 We're going to start out with some updates from DCF, sort of the boilerplate information that we would like to have, and we'll invite Christine Johnson and Ken Shasser. You're going to come up together. Do that together if that's okay? So sure, you know everybody here, right? Yes. Okay. So why don't we let you provide information, and you have given us a handout. Is it this one? There's three handouts. Okay. It starts with Tom Ken Shatz, the Commissioner of the Department for Children and Families, and with me is Christine Johnson, who is the Deputy Commissioner for the Family Services Division. We do appreciate the opportunity, let me just say, to have your committee ask us for updates. From my perspective, it is helpful to keep you informed about things that are going on of significance and also to be available for questions so that we can address issues that are on your mind that we might not have anticipated. So what we had in mind for today, first of all, Christine is going to be the spokesperson. She's much more knowledgeable and adept than me at the details, but we provided you with three handouts. One was the Child Protection Report, which as you may know, required by statute that we produce annually to provide you information about the calls to our hotline and our responses to that with respect to abuse and neglect. We'll also give you an update regarding our case look, and that's the longer sheet. Some of you may recall we've done this on a semi-regular basis in the past to give you a sense of the actual trends of the different kind of cases that come into the child welfare system and, frankly, our workload issues and challenges. The third piece that we will talk about is there was a recent review by the federal government with respect to our national youth in transition database. So, basically, we do have work that we do with youth aging out of the system and how successful we are in terms of enabling them to be successful members of the community. And so, Christine will also talk to you a little bit about that review and things we learned from it. So that's the overall thought that we have. And so I'll turn it over to Christine and go ahead to answer the questions as they come up. I appreciate the light, too. That would be light. That's great. Yeah. We didn't want to fall asleep. We didn't want any way to fall asleep. Thank you, Peggy. Great. Thank you, Chris. I'll go ahead and jump in because I may have put you to sleep, Peggy. You know, talking about the data about the lights. I appreciate that. Especially on this dark day. So, if you take a look at the color, the spreadsheet in color can really give you a sense of these numbers do date back to August 1st. And so we expect to have those numbers updated in October. We can certainly come back and talk about those numbers then. But just really briefly, and then I'll allow you to ask some specific questions. As of August 1st, we had 1,328 kids in the custody of DCF. We had 705 that were conditional custody orders. And what that means is that a judge has ordered a child to live with a family member, a relative, or somebody that is known to the family. And then we had 516 cases that are called family support cases. And those are cases that rise at a risk level of high. And so the thinking is that if we open a case that can support the family and help provide them with some resources and services that they would then be able to essentially be a light touch on our system and not have to come in the door of custody and potentially avert having the legal and the court involvement. So we are sitting at 1,328. And let me stop there before I go into some of our staff, big and season hiring updates and just ask if you have any specific questions regarding caseload. So this is a point in time that we're looking at. Yes, that's correct. And if we were to look at this overtime, what would the 1,328 look like? So I can maybe help with that. We do have and we can provide you if you're interested with information over time. So as some of you may recall, we basically back in June of 2014, we were about at 1,000 children in DCF custody. That jumped by 2016 to almost 1,400. Since 2016, we've remained stable at around 1330. And so the good news in part is that that number has not continued to increase. Again, we've talked a lot in the past that the opioid epidemic has been a major driver of more children coming into DCF custody. And again, the state, as you know, has done a lot to try to address that issue. But in terms of our custody numbers, that has remained steady. But one of the things that is worth noting and Christine may talk more about is we also have seen some increases in children who we support or supervise and families that we support in terms of two particular areas, conditional custody orders, which is when the court gets involved and doesn't put the child into state custody, but says the court is going to impose some conditions and wants DCF to supervise those conditions. That has jumped from approximately just under 400 in June of 2014 to now we have 705 children under conditional custody orders. So that's a significant challenge for us. The other thing is with respect to youthful offenders, which is an initiative, and we've talked about that in the past, that is important with respect to recognizing emerging adults and wanting to address their needs in a more appropriate manner. But that number has also substantially increased our caseload because of arguably its newness. And so we're seeing substantial increases in the number of youth on probation. So we stop there. I have a question. In regards to areas of the state, the different districts, are there any district areas within the last, you know, during 2019 where there's been a significant change, where you would have any concern or, you know, the numbers have kind of escalated more than, you know, they might normally? If you wanted. So I think that, sure, I think that, you know, the court puts out, and I don't know that we've provided it this time, but we may have, Judge Greerson might have provided it last time. So there is data from the court that is very helpful to look at the number of filings of abuse and neglect petitions by county. I think that, you know, we've talked a little bit in the past, particularly about Franklin County. Interestingly enough, their numbers actually went down in Fiske Year 19, which is some good news. Overall, as I think you may recall from our last meeting, the numbers of abuse and neglect filings did go down statewide in Fiske Year 19. So that obviously is a trend that is helpful. What I would say is that to really respond to your question specifically, there's no area of the state that I'm aware of looking at this data that has a significant increase in filings in Fiske Year 19. That trend is down pretty much statewide. There's a couple of mine. You know, there's a case-by-case determination, but by and large, it is statewide the reduction. Thank you. Great. Well, let me just continue to talk a little bit about, I think also on the kind of the all cases, all open cases summary, it shows kind of our workload in terms of our family services workers. And so what I'd like to give you an update about is that of the 14 positions that were legislatively created last and last legislative session, we have hired nine of the 14 positions. So we have six new family services workers that have been hired and three are under recruitment. So we've hired one in St. Albans, three in Burlington, one in Rutland, and one in Morrisville. And as I said, the other three positions are under recruitment. We have three resource coordinator positions as part of that pool, two have been hired, one in Rutland and one in the Barrie District. And we're recruiting them now in Brattleboro. One supervisor position in Bennington is under recruitment now. And our juvenile justice attorney general, assistant attorney general position, we have interviewed. And TJ Donovan has also interviewed. And so Ken will be interviewing this candidate shortly. And so we expect to have this person in place potentially in the next maybe 60 to 45 to 60 days, I think is reasonable. So we do, you'll also see on the spreadsheet that we do apply a formula in terms of how many family services workers that we have. We have 178 total statewide. We have 50 that are dedicated to child safety investigations, 128 of whom are ongoing. As of August 1st, and I suspect this is changed, we had 12 vacancies. And we apply a formula for those who are within their first six months of employment and undergoing training. We have 15 that are in that category. And so the formula gives us a sense that we have 108 actual ongoing family social service workers statewide. Our hope is that the new positions, 14 new positions are going to help us to reduce our caseload totals and really get us to a stable place where we can really focus on the retention. I think we are doing a very good job of filling those positions. We have a very specific process that Sheila Draunlow and my office shepherds, she knows where all the vacancies are and where all of the positions are in terms of hiring and really does a good job of managing those statewide. So we have a really good pulse on how we get people in the door hired to do this work. What's your caseload target? Our caseload target is 15. And we know nationally that kind of the best practice is 12. So I would like to see us at 12. But I think right now this data shows us that being, I want to say, is it 19? 16.2. So 16.2 if you look at it in both numbers, not counting vacancies or new employees. But when we do the calculations that Christine is describing, we do recognize that new employees can't handle a full caseload for a while. And so that's where you get the 22.8 is child family average for authorized worker. And then it will get down to 19. So there are different ways of looking at this. And so historically you've asked us just for the broad number. And that's the 16.2 where we'd like to be at 15. Any other questions about the caseload before I move on to the... No, but thank you for putting a geographic distribution. It's really helpful. Oh, good. Yeah. Okay, good. If we could switch over now to the 2018 Child Protection Report. I'm just going to briefly give you a kind of an overview of what's contained in that report that hopefully you'll find helpful. We had over 20,779 reports of child abuse and neglect were made in 2018. This is pretty consistent over the last several years. 77% of those reports were from mandated reporters and 17% were from unmandated reporters. Of those 20,000, we had 5,326 child safety investigations. 3,173 were actual investigations and 2,153 were assessments. So the 5,326 are about 25% of the total reports that were made. And that is pretty consistent over time. We had 1,281 cases that were open for ongoing services in 2018. So of the 3,173 investigations, we resulted in just under 1,000 substantiations. We had 1,182 individual child victims. And that number is going up. That's the highest number we've seen in 14 years. We also had 1,036 incidents of abuse. So we talked about the numbers that we have in custody. I'm sorry. I was just wondering if, I haven't looked through this whole thing. If it's broken down by gender and age. This in front of us is not, I don't believe, but we can get that to you. Okay. Great. So the one thing I do want to point out though is that the reports of child abuse and neglect did decrease slightly from 2017. I think we're down, I want to say about 400, just over 400 in terms of fewer reports from 2017. So I think that is potentially a good sign. I also want to point out that the majority of our reports of a child abuse and neglect come from our educational system. And you'll also notice for the first time this report has juvenile justice data, actually extends into some of 2019 as well. And you will notice that our youthful offender case load has risen sharply. And so we are working on getting a sense of what that is, you know, of course with the law change in 2016, but trying to figure out how we've gone from 33 in 2017 to 533 or 34 in 2018. Is there anything that you want to add of the data wise? I do want to just add the context and you just touched on it, but just to say the reason you ask us to do this on an annual basis is to recognize that we do need to pay attention as a community to child abuse and neglect. We obviously convey a message on a regular basis that if people believe a child is being abused or neglected if they suspect it, they should call. That's what the hotline is about. It's really important. It has been of concern that the trajectory has been going up. On the other hand, we certainly don't want to dissuade people from making those phone calls. The fact that this year, as Christine pointed out, the numbers went down a little bit in terms of causes is certainly hopefully a good sign. But at the same time, we do see increased numbers of victims. So the challenge, I think, for us as a community is to recognize that abuse and neglect is a reality. We want to address it to keep children safe. That's really what this report is all about, to sort of provide you with some data and information. At the same time, I can't resist making the plug for the Chin's work group recommendations in terms of prevention and early intervention to try to prevent this from happening, particularly through