Colorado Educational

Stability Grant

April 2013

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David T. Menefee, Ph.D.Associate Director for Quality and Performance ImprovementDivision of Child WelfareColorado Department of Human Services

Kate France Smiles, MPPResearcher IIOMNI Institute

Sheree ConyersState Coordinator for Foster Care EducationColorado Department of Education

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Objective: To generate a promising practice around Educational Stability for children and youth in Foster Care.

Promising Practi ces Around Educati onal Stability

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Project DirectorColorado Department of Human Services

Dr. David Menefee

Project Coordinator RolesColorado Department of Human Services Colorado Department of Education Mary Griffin Sheree Conyers

Other grant partnersfrom letters of support

Colorado Division of Criminal Justice

Meg Williams, Manager Office of Juvenile Justice, signed through though Jeanne M. Smith

OMNI InstituteThird-Party Evaluator

Kate Smiles, Erin Ingoldsby,Suzanne Leahy

$50,000 a year for 2 years

Colorado Department of Education

Sheree Conyers, State Coordinator of Foster Care Education

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Denver City and County Janet Van Meter, Denver Human ServicesLaura Writebol, Denver Human ServicesChristine McClendon, CWEL, Denver Public SchoolsDenver County 1451 Collaborative Management ProgramJuvenile Justice and local courtsYouth and Foster Parents Adams County Edie Winters, Adams County Human ServicesMichelle Clarke, Adams County Human ServicesKevin West, CWEL, Adams 12Renny Turner, CWEL Adams 12Amy Bishop, SB 94Adams County 1451 Collaborative Management ProgramJuvenile Justice and local courtsYouth and Foster Parents

Demonstration Sites and Participants

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Denver City and County Demographics:

• The youth are mostly Hispanic Ethnicity (44%) or Black/African American (34%) only 20% are White non-Hispanic.

• The youth have between 2 (26%) and 3 (17%) placements 11% have 4 placements.

• Most of the youth (43%) come into our care because of the youth's behavior problems or the parent inability to cope (32%)

• Neglect issues represent the reason that 23% of children are placed in DHS care and physical abuse accounts for 12% of placements.

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Denver City and County Narrative

Our placement team always tries to keep kids in their home school if possible. If a child moves out of the area, we are part of the team that tries to work out transportation so the child/youth can continue to attend their home school.

Team Decision-Making meetings are required any time a child/youth is going to be placed in out-of-home care or moves to a new out-of-home placement. DHS also has an Memorandum of Understanding with Denver Public Schools and one of their social workers is actually housed within our Department to help caseworkers enroll children/youth in Denver Public Schools school programs.

We have an Educational Liaison (Laura) to help our caseworkers with school transitions and adequate programming for children/youth in all school districts.

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Adams County Demographics

• The youth are mostly White non-Hispanic (38%) or have a Hispanic Ethnicity (42%).

• The youth have between 2 (28%) and 3 (24%) placements during their removal period.

• Most of the youth (42%) come into our care because of the youth's behavior problems or the parent inability to cope with the youth(27%).

• Another large portion of the Youth are Neglected by their

caretakers (36%).

• Physical Abuse accounts for 15% of placements of the youth and 18% includes sexually abused.

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Adams County Narrative

If the child needs to be placed, our placement team works with the foster families and the school and the first placement is always in the vicinity of the home school so the child can remain in this school.

If a placement outside of the home school has to occur, there is discussion if transportation can be arranged to keep child in the home school; our placement team has contacted the schools to determine if this is a possibility as well as if the foster family can transport if at all possible. If a move in school occurs, we have internal case aids who send an email to the caseworker and to the school requesting the transfer of school records from the home school to the new school.

Our caseworkers also meet with schools to assist with the transfer and discuss any supports that are needed in school educational staffing.

Evaluation Questions – System and Client LevelFormative Questions (Focus of Year 1)

Institutional and historical factors contributing or creating barriers to successful partnerships/collaboration

Information available/not available about the target population/Barriers to information Change in collaborative structures over time Multi-disciplinary service planning (family involvement, agency involvement, and plan

development) Learning about the nature of the problem and the target population Perceived costs and benefits Refinement of evaluation measures

Process Questions (Infrastructure Building in Year 1; Data Collection in Year 2)

What is the mix and range of services provided to participating children? What are the characteristics of participants? What new strategies are put in place to improve services to the population? What is the reach of the project in terms of the percent of children referred to child

welfare and the age range served by multi-disciplinary teams?

Outcome Questions (Generally Infrastructure Building in Both Years)

Does the model improve system functioning? Does collaboration show improved effectiveness through project efforts?

To what degree are families served by multidisciplinary teams satisfied with services? To what extent and under what circumstances are school stability outcomes achieved? Do youth served by multidisciplinary teams show improved education stability? What effects do program efforts have on permanency outcomes? What is the relationship between process data and school stability and permanency

outcomes?

Evaluation Methods – Mixed Methods Review of state and local meeting

agendas/minutes

Stakeholder interviews (state and local-levels)

Review of data available in state-level systems

Online stakeholder survey

Demonstration site mid-year and annual

reporting (quantitative and qualitative)

Modification of existing youth-level data

collection systems

Analysis of youth-level data (preliminary)

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Questi ons?