AG 2005 02 21 - Laserfiche WebLink

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r: -4- From: Jim Cook Sent: Friday, January 14, 2005 6:44 PM To: DSS_Board; John Day; Carolyn Carpenter; Robert Carruth; Robert Freeman; Joni Juba; Coy Privette (coyl@vnet.net) Cc: Sandy Russell; Connie Polk Subject: Child Fatality I reviewed our current situation and activities with Robert Mathis this afternoon, and am writing to provide a brief update on actions we have been taking, and plan totake. 1) We have continued to have intensive contact from the media,. especially the Observer, and have engaged our county public information staff in assisting with the management of information. This has been helpful. 2) Our Children's Services staff has identified high-risk children in the caseload and has arranged to assure that we check and maintain checks on their safety. 3) We have identified one temporary agency staff member and a worker assigned otherwise to foster care, who will help with maintaining safety checks on children. (We had identified two temps, and John Day had authorized us to bring both on as we complete hiring of the three social work positions approved by the BOC in November. John approved our keeping these temps eight weeks beyond the report to work dates for the new permanent staff. One of the two temps we identified could not come after all, so we will continue to search for a second temp.) 4) We have analyzed the average number of vacancies we have had at any time in Child Protective Services over the past year (three), and are working on a request to the BOC to add this number of additional social workers. In this way, even with vacancies, we should be able to maintain caseloads at or near standard. Some other counties, I have found, do this, and I think we should as well. We are also preparing as part of this package, a request to restore the program manager position in Child Protective Services we deleted in March 02'. I think that restoration of that position is very important. We will forward that request to John Day as soon as it can be finished (by about the 19th.) 5) Mr. Mathis suggested we develop a protocol for bringing special attention to any case involving injury to a child, regardless the apparent cause. (This could, for example, involve implementing some special investigative measures, and seeking custody under certain circumstances.) This is a good concept, and we will be working on it. 6) Mr. Mathis also stressed the importance of getting input from our community partners (e.g., the Child Advocacy Center, Partnership for Children, Child Protection Team.) We will be doing that. 7) We are preparing a time Iirie and related information on the Alexander Christmas case for review by the DSS Board at its meeting of 1-25. 8) We have not as yet heard from the state as to the scheduling of the Child Fatality Review that is done in all cases such as this one. Those reviews invariably come up with things that might have been done better which can be implemented as system improvements. 9) Both Carolyn Carpenter and Robert Mathis asked about whether we routinely contact absent parents like Mr. Christmas. I am in the process of determining what we normally do, and whether there may need to be a protocol to follow in this regard. There are some special factors relating to Mr. Christmas which will need to be discussed in executive session with the DSS Board.