the home visiting approach. And we talked about that in our last meeting, but I think to me it's directly related because we do, as a community, need to do our best both to address those child safety situations, but also to prevent. So as you're collecting information and you're seeing a decrease, there's no way of knowing who's safe out there. But are you, and we're also putting in place the home visiting programs. So is there data being collected from those programs which help us understand that there might have been, there could have been a problem with this family, but it was prevented because. Is there any way to get at that? Or has that been put in place? It has not been put in place. The systematic approach with respect to focusing on outcomes related to prevention of abuse and neglect has not been put in place yet. We have an array, to be fair, of home visiting programs, which do excellent work and they particularly focus on health outcomes. What the change worker recommendation is asking is for an appropriation to allow us to start pilots of combining what's referred to as the Dolce model or embedding family support workers that are not DCF workers, their parent child center staff in pediatric practices to build on the successful public health approach of the fact that 95% of infants who go to, within six months, their well-baby visits with pediatricians who want to build on that and combine that with home visiting. So that is the proposal. You have not funded it as of yet. As we talked about in the last meeting, we are going to be coming back to you to ask for funding in the fifth year, 20 legislative session. But the expansion of Dolce is taking place. I mean, there are three additional sites. But that does not have a home visiting and expanded home visiting component attached to it. So that's where we need, it will be asking for your support for funding through the tobacco litigation money that you have put a fence around so it is available for pilots. Okay, good. So then your sense is that that would make a difference within the Dolce sites? Yes. Combining Dolce and an expanded home visiting capacity, we do believe will make a very positive difference. Any other questions before Christine goes on? I mean, Deputy Commissioner, I'm sorry. No, you can call me Christine. That's fine. I certainly answer to that. I have just a few updates I'd like to provide you. And then I think that will wrap round us out. So I don't know that we need all over time. I wanted to let you know that we just had a site visit from the federal government on our national youth and transition database that Ken mentioned. I want to point out that we had 51 stakeholders that were interviewed as part of this process. It is the highest it has been seen nationally, and we should be very proud of 51 stakeholders across the state, including 11 youth, coming to be interviewed to offer their perspective and their experience. And so I think that was definitely a key takeaway that I took from what I heard from our federal representatives. I do want to point out, and I mentioned this last time, we have a very outdated, what's called an SMISS system that is tracking our data across child welfare and child protection within DCF. They did point out to us that that lack of a quality CWIS, what's called a Child Welfare Information System, is really impacting our ability to analyze and to also track and report data. So I have to put in, kind of share with you what our federal partners see as well. In addition to our perspective that not having the updated technology is in a lot of ways impacting our ability to really understand what's happening in terms of outcomes. Just to give you a quick synopsis of what the National Youth and Transition Database is. Are we on a page somewhere here? No, I'm sorry, these are just updates. I did not provide any additional materials. That's fine. Yes, thank you. In terms of what it is, it is a survey of our young people starting at age 17 and then a cohort at 19 and 21, and we are required to hit a certain percentage of our young people who have been in foster care to really have a sense of what is happening to them as they transition out and become adults in our state. And so we certainly will take the input that we get from our federal partners with ACF and turn it into a plan and moving forward and thinking about how we can survey and identify our young people as they do transition and then are no longer connected to our system. But I just think it's a really important tool that we have that really gives us a sense of the outcomes that we're looking at with our young people and how we will use that data to inform then what we need to do in our foster care system. I did just return last night from the National Judicial Leadership Summit on Child Welfare with Judge Gerson, two public defenders and Rob Post from the Court Improvement Project and we had a very robust two days thinking through child welfare and the court system connected to the child protection system and how we can improve there. One of the things that I really heard that I liked very much is the concept that children exist in the context of their families. And so as I think about the conditional custody orders and how those numbers are increasing, I think that we are headed in the right direction as a child protection system what we want these children to live and their families and we want them to do so safely and we want to have the system and the resources that can support our youth and our families and our children in doing that. So we had themes there that focused on key elements that I think are integral to our system that is youth and family voice in both child protection but also in our court system and what that looks like. We talked a lot about high quality representation and what that can look like and so I just want to relate to you that we have come back from this meeting with a robust list of things that we can explore and continue to meet about as we think about how we continue to optimize our child welfare system. One of the things that was pointed out that I think I would like to look into more and I know we talked about this in the past is a peer mentoring program. Again it was one of the recommendations for the workgroup but Washington State is now using what's called the parent for parent program and they use parent allies, they have parent training and they are just now implementing in King County which is their 39th student so I think there's a lot that we can learn from a state like Washington and in fact they've evaluated it through the National Council for Judges and Family Court Judges and they are wrapping up an evaluation with the University of Nevada so this is a parent to parent mentoring program strictly related to custody issues related to how would you frame what the mentoring encompasses? My sense of it and I certainly would like to learn more but my sense of it is that it is for families who are working within the DCM system in a custody type of situation and learning and working with somebody who is supporting them as a peer mentor, somebody who's been in that system themselves. But not simply those who have gone through a judicial process? I think the idea is that mentors would typically be people who have gone through the process so they have an understanding of how the process works and can help educate other people who are having to get involved with the child welfare system. How to frankly maneuver in it because it is a challenging complicated system there is no doubt about it and I think that some of these models have been quite successful in recognizing that having peers to help somebody get through a really emotionally challenging time can be very helpful. So it's really a systems navigation and peer support also about in addition to the case manager is there additional help with that with exactly how the family might modify itself to support the child? So I think the peer navigator model is not a system the idea is to separate it out to recognize that this is really a peer mentoring as Christine described it it's not a case manager it's not an official I mean we honestly have our staff the designated agencies have staff parent child centers have so there's an array of different service providers and part of the idea is the peer mentor can help the parent figure out how to take advantage successfully of those other services that are out there. So this is more for parents and the family around the... That's correct. It's the Allen on the phone. It is recognizing again as to support what Christine said we recognize the family constellation is really important and we want to try to preserve that or even reunify as much as possible when we can do so consistent with a child being safe and I think it does make sense in our view to help support the parents. In my sense of what I heard there was that this is a kind of a peer to work and help as you pointed out navigate the system and help to provide the services and the resources that helps connect those dots for parents. That's right. So you're going to continue and evaluate what's going on there. Yes I would like to learn more and I have contact information to reach out and I would love to get on the phone in Washington and find out more about what you're doing. You're going to Washington. I'm going to go with you. Okay. Okay. Duly noted. No I'm just kidding. I'll add it to my list. Just really quickly I just wanted to let you know that we are starting what we call our fall road show so I am just finishing up month four within my new role as deputy commissioner and we will be going out to all of our districts starting next week. We'll do two a week and really get a chance to meet with staff. I've done some of that already informally but this will be our formal ability to meet and really get to hear from our staff and hear their concerns and talk about what's going well in their district offices. We also are embarking upon community conversations in each of our districts and so we can let you know the dates and times of those but again a chance to really engage with our designated agencies and our community action agencies and our non-profit organizations as well and really start thinking about the continuum that is child welfare that DCF is a partner to. We are starting next week Senator in both Brattleboro and Bennington will be our first up so we expect to be there next I think Thursday and also what I'm reminded about with that process is that we developed a strategic plan over the past year and so largely the conversation to these district meetings will be to talk about where we are with the strategic plan and so perhaps we should think about updating you about where we are with our strategic plan as well in the future. And then lastly we have a juvenile justice stakeholder conference on Friday so tomorrow we as you may know have engaged with the Justice Lab out of Columbia University and this will be a day long meeting with our judicial partners defenders, public defenders state's attorneys and DCF staff to really go through the planning effort so far where we're headed with the Raise the Age and Act 201 so we're very much looking forward to this conversation tomorrow and hearing what our partners in this creating the system have to say where we've landed so far but really where we're headed. Some members of this group will be there Great. Some won't and at least one is an important part of the process. Yes I think he's on the agenda. He is. I'm just a prop. We appreciate your taking leadership on this issue Senator and I think it makes great sense that you have a role to play in this conference. We appreciate that. Is that it? Sounds like a lot of work seriously and the road trip that you're on right now so can you talk a little bit about exactly what happens when you go out on the road and go to Bennington to have a burrow or other new part? Sure well in my new role really it's getting out and meeting all of the staff that work for family services and we chose to have it be specifically just a family services staff meeting as opposed to opening it up to our partners which is why we're coming back and having more of the community meetings because I definitely value both but this for me is really a chance to get out and meet all of the staff talk about my vision and speak about the implementation of the strategic plan and get the staff input. So when you talk about not meeting with the partners so who's excluded with that? Well for example we could have opened up the road shows to our economic services staff and our other divisions and we could have asked corrections to come and meet with us as well. That would be more of the community conversation meeting just because again being new in this role I thought it was advantageous to really spend some time listening and hearing from our family services division staff. And I would add that I try to do that also as part of my role as commissioner which is broader in terms of the different roles that the department plays so I try to also get around the state every year as much as I can and it is important to try to meet with both our staff but also community partners if you will and so by way of example as you may know on Tuesday the governor did his capital for a day in Bennington and so basically taking part of that was relevant for me so I use that opportunity