Description:
The Child and Family Service Reviews (CFSR) have repeatedly demonstrated a serious problem with the frequency and consistency of child worker visits when a child is in out of home care. This is especially troubling given the fact that CFSR data and research (Hess, Barth) tell us that there is a positive correlation between child worker visits and children achieving their permanency goals in a timely manner.
In response to this learning, and in an effort to improve outcomes for children and their families, there is a new federal requirement requiring that caseworkers see children in care each of the 12 calendar months in any given federal fiscal year. While this certainly has workload implications, it also provides an opportunity for our Colorado child welfare system to carefully examine our practice case opening to case closure—inviting exploration of how the quality and intentional nature of contacts between workers and children, workers and families, workers and resource families and children and their families directly impacts child safety, permanency and well being.
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