports and repeat calls on the same family without diminishing safety.

Strategic planning for the agency, a key function for effective management, remains limited. The most recent document intended to guide department activities was produced in 1999 and does not fulfill statutory requirements for a comprehensive, rolling master plan that includes needs assessments, cost projections, and service evaluations. Problems with the agency's main automated information system, LINK, also persist, although the reliability and usefulness of system data have improved. Timely and accurate data entry remains an agency issue and integration of juvenile justice data with the system is overdue by a year. Another $12.7 million was expended on LINK during FY 02, bringing the total system cost to almost $90 million as of June 20, 2002.

Balanced leadership and support. The program review committee study found DCF's concentration on its protective services mandate had severely handicapped development and implementation of children's behavioral health and juvenile justice services and policies. The study also showed prevention, another department mandate, received little attention within the agency organization or budget.

During the committee's review, DCF initiated a major restructuring of the state's mental health and substance abuse services for children and families, the "KidCare" program discussed above. As a result, considerable management effort and agency resources are now devoted to children's behavioral health. At present, about $14 million per year is allocated to for new and expanded "KidCare" services including mobile psychiatric crisis teams in all areas of the state and the assignment of 60 community care coordinators statewide.

At the time of the committee's review, serious physical and programmatic deficiencies at he only state facility for adjudicated children, Long Lane School, were widely recognized. To address the problem, DCF made a significant investment ($57 million) in a new secure juvenile justice facility, the Connecticut Juvenile Training School (CJTS). Male clients were transferred to CJTS when it opened in August 2001; it was decided to keep females clients temporarily at the Long Lane facility while alternative placement plans were developed.

Both CJTS, which was intended to be a "state of the art" model facility, and Long Lane have been the subject of a number of critical internal and external reviews in the past two years. Most recently, the state child advocate and the attorney general released a report (September 2002) that found safety and security, treatment, program oversight, and accountability at the new facility were in need of vast improvement. The report concluded "... DCF failed to properly plan for CJTS, failed to take proper steps to effectuate the opening of CJTS, and failed to properly oversee the quality of services at CJTS, including education, safety and other services.

In mid-2002, the department established a formal process and timeframe for improving operations at CJTS. The facility was moved to the jurisdiction of the DCF Bureau of Behavioral Health, Medicine, and Education and juvenile justice is no longer represented by any separate unit within the organization. Lane School was closed in February 2002 and adjudicated girls are now placed in a variety of residential facilities in and out of state.

By law, DCF has lead responsibility for programs to prevent abuse, neglect, delinquency, and mental illness, emotional disturbance and substance abuse among children and youth. At the time of the committee study, spending for primary prevention accounted for less than 1 percent of the total agency budget, one staff position was dedicated to prevention efforts, and no coordinated system of preventive services was in place or planned. For FY 03, the agency's prevention mandate is allocated just under 4 percent of the total DCF budget and staffed by 2 positions. Prevention is not reflected within the current organization and no systematic approach to preventive services has been developed to date.