not only to meet with our staff all of our staff but also actually met with residential youth residential providers in Bennington actually did that with Senator Sears. We also participate in a presentation with all sorts of community providers regarding suicide prevention. I also met with the center for restorative justice in Bennington which does a tremendous amount of work both for our department and also for the department of corrections so just an example of the kind of thing we do you know I recognize and Christine does too that in terms of leadership being in Waterbury it's really important. We have 12 district offices around the state it is really important for us to get out and talk to people to hear their thoughts their issues their questions and concerns and we do our best to try to do that. I think it's great that you're doing that making the rounds this might be a little bit of an unfair question being only four months on the job but you mentioned your vision and I'm curious looking at what you've seen thus far what you know one or two kind of key areas that you feel this area needs to focus on or should be prioritized in the coming year particularly for us legislators as we think about legislation in the coming session and maybe you both want to answer that I don't know. Sure I will take a stab at it. I came in to this job with really kind of three like in stool if you will. One was thinking about capacity for our staff and for our system and for our foster parents and thinking about where we are in the shadows of Lara Sobel's death and the two children's deaths in 2014 but thinking about how do we write the ship in our capacity because I want our division to be able to do the job of child protection well and to do that we have to have the time and the resources and the energy to really focus on meeting with families getting to out in our communities and meeting with our partners and our children and our families in the community and we have to be doing excellent case planning and we have to have all of the issues that come like housing and employment and certainly the implications of opiate but also substance use disorder so certainly the capacity is one part of that stool and I think the new positions have helped with that we are going to keep an close eye on the data and start thinking about are we stabilizing ourselves in terms of our retention are we keeping people in the jobs and essentially begging people to stay as long as they will because these are excellent jobs and they are absolutely necessary part of this state and so helping to support my staff in that way I think is certainly part of my message the second really that follows closely is morale we have to address the morale of our staff and think about why people do these jobs and why they leave these jobs and so certainly safety is the third part of my stool and that comes into the morale piece as well so it's safety of our children it's safety of our staff and thinking about how we navigate in a culture that is our staff are often threatened and thinking about how do we support our staff so that they can do the best job possible now in addition to that so that was what I came in with thinking as I took this job as I mentioned before our children belong in their families and so how do we do that and in Vermont I always say we are small we know our families we know our communities and if we can do it anywhere we can do it here so what does that mean and what does that mean for how we how we do our work and how we kind of change our perspective you know we are a very risk averse division and if we're going to keep people and their families then we're going to have to think about how we hold that risk and what that looks like and so those are some of the things that have been weighing on my mind certainly I mentioned this before as Shane was plug our data system needs Ken's going to give me the elbow but our data system does really need some resources and I hate that that's the case I would love to take millions of dollars and put it somewhere else but frankly what I'm seeing is just how it's impacting our ability to really know and track our outcomes in a way that I can say you know we should be able to place the data in 100 ways and we do but it takes a lot of time and energy to do that and so I just think there could be some efficiencies if I were in a district office looking at data would I have the capacity that you're talking about are you talking is it at each district office where this is an issue a challenge or is it in the collection of all the data statewide that it's the challenge it's both because our SS MIS system is so outdated that in order for our staff to use it it's just I mentioned last time I was here it's from 1982 and so it's just it's too wonky we have that in the district and I'm going to keep saying it but no it is old and so the idea being that it's impacting our staff on the ground in the districts but also certainly a central office and I don't know if you have any questions Matt thank you I've been on the IT committee so the progress that we made is DCF unusual or just part of the problem they are it isn't it only just state governments every year and I think IT systems have all of us over the year I think that is quite accurate that it is not just us it's a statewide problem I'm saying it's not only state government it's also our designated agency I'm sitting in a hospital we have four different systems and they're all too old and nobody knows how to get a handle on I think we're better slowly moving while we are doing this thank you so the challenge is IT I should make you feel better you feel better let me hear it it doesn't make me feel better they want to be at the top of the list the difficulty is prioritizing those upgrades I just want to comment over the years that the number one problem is staff burnout we're dealing with some very challenging kids and anything that can be done and I realize it's frustrating to deal with IT problems and all these other things but I think staff burnout is dealing with some really difficult kids and I can't imagine I can't imagine going home after a long day and then not taking it out on the dog or something else so it's really I hope that we develop more and more understanding of the challenges that our state employees go through particularly in DCF dealing with some of the challenges we really appreciate that comment because you're absolutely right we know that and obviously Christine talked about morale and turned over and I think that we have worked very hard to try to support our staff and I think that we always have more to do but it is a really challenging role I have talked a lot in the past about how hard it must be on a day to day basis for a family service worker to have to make these incredibly challenging decisions about children and family and your point is very well taken and we do try our best to support our staff it's an ongoing issue for us I will say on a bit of a positive note because I think you hear a lot about workforce as an issue or a problem when Christine filled me in on how we're doing and filling the new positions that you authorize it's pretty good news that within a couple of months we have filled nine of 14 new positions so the reality is yes it's an incredibly challenging role to play but it is good to know that we do have in our community that are willing and interested in entering this field what we need to do is support them so that they stay one of the problems that we have as legislators is we are constituent and DCF is doing this and DCF is doing that they're horrible people so we recognize that our role is challenging and difficult you know when we're asked to do a child safety intervention because of abuse or neglect a situation with a family and honestly they're not going to welcome us we appreciate that we try to be respectful we try to recognize and Christine I think has articulated very well that we do appreciate the role of families we also need to protect children the reality is we know that people are not always going to be happy with our intervention we do try to be very careful and thoughtful actually I will say we also appreciate safeguards the fact is Vermont is very good about making sure every child every parent involved in a juvenile court matter has an attorney and the child also has a guardian at least protect to make sure that we're not overstepping on the appropriateness of our role but again I appreciate the point that I know complaints come in we take them very seriously we do review cases when asked we're not perfect I make mistakes that is a fact of life I think for me it's helpful to acknowledge that and recognize that and be open to hearing concerns and complaints and try to improve I just want to say I know anecdotally of good work being done with family service workers up in the St. Albans area to dramatically make that happen across the state I think that as you say these decisions are so difficult to make and as much as we can minimize the stressors on these people making the decisions and really create a place for them to process whatever they're dealing with I mean I think that we'll end up with better decisions in the end so but anyway I know they have good work I haven't seen all of it and they do in Middlebury too I hear good things and I hear good things in my own district I know about Senator Sears district I'm sure it's great but we get the good and the bad any other questions Kelly or anything else there's a lot we need to know but this is good there's a lot of good stuff here we appreciate your taking the time to come in and share it with us thank you very much good luck on the road trip and going to Washington okay so the child care advocate or ombudsman model is something that I know that many folks have been talking about and are interested in so we've invited in Amy Brady your first and if there's anyone if you decide that you need to call someone else up at the same time you can do that okay that's great that would be great so Rachel I have a powerpoint but it doesn't focus though so you'll have a copy we have a copy do we have it also on our on our iPad yeah it should be on your iPad it's always prettier on the iPad unfortunately and a representative pew is on her way she'll be here at one thirty so so you are we're looking at meeting the needs of children children in Vermont's care is that the one we're looking at? so to start I'm Amy Brady I'm a policy associate with choices for Vermont's children full disclosure I'm also a foster parent a remarkable five year old daughter who woke me up six times last night so I'm trying my best to be clear thinking I truly appreciate the opportunity to offer a broad overview of an office of child advocate I plan to start with some reflections on the current system in order to articulate why an OCA is a logical next step for Vermont as you just heard the numbers fluctuate but we had one thousand one hundred and eighty two substantiated victims of abuse or neglect in 2018 we know that these numbers are higher than they've been in the past we would like to see them go down if it's appropriate without minimizing the amount of work that needs to be done I find hope in the scale of Vermont we can get this right we can assume good intent by all these kids have an army of people who are there to make sure that their needs are met they have their biological family often their foster family DCF staff court, community providers, educators and more I truly believe that we can make Vermont a model state we have to start with some questions how are we doing right now it is really difficult to know what measures are we using what data do we have we've heard quite a bit of testimony that our data is lacking I'm watching you to my community as they experience foster care some of them soften when they enter a safe home others crumble their attachment grows to become reactive and their behaviors escalate they often blame themselves for their situation they feel rejected they feel disconnected we need to listen to these youths in order to better meet our needs so for our data the data that I've seen has a few themes that are worth noting children and youths who have experienced our foster care system have less desirable outcomes than their peers this is not surprising foster care is a response to trauma or neglect and removing a child from a home is also traumatic but in an equitable state these children would have the supports that they need to have comparable outcomes to their peers we do need more data but we also know enough to know that we can improve we have stories I've spent a lot of time listening there's seriously a lack of trust in our current ECF system I've hosted meetings with youth with foster parents with kinship care providers with families of origin with a professional facility with service providers people connected to the courts and more I always start out by asking just three questions what is working well what would you like to change and typically I'm there for about two hours and we never get to the third question and the third question is really the most important one it's if you could dream up a system that works without limitations what would it look like the limitation of stories is that there's no way to see the full picture DCF is unable to respond for multiple reasons including confidentiality