Measuring Educational Well-Being

Child Welfare, Education and the Courts SummitNovember 4, 2011

V. Eugene Flango, PhDExecutive Director, National Center for State Courts

Consensus on goal is to improve outcomes for children in foster care

• What Does It Mean to Improve Outcomes for Children?

ASFA goals of Safety, Permanency and Well-Being

How do we know if we are succeeding?

• How do we know we are making progress toward achieving these goals?

• Performance Measures focused on Outcomes

Child Welfare Agencies

• performance is monitored by Child and Family Service Reviews, PIP plans for improvement.

• Required data are produced from SACWIS or equivalent systems.

• Data from courts or other agencies often entered

into SACWIS manually by child welfare staff from paper reports sent to the agency.

Courts are also involved in improving safety, permanency and well-being of children

• From a child’s perspective, time spent in child welfare systems is NOT separate from time spent in court process. The relevant time line is time from removal to legal permanency.

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• Safety, permanency and well-being are SHARED GOALS and performance measures must be combined to be relevant

• Performance measures had to be developed for courts.

• ABA, NCSC, NCJFCJ developed measures and released Toolkit in 2009.http://ojjdp.ncjrs.gov/publications/courttoolkit.html

• New measures required modifying or upgrading court information systems

• Performance measures just won’t be calculated if the data required to calculate them must be derived from manual searches of case files.

Calculating joint performance measures requires data exchange between courts and child welfare agencies

• Although some states are still exchanging data by sharing batch files over night, the better way to proceed is electronic data exchange.

Advantages of Electronic Data Exchange

Electronic data exchange is not only more efficient and cost effective but results in more timely, complete and accurate information because it:

• Eliminates duplicate data entry for both courts and child welfare agencies

• Improves accuracy of information since each contributes data needed by their own system and data is entered only once.

• Requires MOU’s and technical protocols for exchange be developed—NIEM conformant.

Data Is Exchanging

• 24 states exchange data between courts and child welfare agencies

• 19 states are in the planning stages

• 9 states affiliated with Fostering Court Improvement transmit data in one direction—AFCARS to courts.

What states are the furthest along in electronic data exchange?

Colorado and Utah are furthest along in the process of implementing comprehensive, two-way, data exchanges.

• Colorado’s Family Justice Information System (FAMJIS)

is exchanging data the Department of Human Services in real time.

• Utah’s court information system (CARE) has a direct interface with the child welfare data system (SAFE) such that each can view (read only) data from the other.

Where are other states in the process?

• Kentucky and New Jersey exchange data through periodic file transfers.

• Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island are working on

shared access systems that are not yet fully implemented.

• New York and Illinois report exchanging data via shared access, but only in specific areas of their respective states.

• Michigan began sharing some data on the group of children identified the Children’s Rights law suit, Dwayne B. v. Granholm, from whom permanency must be achieved by specified dates.

2010 Survey of State Court Implementation of Key Performance Measures

Under auspices of National Resource Center on Legal and Judicial Issues, NCSC did a survey to determine the extent to which key court performance measures were being used.

• Connecticut, Delaware, New York, and Pennsylvania reported using ALL 9 key performance measures statewide.

• Idaho, Kentucky, New Jersey, South Carolina, Utah, and West Virginia reported using 8 of the nine statewide.

What’s Next? Well-Being.

Next Level-Measures of physical and mental health as well as educational outcomes

CFSR Well-Being Outcomes:1)Families have enhanced capacity to provide for

their children’s needs2)Children receive appropriate services to meet

their educational needs3)Children receive adequate services to meet their

physical and mental health needs

Court Well-Being Measures• Not developed as part of Toolkit because less

direct court involvement, need for expanded data exchange

• Courts do have a responsibility to see that kids have been to the doctor or dentist, have had mental health screenings if necessary, and are doing well in school.

• Educational Outcome Measures produced with funding from Casey Family Services

Court Well-Being Domains

Court Well-Being Measurement Areas:• Physical Well-BeingEmotional Well-Being• Mental Health • Maintaining Permanent Relationships• Transition to Adulthood• Enhanced Family Capacity

• Educational Well-Being

The long-term outcomes for those with poor educational experiences include

• difficulty in the transition to adulthood,• poverty,• homelessness, and• incarceration.

Educational Challenges

• problems with enrollment;• difficult transfer of credits and school records; • frequent mobility between school placements; • disciplinary problems;• lack of necessary early education and special

education services; and• inability to participate in extracurricular activities

Consequences

Children in Foster Care are:• are more likely to suffer academically,• less likely to finish high school, • less likely to attend college,• less likely to make lasting friendships among

peers, and• more likely to be ill-prepared for adulthood

Court Role

• Judges are beginning to recognize their role in ensuring the educational well-being of children in child protection cases.

• To help courts monitor educational well being, court outcome measures were drafted and are being field tested.

Well-Being

Well-being measures require that the number of collaborative partners be expanded to include medical professionals, mental health agencies and schools

What is the key obstacle to data exchange between courts and child welfare?

Concerns over privacy and confidentiality

• Ex parte issues—electronic records not accessible to all

• Standards-based secure information exchange

• Meta-tagging—who can see data beyond primary exchange partner?

Other Concerns?

Privacy and confidentiality concerns related to medical and educational outcomes

• HIPPA• FERPA• SAMHSA

• NRCCWDT (NCSC) is developing a web-based privacy tool that will help by electronically determining which privacy laws impact which exchanges and to help in the development of state privacy policies.