Q&A
Internal operations and quality improvement processes between ACS and foster care providers
1:13:55
·
142 sec
Council Member Williams seeks to understand the internal operations and feedback loop between ACS and foster care providers. Commissioner Dannhauser explains the oversight and quality improvement processes in place.
- ACS has an office of shared response for emergency situations and major decisions
- Circumstantial conferences are convened for significant decisions like child moves or adoption
- ACS conducts robust oversight, including data analysis and case record reviews
- A continuous quality improvement process involves agencies identifying strengths and weaknesses
- ACS works with agencies to develop plans to resolve identified issues and improve performance
Nantasha Williams
1:13:55
Okay.
1:13:55
And can you just help me understand the, I guess, the internal operations of foster care in general?
1:14:03
So I know, like, a lot of the Foscarrier services happen to be carried out by providers.
1:14:09
And so in terms of, like, actual government, ACS workers, what is the feedback loop between ACS and the providers?
1:14:17
Because the providers are really doing, like, the day to day work, and I'm just trying to understand internally, like, what is the feedback loop?
1:14:25
If something does happen on an an emergency or an agency makes needs to take a particular action.
1:14:32
I know they're not, like, calling it.
1:14:33
ACS to say, hey.
1:14:34
Can I take this action?
1:14:35
I think they're probably, like, taking action, but just wanted to know, like, the feedback loop back to the agency and the child.
1:14:42
Yeah.
Jess Dannhauser
1:14:42
And and we would love to set up some time with the council member talk through that deputy commissioner Mendez, and her team have an office, what we call it, shared response.
1:14:50
So it's shared with the agency, any emergency situation, any major decision that they have to make that's available to them, and it is well well utilized.
1:15:01
We also have circumstantial.
1:15:04
So if a child is gonna move or there's a decision around adoption or unification, there are conferences that are convened.
1:15:11
Our staff will facilitate most of those conferences.
1:15:15
Some of the conferences are facilitated by providers.
1:15:18
We also have a robust oversight looking at every agency's data around how often children move in their care, how often children are going home safely, how often they're contacting children.
1:15:30
We do case record reviews of all agencies, and that gets rounded up into a score for the providers.
1:15:37
And we meet in a in a process that we call continuous quality improvement where agencies identify their areas of greatest strength and areas of greatest weakness with us, and we develop plans to resolve those.
1:15:49
So we know every agency how they're doing on, what we call permanency, which is sort of combined.
1:15:54
Are they getting children?
1:15:56
To a loving home, hopefully home, or to a kinship provider or adoption in a timely way, and a variety of other areas around safety, how many of their children have left their care, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, so we can walk you through all that and how we work with them to try to continuously improve.