constraints lack of time to do the relational work that is necessary to build trust so people who hear about DCF are left with many unanswered questions and one-sided stories the lack of transparency does not instill trust I have asked two people to join me and will make sure to leave plenty of time for them to share their stories I am honored and grateful for the vulnerability people have offered me time and time again they can do a much better job of sharing their experiences than I ever could in a recap the next slide may not present itself well to the folks behind us but it's just a picture from a newspaper in Massachusetts and it's intended to demonstrate the piece that even at its very best the interventions that we pose impose are traumatic and it's a story of a little girl who was wrongfully picked up at a daycare facility in Massachusetts the social worker had come and accidentally picked up the wrong girl with the same first name and what's remarkable to me about this story is that the response of the family is this response that many folks would have if this had happened to their own child I'm just going to read a couple pieces since it's not up there I'm getting a call, don't freak out but your daughter was mistaken for another Arya although kindergarten said McAuliffe's daughter was returned within an hour the child's grandmother so the damage had already been done I said, what did you do? Arya said, they took me and gave me toys to play with Leonard said, were you scared? you didn't know this lady she said, yeah, I was very scared the bottom line later in the story is they're all saying this is unacceptable the experience of removing a child from their home is traumatic, even when it's done incredibly well and we know that sometimes it's necessary the message that I've heard most clearly is that we need to listen to kids more they're consistently reporting that they are not being heard they consistently report that the investigator family support worker built a relationship with them got them to talk then disappeared after that they lost all control of their lives and no one talks to them anymore and this is unacceptable we all know that the cost of inaction is high my favorite quote is from the citizens for juvenile justice we start out recognizing them as victims then fail to help them heal and eventually punish them for expressing their pain the inaction system has a profound responsibility the state has given power to intervene on behalf of children once we do that are we meeting our commitment to these kids so we ask ourselves questions are we at our best if we say a parent is neglectful is the state modeling responsive parenting if we say a child's dental needs and medical needs have been neglected is that child getting to the dentist after they come into care if we say that a child was abused requires supervised contact are we offering that in a way that helps the child heal is our child is our system child centered do the youth transitioning into independence have all that they need for their adult lives we shouldn't assume that poor outcomes are a direct result of poor practice we are left with many questions and many opportunities for advocacy so the question arises do we know what it will take to improve we have an abundance of research which will continue to evolve we have some state data but would benefit from more I am personally a member of several work groups and there are many more each working on different pieces of the system there are many more there are many more working on different pieces of the system there are stakeholder groups as well for kinship parents foster parents and youth however we are still lacking independent unbiased comprehensive evaluation of our system we do not know what we do know is that there is room for improvement we also know that we are operating under human services our system will always be a human system this is a strength but it increases the need for accountability even in a well designed system family support workers have their own biases their own stress and their own lives we can't expect them to be at their very best 100% of the time but each child and family is entitled to the best that the system can offer the urgency for them is acute which is why an office of child advocate is a critical component of a functioning system one piece of this very large puzzle that is missing is external oversight transparency is a homework of a properly functioning government DCF routinely ask families to be vulnerable in order to become better and we are asking the state to do the same if we know that kids will be better off then we can take that risk we are missing the power of a well articulated public voice the current cycle is unhealthy for our kids right now there is a lack of public voice until a tragedy happens then it becomes blame a person is often vilified we wonder which policies and practices were not followed it gets quiet and the cycle repeats the office of child advocate in New Hampshire has been structured in the way to be incredibly effective they have the luxury of listening without the other responsibilities that family support workers have they are made up of two components they have an unbudged person and a child advocate the unbudged person responds to complaints with a credible review process builds collaborative relationships for reform maintains independence and impartiality and listens to and informs the system the child advocate turns complaints into building blocks for better outcomes performs random and targeted peace review to better understand trends and makes recommendations to DCF policymakers and the public there has been some concern that an office of child advocate could create unsafety for the DCF workers who are already scrutinized often in the community I spoke into family support workers in other states who have similar offices and they have reported the opposite they said that they are most at risk and the system is not working for them and they have no one to turn to and no one to listen to their story I had included a couple of voices from the field and I am going to hold off on sharing them in order to give time to our other guests but if there is time I would like to come back to them afterwards if I don't get to them they are in your power point with their statements from DCF workers in New Hampshire as well as the testimony that I have handed out to you from Dr. Moira O'Neill who is the current New Hampshire office of child advocate she says that state advocates may currently be the fastest growing sector of government reflecting the widespread recognition that children's rights are limited and our voices are often unheard an office of child advocate is a critical component of a well functioning system if designed properly it will instill trust when the system is operating as intended it will catch individual transgressions before they cause permanent harm and it will give the state an independent view of where to invest this time and its resources if given the chance I'd be happy to talk more about the current bill H215 my goal is to make the system work for children many of your colleagues have told me we need to do something different what can we do in the past I have agreed with more DCF workers and I still believe that we need more capacity within DCF but I don't think that's the only solution without comprehensive reform we will continue to see the themes that keep many of us up at night I have used New Hampshire as our example today and they have become my go-to because they are newly established and have been extremely effective however Washington and Colorado and other states have been very helpful resources and we have a lot to learn from all of the offices Colorado in particular as they have been structured within a non-profit setting and also as an independent government office we are the only state in England without an office a child advocate and I'm missing a valuable opportunity to participate in regional think take conveniences for systemic reform I'm going to pause and ask Rachel to just my name is Rachel Brosman I work as a family support would you mind speaking is that better yes please good my name is Rachel Brosman and my position is family support worker not to be confused with DCF the defender general's office runs a program called Family Support Worker and I work with parents who have children who are in DCF custody and I work with them to help them navigate the system which is confusing so I'm just going to start off by telling you about two families that I've worked with and some of the patterns and issues that come up with for many families all the names are not real names so Debra has three children Debra also has a cognitive disability her oldest child was taken into custody when it was discovered that she had severe medical condition that had gone unnoticed the younger two children were also taken into custody Debra's DCF case worker didn't understand her disability nor did the nurse at the hospital who tried to teach her how to manage her child's complex medical condition nor did the Easter Seals Worker who provided family time coaching which is a program that they run where parents have someone observe them with their children and they have time to be given feedback and suggestions no one at any point in the process acknowledged her cognitive disability and made an effort to provide reasonable accommodations as a result she failed to grasp the intricacies of her child's medical condition and her family time coaching was ended due to lack of progress right now cards are stacked against Debra's family reuniting not because Debra can't do it with the supports that can be put in place I have no doubt that she can parent her children but the clock is ticking and two of the children are in pre-adopted homes it's looking like these three children will grow up in three separate households this family will most likely be split apart and that's because of failures in the system not because Debra can't parent her children with good supports in place we can do better than that the second family I'm going to tell you about is Sandy and Michael Sandy and Michael have two children in custody these children absolutely needed state intervention Sandy and Michael's apartment was beyond messy it was own sanitary Sandy and Michael were not attending to their children's medical needs their oldest child has a disability and his unique medical issues were not being addressed however this was a wake up call for these parents they snapped to attention they cleaned up their apartment they cooperated with all providers to attend to their children's needs keeping our children safe is a huge challenge especially when it entails removing children from their parent's custody it is confusing the wilderness situation that is traumatizing for every member of the affected family our system while not perfect can work I have seen it work I have seen parents whose children come into custody and like Sandy and Michael get ready to work they go to counseling they parent to classes they fully engage in family time coaching they find stable housing they work on a project in short we work hard to change their behavior and regain custody of their children and this is what happens in the best case scenario however we all know that ideal scenarios are usually the exception rather than the rule and even in an otherwise ideal scenario the entire family suffers trauma from being separated when it is less than ideal which unfortunately is more often the case the trauma is even more heartbreaking and long lasting parents whose children are taken into custody love their children just as fiercely as he and I love our children and their children love them just as much as our children love us not every child will have an ideal life and obviously hardly anybody does but every child has the right to the life he, she, where they were born to for no reason and that's where the road is I have the right to the life I was born and you the community in the form of the state have an obligation to make sure that I am safe in that life I'm going to share with you some of the observations some of my observations of the dire consequences for families that can often occur when the state steps in Debra's children were 13 different foster homes over a two and a half year period currently those children are in three separate foster homes how do children feel when they are moved that many times scared that it's their fault that they were removed from the home that somehow they were better their foster families would have kept them probably all of the above this is trauma I worked with another family whose son had been in a stable foster home for almost a year then his behavior got really challenging and the foster parents said they could not keep him anymore in trying to find another placement he was moved six times in the two week period more than one of those six foster parents brought him to school one day with his belongings and called DCF and said that he could not return to their home that day they were done now today unfortunately I learned that while not common this scenario has happened before with other children imagine this child's trauma do you think this is a child who feels worthy of love on hearing this story my first reaction was horror and disbelief how could anyone do that to a child however as I thought about it I remembered that DCF workers spend their days putting out fires my guess is that the foster parents have tried several times to reach their DCF worker not knowing that this was a five alarm fire the DCF worker didn't return the call or perhaps the worker didn't have time to hear the voice mail or perhaps believe it or not there were six alarm fires the worker was dealing with the foster parent was desperate the child's behavior was probably so disruptive at that point that they could not compromise their own family's life any longer surprisingly there was trauma even in a good foster care situation one of Deborah's children now in her 14th foster home that by all appearances is stable is now telling her foster parents to stay at home but she also tells her mother that she does want to live at home this is typical of what children go through this child who has been moved around so often is now in a home that seems stable to her foster parents can provide so many more opportunities camp, extracurricular activities and material things of course this child is confused she loves her mother and siblings and wants to be with them but things are okay where she is now one of the flaws that I think we all have is we tend not to respond to people who are disenfranchised or less education less money the same way we respond to other people and so the foster parents when that foster parent said oh this child is saying she doesn't want to go home now everyone had to attention that was scary mom says she's telling me she wants to come home I didn't see the same response from the professionals involved and that's a systemic problem and it's a hard one it was definitely another mark against mom and oh my gosh now what the kids saying she doesn't want to go home not oh this kid really wants to go home she doesn't know what she wants anyway so visitation is also always an important piece for every family whose children have been taken into custody yet visitation can be very challenging too DCF tries to schedule as many family visits as possible but it's a strain on everyone when Sandy and Michael's children were taken into custody and by the way they found out about it when they came out of school that day the judge had ordered custody so when they got out of school I don't know if their parents were there but not hopefully they were but they were told that day you're going into foster care and boom that was it and I don't know if there's a better way to do that but anyway when they were taken into custody Sandy had just begun working at a convenience store she told her boss the situation and her boss said she would work with her so that Sandy would be able to attend all the visits with her children and participate in all of the DCF requirements and still keep her job that was week one by week three her job was in jeopardy because DCF had changed visitation schedules so many times Sandy's boss really wanted to work with her but she had a business to run sadly I have seen visitation schedules very fluid in many other cases a visit schedule was created for Sandy and Michael's older son that took him out of school for a new time visit at the last an hour this schedule went into effect the first week of foster care whose idea was this who was scared, confused and traumatized of being taken from his parents possibly having productive day in school after a one hour visit in the middle of the day Sandy was the one who saw that this was not in her child's best interest and asked for a new schedule the new schedule was not much better visits were then scheduled for 8 a.m. before school this is just one example there were many permutations of a different scenario all equally traumatic for children and their parents there were other financial implications as well in Sandy and Michael's case one of the children was receiving SSI his SSI hoped to pay the rent one of the children were removed from the home Sandy and Michael were at risk of losing their housing because of that Deborah lives in subsidized housing and in a 4 bedroom apartment for her family after the children were in custody for about a year the housing authority said you have to downsize to a 2 bedroom apartment for a 4 bedroom if your family isn't here in both cases inadequate housing will be barrier to reunification I'm not suggesting that we do not ask parents to attend classes counseling participating in very active activities that will enhance their parenting skills I am suggesting that we need to take care of those families it is absolutely criminal that we allow families to lose housing when they lose custody of their children I've pointed out many flaws in an imperfect system and I could have gone on a lot longer and there are positives but it's heartening to see this committee working on solutions an office of child advocacy would ensure that we are looking at systemic issues and give direction in finding out what's working and what is not working it would also provide an independent office parents can access when they need assistance as I just described to you or by no means exceptions I can change the names and the circumstances and issues are the same the last time this committee met there was discussion about having independent mediators involved as soon as the children are taken into custody this is another way that could decrease tension between parents and DCF right from the start creating a much better scenario for all the parties I also believe that every parent should have a vote however the Defender General's Family Support Program is an effective way to support parents and I can tell you that in Deborah's situation I was able to get work with her and she now has a case manager from Washington County Mental Health who will be hers for life who works with her on personal goals and parenting and there are many other supports that agency may be able to give her she I was able to get her training at a hospital where they acknowledged her disability and worked with her I helped her go to ABE Adult Basic Education so that she could get help with the math involved in her trials in managing her child's disability and lastly home health is coming in and supervising her so that she can put her knowledge to use it may all be too little too late but that's just an example of what was done because she had someone for her and the DCS social workers don't have time for that sort of social work and lastly to use an overused phrase let's think outside the box if Deborah can't manage her child's medication but can effectively parent in every other way surely there must be another solution besides adoption let's think about other ways to facilitate visits between families that are separated that work better for everyone scheduled and here's another solution for Sandy and Michael's children Sandy and Michael can keep their children safe from 5pm when they get home from school or daycare until 8am the next morning when they go to school send them home now and if you don't feel like they can keep them safe on the weekends send them to respite on the weekend much less traumatic than full-time foster care there must be creative solutions to many of the problems the system faces solutions that keep families together solutions that create less trauma for everyone especially the children when they are removed from their home and thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak Thank you Usually I don't need a mic but I'll leave you with a message I will apologize in advance I am feeling just a little bit under the weather right now so if I cough, I'm sorry Thank you guys for letting me come in tonight my name is Nate Farnham I'm 20 years old I was a DCF I worked with the state from May 26th, 2006 until September of last year I was working with Dan Noyes a lot last year to pass H255 Crew and Parent Standard Act I actually worked with Dan I know me and Amy had been talking about this before Dan talked a lot as well and he wants to start helping youth in DCF with a lot of stuff that we can do so we all work to put this bill into place I have attended two national youth leadership conferences one in DC and one in California where I met with youth advocacy groups from all over the United States and last year was actually a blood group from Canada as well and I've learned a lot about women in their states from the states that have them the Office of Child Advocate and my biggest question is why don't we have that here and why haven't we had that here in other states that have this position for a substantial amount of time I believe that this position can more than help youth when they have a grievance against anyone in the system whether it be DCF workers whether the biological parents had an issue I remember a lot of the time I had a couple of different issues with a couple of different DCF workers that I had I would file a grievance and no resolution would come out of my grievance that I had filed so I feel like this bill is more than needed in the state for quite a while now I've been doing that for about four years now originally I was only doing policy change in DCF and now that I'm getting into doing more on the legislative work I actually am following the level that coins substantially I like to do this stuff I want to see change in the system I don't want to have to see fellow youth I mean in my 13 years now I've been through 32 different foster homes 8 to 10 residential treatment facilities and I did three stays at the Barbaro Retreat for medication stabilization within a year and a half I was there for six months I was out for 24 hours and I was back in and I went through probably 28 different medications in that 18 months I'm trying to get me on the right medication you're fading away my voice is out of it right now I know no it's really not so that's why I'm here to testify I want to see this bill get passed I want to see the Office of Child Advocate get in I'd like to see the M1's position be filled into the state as well because I believe that they are too substantially vital positions that this state's DCF system has been lacking for quite a while so thank you guys thank you I'm going to turn it over to Representative you know you finished this because I'm just talking question I do but I guess before you start before I start I'll tell you who I am I'm usually right I've been a foster parent I may see the system from a different point of view than some of you and I see a system that is broken I agree but I'm not sure that the problem is solved by having more people I think the problem is solved by having the courts do their job and making the right decisions and when somebody should be taken out of the hole it is an extremely difficult job to be a foster parent that is the most difficult job I ever did I'll tell you a little bit about my experience as a foster parent and maybe not when a person can help me as a foster parent I have a kid in my in my home with my wife and I who is doing very well that freaked out his mother who then did everything she could to undermine the placement now you may be taking the mother's side and you may well let me tell you that kid is currently in jail and will be for a long time some very serious crimes and when he was 14 or 15 we had an opportunity to make a difference we chose not to we chose to undermine the system and I blame the system for that and that's long before Ken Schatz or anybody here I'm going way back so those are some of my experiences as a foster parent and yet you want to get involved in that and really more difficult to provide permanency for that kid in a foster care situation so I really question that I've had successes I've had failures in my working in the presidential our failures stand out because we usually make the headlines I really have a hard time with some of what was presented here today so I'm going to try to keep an open mind but I just want to tell you that from my perspective getting into permanency whether in foster care or whatever it is the most important thing it's going back home to the parent when you have it's usually not two parents but I can tell you one of the most difficult things I've seen kids bigger than you tougher than you sit and cry waiting for mama to show up on Sunday afternoon because she couldn't have bothered so don't give me this line about everything is going to be fine that's where I have a problem what are you going to do for that kid you're going to tell him he's going back to this room who can't care enough to get there on Sunday or I'll give you another one we were across the street from the bar how do you deal with two kids in your program and both mother and father are out there kissing in front of the bar but they aren't the mother and father they're the mother and father because they hate the ones that are married so they see that you know this is what social workers deal with on a day to day basis and what burns out some of them and they make lousy decisions and I don't have an overview and oversight of those decisions but how is that going to help those kids that I just described I really appreciate the questions I hope you do no I truly do I think really we're the problem-wise I think that it's complex always and that is why my vision of an office child advocate is truly a child centered not DCS centered is to make the system work for kids to your point about the workers I skipped over the voices from the field just because I wanted to make sure that our other guests had an opportunity to speak as well but I'd love to go back to that and just share a little bit about how an office child advocate has helped workers in New Hampshire have these really challenging situations try to figure out what is best and in like the situation you share give foster parents biological families and youth and outside perspectives what they can call in when they feel like the situation isn't working as intended so like in the first scenario if you felt like the parent unification was not the right approach you have the opportunity to call somebody outside the system talk it through and get a response back so if you have a moment I'd love to just share a little bit about what they have said the first one is from Katie who is a former specialist from the Vinnerman Children's Youth and Family in New Hampshire in my opinion the OCA has brought much needed spotlight to the work of the division that has been missing for some time while there are individuals within the division that struggle with the oversight piece the OCA provides I find additional eyes and attention on the welfare of New Hampshire's children only to be a cause for change within my role I have been working to drive various initiatives forward which have provided some much needed support initiatives such as focusing on substance-exposed infants and our policies regarding our work with them and their families revamping how we conduct our critical incident reviews to reflect what modern safety science tells us about negative outcomes and educating the legislature on the need for additional funding not just for positions within DCYF but for additional community services to support our work as well I recently had the privilege to be a part of the OCA's first SLR which is the Systems Learning Review which was a review of two of the child deaths that occurred last year I was very impressed with the work that the OCA has done with a lot of their safety and not just learning about modern safety science and applying it to the work with child welfare but also following through implementing and conducting their own review process which I believe will only strengthen the work of the division we're doing in England to have division conducts reviews as feedback from division staff that participated in SLR reviews was very positive and then she goes on to continue to encourage us to continue our work but I think you speak to a really important part of the system as an office we often get calls from parents and grandparents who are frustrated with their children when we move we get just as many calls from foster parents who are frustrated feeling that their children are unsafe or the system is not working in the best interest of the kids in their care and I think it's complex and what I do know about my parents this time is that DCF workers do not always have the lunch during their day to take those calls and listen to the full story which is often two, three, four hours and then to do the research to find out what is behind the stories and the office which I'll advocate would have that ability to have access to the information so they can see the whole picture but also just to listen and to see if there's little details that come out around safety by making a good nest in a quick 10, 15 minute check-in. So I'm going to let Representative Redbin ask a question but just a comment for those of us at the table that there is a letter on our online with a committee from the office of Child Advocate in the state of New Hampshire. This is a question for you Nate. I'm curious the legislation that you've put together with Representative Noyes how do you think having that in place could have potentially changed things for you? Like if you can make that kind of direct connection like how do you think it would have impacted your experience? Absolutely So with the Prudent Parents Standard Act that I worked with Representative Noyes on a lot of that actually started to come into effect before it became legislation about two and a half to three years before I got out of the system which was a lot of DCF policy change in regards to normalcy which is trying to make youths stay in function here more like a normal childhood than some of the stuff that somebody's youth go through that isn't really what a child should be going through when they're growing up. So a lot of that like I said was being put into place a couple of years before I left but had that been in place from the day I went in I don't think my amount of places I went to would have been the same. I don't think I would have gone through as many foster homes as I did through every place in Vermont that could accept me and had to go over to New Hampshire for two programs over there because no place for them all to take me I had to go and spend two and a half years over in New Hampshire. So if that had if the Prudent Parents Standard Act and normalcy legislation and policy had been in place prior to me going through the system I definitely think would have been a better outcome I definitely think a lot of the youth I grew up with that were in the system wouldn't have had it like we all did I think would have been a lot better I believe some of the issues that Senator Sears had described maybe a few of those would have been a little different I'm not saying that they would I'm not saying that they wouldn't have but maybe a few of them might have been on a slightly different angle of occurrence if that stuff had been in place because that allows the foster parents to really be more an actual parent to the youth in care instead of having to play find a DCM worker at 6 in the morning and go sign a field trip slip they can do all that stuff sign it up for extracurricular activities supports etc so a lot of the stuff that a youth needs when they're growing up to be able to you know grow as a youth it definitely would change from my perspective and probably my outcome definitely a lot of the youth I grew up with for sure other questions to make clear I think the number of foster placements is a problem as you may know with that most of the kids that I dealt with had a number of foster care placements before they became delinquents I only dealt with delinquents I know that that's a problem and that's something that needs to get addressed I'm not surprised at 36 some of them are obviously short term placements but they tell me I was in before I was 6 months old so I guess things don't change I have a question and I apologize I was on the plane and we had to return to the beginning place so we got to start again so I do apologize so I've come in late and when I came in what I was hearing was conversation and support for someone for lack of a better term to work individually with individual situations and is that what you are advocating for is there any is there a need is it superfluous are you looking for addressing systemic issues and having an outside entity not attached to state government to look at systems issues absolutely I think why the system has worked so well is that they have both components so they have a non-flex person who answers the calls and is able to listen and triage and hopefully address transitions which are significant but also to help and still trust what is happening as intended they take that information and they do random and targeted case reviews to see if the calls they are getting are representative of a bigger issue within one specific region or across the state and if kids' needs are not being met it's a result of the need for policy change or practice change so the key component of this office is the Office of Child Advocate Peace which is the person who really addresses the systemic issues and produces reports, creates the data to say what is functioning well and what could be changed and I've heard recently that New Hampshire has a lot of changes at the dinner and they've stayed right now and if you have time I can read to you the testimony from Dr. O'Neill that she has a large part of the urgency that was created you might phone a friend or I might phone a friend I believe the state has a statewide child protection team is that what it is yes child protection the thing with Joe Hagan and all those people yes we have what our monitor no we do have a child protection team we have a child mentality review team we have yes maybe we that's the next step that's the next step to understand where what is what where do we have and and so the impetus But for my question was more in terms of the experience in New Hampshire, if you can answer that as to whether or not the office of, their systems function is that their statewide job protection team? Or is that, I mean, is that built on that model and they just call it something different? Or do they, because I think every state has to have one, right? So what I do know is that New Hampshire is the last established, a newly established off the child advocate. They only began within the last two years and they had significant changes in this legislative cycle. It seems to be directly connected to the reports that they put out in the relationship that they formed with their governor and legislative body. I think I know more about how that connects to their new team. I mean, I just, I mean, if this is something that people, either this committee or various committees in the house are interested in, we need to sort of understand what the current system structure is for quote, unquote, oversight. Whether it's the Citizens Advisory Board. So I'm currently a member of the Citizens Advisory Board as well. It's quarterly and we do one case review that's often chosen within the department to address an issue that has come up that's very limited to scope and people aren't able to call it and bring concerns to that in the same way that the off the child advocate would be. It's more, it serves as a chance for folks to give policy support or advice for experiences from the field, but there isn't a staff position where people can access that year round. Are there regular people on that or are they all people who have contracts with the state or are state employees and from different agencies? So I'm looking at the next set of part of the agenda. And so I'm assuming that we're going to be learning, and I'm looking at you, Amy, because you're on there first, that we're going to be learning about what exactly the Ombudsman versus advocate is. But not necessarily here. This is that federal law. Oh, this is the federal law. That's the federal law. And that was actually, I just had a question. Okay, so my question was if you could be a little bit more clear about what the differences between the two roles are, because I feel like there's the Ombudsman, there's that sense that it will make it more difficult for the adults in the picture that the child advocate piece is really there to give voice to the children that are in the system. And so I'd like to hear a little bit more about that. I appreciate that. So the goal of both positions is to make things better for the children in the system. I feel like my biggest frustration with the way things are currently is that the system is designed to be effective, and oftentimes when people have to meet different requirements, the children get lost. And so I can give many examples, and I think that's part of why we need somebody who can distill all the information into the most useful tidbit. But the Ombudsman's person can get calls from individual children and youth. They can get calls from community members, service providers, educators, legislators who have been calling for a long time, and I just don't know what to do. Foster parents or biological families. It's really the whole community can call it and say, I'm noticing this area of concern. I'm concerned about this kid's safety. I'm concerned that their needs are not being met. And they will have access to records and files, which currently nobody else does, so they will be able to look into it and see if the system is functioning as intended. And if it's not functioning as intended, often they build a strong relationship with their local DCF office and are able to call them and say, can you take a second, look at this. This is a not feeling right. This child is not getting their needs met. What I'm hearing is concerning. And when things are going as expected, they're able to listen and be assured from the people in the community that this is the way the system is designed and what their opportunities are for input in the process and just kind of lower that anxiety because whatever somebody's connected to the system, anxiety levels are high and people often act out of frustration and fear and are not always on their best self. So they can just kind of talk them through what to expect. I think that's pretty important because the ombuds person also is gathering that information and figuring out what trends there are. You know, they're getting 15 calls from St. Helden saying, kids are going home before all the preschool plans have been met. But they're going to pull more files from St. Helden and say what's happening in this community or if they're getting a call again. So just before you continue, I'm looking at your slide that has ombuds and child advocates. And so, and I'm getting confused because the child advocate is going to have the authority to go through files. The ombuds person is the one who's going to make a determination about whether or not the complaint is credible and then go through the files. I'm trying to figure out how these two folks work together and what are they doing. And one of the things, it seems clear here that you're suggesting that it needs to be independent of DCF, that it has to be an outside investigation process. And how would that dovetail with the internal evaluation process? There are a lot of questions I think. And so the way it's structured in New Hampshire and the way that it works best is that the Office of Child Advocate includes an ombudsman in them. So it's not two separate offices, two separate entities. They're working collaboratively in one study. And so in New Hampshire, Dr. Wynow O'Neill is the child advocate. She does the big systems review, but she works with Emily Lawrence, who is the ombuds person, daily in the same office space. And they share information that they're gathering. She takes a lot of MLA's reports and chooses to use it to investigate things further. And she's also on a lot of the statewide panels. And so they need each other in order to get a picture of what's happening with that information from the field. It's really hard to know what to look for and where. But the Office of Child Advocate position, the director position is the person who does the systemic system review. I do think though, your question, your point is good though, understanding how that would work with the current DC, even though the DCF oversight system that's in place, like it would be important to understand how that would function. Yeah. And so I think it's important to know that the Office of Child Advocate cannot step in and interfere in court. They're not able to stop a process that's happening and they're not able to opt for that kind of thing. And so currently, there's a complaint process that's pretty well available online. And what happens is that a child already has a complaint that they can go to the DCF staff. And if they don't, the complaint would resolve though they don't feel they haven't heard back. They're making a little supervisor and they can work up the chain of command. A month's person is just an independent person who is able to look at the situation without having been a part of the process. And that's where it becomes very valuable for youth to feel like they've been hurt. And also for the committee to feel like the system is functioning. If you call the DCF and say that, we feel like there was a misstep and don't get a call back. And then call a supervisor and don't get a call back. And then call somebody and don't get a call back. And then somebody above takes your call and you think everything's fine. You don't feel as though the process has worked for you. And so offering an opportunity for somebody on the outside to take a left hand to explain the process has been found to be really helpful. Other questions? But this is a lot here. It's a lot. And the bill has a lot. So I would love to go through that in the future. Right. So somewhat of an analogy to a health care advocate, but not quite slightly different. That's simple. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Any other questions? We probably could talk about this for a long time. But this is a good start, I think. And so, and I know that there's a bill in your committee. Is there? Representative Noyes. Noyes is the prime sponsor. Yeah. Representative Noyes is the prime sponsor. And I actually am interested in not the bill per se, but what the issue is and what we need to do to address some of the challenges that both DCF and the Defender General and the state's attorneys and community providers are talking about. And we all, all of us in the legislature, I think, or many of us did just, the Vermont Parent Representation Center continues to send, express their concerns. And I think we probably need to hear from men as well as hear from DCF in terms of their. What do you want to cost them? It's about $350,000. How much? $350,000. Okay. That's, that's ongoing. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I'm good. You're good. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. So we're scheduled to take a break. How many people are. I'm turning it over now to represent a few. Oh my God. Thank you. I'm going to ask you, people on the phone, did we give them particular time periods? I mean, I wonder if, you know, just if we can take like a 10 minute break or something like that and then come back. Sir, are you Tim Decker? I am. God, I'm smart. They're kind of like having to tie in the room. He's got to be an outsider. And so, you know, rather than take half an hour break. What about small states or what about money or whatever? And there was a possibility of delaying certain things. And I know we were having a agenda, but fill us in where we are today. Certainly. So Christine Johnson, Deputy Secretary of the TCF Animal Services Division. And just really quickly, just want to let you know that coming in again to my role, one of the first considerations was about the Family First Prevention Services Act. And of course, I started to ask questions about where are we with this act, you know? And really got a sense that we had done some initial cost analysis and realized that for a small state, with the economy scale, it was potentially going to cost us a fair amount of money. And so there was some resistance, I think, and we're really moving forward. The idea then, and what I came in was that we would ask the better government for the two-year delay, which is what the fact allows, and that we would continue to plan within the purview of that two-year deadline. What I will tell you, though, is having been a former Casey, I've been working for Jim Casey, the Opportunities Initiative. I've already drank the Kool-Aid when it comes to going first, and absolutely did support her a bit. And because I think it does right by kids in our system of care. And so I've had conversations with my staff. We have had Rob Coast for the court improvement program invited into a meeting that we had where Jim Forbes presented the slide similar to the information that he presented. I think he was here in the last meeting to talk about kind of family first and where we are. So we have officially asked for the delay that has been placed by October 1st, I believe, so we have, I have signed that letter saying we are asking for the delay. My intention, though, is that we continue the planning efforts and that we really need to coordinate this with you and ensure that we're in alignment for what it is that we want to do as a state moving forward. And it's similar to, you know, taking out a bank loan. This is something we can certainly, you know, delay two years, but implement sooner if we want to go in that direction. So I do think we have some work to do. We have asked Vermont certified public managers program to use a cohort to do some additional studying of and assistance with kind of analyzing the issue and making costs and very much willing to do that in partnership with you. What is the Vermont law law? The Vermont certified public managers program is offered through state government. I'm a graduate myself. It is a two-year program where leaders in the state government are similar. I like it to a master's in public administration without the degree, but you do get a national, you know, become nationally certified. But they have a team each year that works on an identified state issue, a state government issue. And so we've put forth a request to have a cohort addressing the family first implementation. Is that something that is internal or can they share with outside of state government? Oh, I think they could absolutely share outside of state government. Yes, one other thing really quickly we do, we work with Susan Riley as our consultant with KC Family Programs. It sounds like there's someone else on the panel today with KC Family Programs as well. She is available to us if we want her to come and present data, Vermont data, using our AFCARS data. But I'm sure that it would be in concert with the folks that we have today in terms of thinking about what are the resources that we have to bring to bear in Vermont on family first. I think we definitely have plenty of opportunities. Thank you, thank you. And this is for us to ask questions but also in our head it is what do we need to know and what is our role as legislators and how much do we... I'm going to call Nina now. So we'll call Nina now because she wanted to listen in and she can stay on the line and do her testimony. I even tested it. Let's try it again. Nina, it's a representative, Anne Pugh. How are you? Oh, I'm great. How are you doing? I'm doing fine. And I understand you want to listen in to what Amy Bradley and Tim Decker had to say before you spoke. Yes, yes. Okay. That would be made if possible. Okay. You're going to be listening to them now. We'll try to be as quiet as we can be in terms of... That's okay. I'll put you on mute so I don't make any noise either. Okay. Thank you so much. Yep. Thank you. This is Amy Brady again with Voices for the Lots, Children, and I'm a policy associate. And I'm really going to defer almost all of my time to Tim Decker who flew in here to talk to us today. I greatly appreciate his availability of the last minute and willingness to talk about Families First Prevention Act. I did want to just create a little bit of context because at the last meeting I had heard that there was some concern about an understandable concern about the impact on our residential treatment programs. And what I've been through from advocates across the country and also from people in all the systems of care is that Families First is a perfect will. But it gives us the opportunity to reimagine our systems of care. And there is some flexibility in it to take advantage of cases that work best for Vermont. And what we know is that residential treatment has an important place in the continuum of care. That some kids bounce from home to home and benefit from stable places to express their trauma and to gain new skills. And that Vermont currently has some gaps in our continuum of care. We are lacking intensive mental health placements for older female youth. We are lacking foster homes that can support people with sexualized behavior. We require better support for our foster homes that they can accept the placements that require more intensive interventions. We need our residential homes to know that they are supportive when a child with complex needs is stretching their capacity and we need an alternative to what's at. DCF staff should have the space in the day to do their best thinking and offer the best work. When each piece of continuum of care is strengthened it creates space for the others to do what they were intended to do. Residential care works best when it's serving the right kids at the right time. And when it has a robust system to support the kids and their family when they are not in the path that would make over them. Thank you so much Amy. And it's really great to be here. I think you should have on your iPads a copy of PowerPoint presentation. I'm not going to follow it strictly but I will in general because I really want to be more responsive to what your questions, concerns and thinking has been about what the opportunities are. So let me start out a little bit. It's been fascinating to be here today and I retired from Missouri State Government July 1st of 2018 and I haven't been in any legislative hearings in my own capital for over a year now and I hate to say this, please don't repeat it to any of my colleagues in Missouri I kind of miss them. We had a really great work in relationship with our budget committees and then we had a joint committee on child abuse and neglect which this committee actually reminds me a lot of and it gave us a chance to really have thoughtful conversations about the challenges in child welfare and then what the opportunities were and it was great to work with a group of legislators both senators and representatives that really studied the issues and had decided not to do kind of reactive major legislation and respond to the latest crisis of the day but had really committed to understanding the complexities and it was great to have part legislative partners that understood the complexities and really worked with us as partners so I want to just applaud your efforts initially just to really dig into the tough issues because these are you know the place where we often fall down is we get into believing that a child protection agency could actually protect and care for all our children in the state which we know that's not the case it's not the way it was intended to be we can meet families and communities you know raise children and the government is there to step in when absolutely necessary and provide critical supports to a lot of other people to do what they were intended to do but then also when there were issues and problems that it was if we just fixed the broken child welfare agency everything would be alright and what I would say to that has been they're done that and didn't even get a t-shirt that didn't work we have to think more systemically about some of the challenges at the farm so I think family first attempts to do that I think at the same time while we're thinking systemically we have to make sure that everything we do makes sense on the ground so when I have a kid child welfare director in Missouri back in four years and eight months prior to that had been director of our geo justice agency for seven years so over almost twelve years I was director of one or more of those agencies I had worked as a partner with the agency but had not worked in it so the first thing that I did was I called it walk in your shoes is I spent time in the field with our frontline practitioners so ten days initially in Missouri we have our German areas, suburban areas almost nothing and I went to everywhere and it was kind of like an undercover boss so I knew I was coming and it actually broke my heart in those experiences when I saw amazing, as some of you have mentioned some amazing work happening broke my heart as how we were falling short of what we were really intended to be so a common question for you're driving in cars going from home to home and sometimes not and you had those windshield conversations about like how do you like your job and the common response from our frontline practitioners was it's not what I expected it to be and I said well what's the next question right what is expected to be right I thought I would be helping people so then we got in conversations about what is it we're doing that's not helping people that we're doing that is helping people and the reality is is we brought the national travel for workforce institute in which was we were selected as part of a federal program that did extensive study of our workforce we talked a lot about workforce issues today and the bottom line is our frontline practitioners were spending I think I have been stated this so listen very carefully they were spending 9% of their time actually working directly with families that weren't paid for or related so we talked about stress turnover and those types of things we had way too many families we were working with we did not have an effective prevention continuum so they were asking us both to work with all kinds of different issues some families would really need help and some that are prevention program were able to meet the need we also had there was a burnout scale we had administered with our staff and the actual work with families a concerning score would be 50 in this scale scores were about 44 in terms of the work with children as they understood they were signing up for tough work the work load the case load the work load the unedited expectations we had for them their scores were mid 50s which is a clinical concern where people should be like getting a constant so we didn't take a hard look at how our system was set up both in terms of are we serving the right families that don't need us and are we doing the work in the right way and so when families first came along we began to think about like what did we learn from that process that aligns well with family first and just like you're doing where this family first perhaps presents some challenges so one of them I don't know one of the children I visited one of the workers I spent time with in walking her shoes we were visiting residential care programs it was time to do the visits to the kids and I still remember a young man that we met one of the boys we met a young man and young woman who she had our case loaded we were talking about and the young man had completed the program about a month a half before this visit and was still there and he was starting to get consequences he was starting to to act up again he didn't really see anyone following up on this future we had literally forgotten in there in that program so when I think about family first and the scrutiny around placement of children and counter repair of those special programs he was past the time that he needed to be in a different treatment and you question the way we need the treatment in the first place I think people believe that he did and I think that program had actually been helpful to him the first 10 years of my career in social work I ran residential treatment programs and I believe they have a value I think they have a value for treatment purposes and I think they have a value the time limit for each kid should be different based on their treatment plan what I experienced in that visit was the worker I was with did not know what the shelf treatment plan was and again he completed the program and was frustrated he didn't have a next step was starting to act up and the program was getting ready to recommend keeping him longer for that reason so when we talk about family first for instance around residential care or congregate care building in some additional oversight one kind of third party assessment court review of those placements they can sure are our facility to meet certain standards I think we could debate whether the standards fit or not especially for small room homes which I think you know a lot of those here I'd probably be with you there and say how are we going to navigate that figure that one out a lot of ours were larger than some of the rooms where they did those GRTV standards make a little more sense but the idea was really thinking about finding a way for every child possible to grow up in a family to have that permanency in a family to be able to heal in a family is something we're taking on for us at Gaterise our focus on reducing chronic care for instance Gaterise to developing in home programs so we have a program called behavior interventionist where we would have someone sometimes in the home for six to eight hours helping manage the child's behavior it didn't cost much less than residential care sometimes it was a little bit more but that child was in a family and they were able to be supported in a family a lot of people that were working in that program and still working in that program that's now spread to a number of communities in Missouri actually they had worked in residential care and maybe even residential care I don't even know so that's helped us really be creative so sometimes that kind of oversight which checks and balances to help us think is there another way that we can make this work realizing that some kids you're always going to be universal kids in child welfare systems that need residential donors that type of intensive treatment and sometimes we need it again for stabilization purposes and so forth even after they looked after care so when we think about what we're working toward and I think about the horror of family first being kind of anchored in let's invest for the first time in prevention services prior to a child coming into custody agency Title IV is never been available as a federal mask for anything that occurred before a child was ordered by a judge into the system many have said that that really has to analyze more kids being in the system and I can tell you that while you don't believe anybody makes money at that some of you are saying you're making money at our kids the universal kids you get money on is fairly small and you never get the full cost so no one's making money at that but the reality is that we have many children for instance for behavioral issues and there was no other care source other than child welfare so they were in custody arrangements because they needed a certain service or support sometimes that could have been provided in a home for a prevention service or at least seven therapies on the list for every first functional family that are in the list, those kinds of interventions could have actually been affected if you put them into the most intrusive intervention on the program so the idea that we're going to think about investing in prevention and the federal governments are testing that, I think it's huge again how it rolls out, we have a lot of control over ensuring that the children camping in the family is really important that it's absolutely necessary and then we make sure that it's still necessary as it goes along I think as a worker if I was still in Missouri as a worker I would welcome that oversight we sometimes struggle to have that kind of oversight and then not even push back from our providers saying don't be a sabon and all that now it's kind of something we need to do and there's some pretty sensible checks and balances that are built into it including making sure these are quality essential experiences, again we could kind of debate what that looks like I'm not a fan of overwhelming standards overwhelming requirements for this program some of which are really important and some of which are not as important so it's important to figure out what really matters and really focus on that obviously we have early prioritizes maybe aligning some of the transition programs more to what we know about the development of adolescents and young adults my children are in the 30s I have some I think my own age 24 so I know that happens so we know we're spending the age when it's on some of the JV related programs so far obviously made sense and just making sure that the efforts that we're performing with our families are really well funded and I think that the family first act begins to really address that I think the other financial related I know people will do analysis on this but the one thing that some don't think about in terms of the financing mechanism is 40 funding because it's based on AFD, old AFDC standards it's a very limited you're going to have fewer and fewer families qualified for any type of 40 match every year you're going to keep having fewer and fewer families qualified the federal match for the prevention services there's things you can do without custody that could be certainly would be the evidence-based programs that are on the list as well as new ones that might need to be developed there's no there's no income that's fun so that's any child that you identify as being a candidate for foster care so a lot will get down to how the agency administratively defines a candidate for foster care and I went to states where they were finding that every summer going we're going to make it every child that is living in the certain community or every child before we get a hotline call or something that's a pretty wide net to think about and to think about that and matching those 50% on the services but it also keeps the it opens to figure out where it's most needed because you're not required to support by the service but it just opens it up for the federal match I think there's going to be a much more narrow definition of the internet risk of coming into custody so how do you cast that net some will include children with behavioral issues and so forth so that they can there are some pretty good evidence-based in-home programs like I mentioned multi-systemic therapy for instance there's one of them, home builders if it's a parent's skill basic needs but there's just not enough structure and basic needs aren't getting better in the homes there's some pretty good programs we spent in Missouri about a million dollars and 87% of the families when we started through home builders and children, we did not get the subsequent referral they did not come to the custody for at least 12 months after the program had been mentioned and those were children that were in the internet risk if something doesn't happen we're moving them from home so there are some programs that are really proven and can actually keep children safe and make sure they're well cared for without a studio intervention so that you can invest in your case for resources in custody resources on the families that need it most and indeed that's something they'll mention that's probably going to be your best way long-term to bring your case loads down so that the social workers can really do the kind of quality work that they need to be doing with their families so what I always encourage people to do I just started to think about this through the lens of like what I would be doing what I would be recommending to my legislature if I was sitting with them right now if we were in Missouri right now I would say think about a systemic but think about the things we've always wanted to do anyway think about how family first can support that and then let's really try to manage and navigate the rest of it so part of it is it's not going to work well with the system I think you can consult the legislature with the judiciary if you have a strong vision for what your ideal system looks like and you know where you want to go and you kind of understand the values that are driving your decisions then the family first can be more of an opportunity because you can figure out what parts of the law actually advance you towards your vision and advance you towards your ideal system and you figure out like we got down to really concrete decisions about what is the wrong doing that's working well and we can do more of what's not working as well that we can do less of and then what new things do we need to start to and you can really have those kind of conversations that you have a vision and kind of a picture of what you really want the system to be to be the rest of it decisions will come clearer after that and it's not the fault of so many many federal acts that are trying to improve the system almost all of them have made some improvement most of them fall short and none of them have been silver bullet but where they go better is when we see them as part of the larger advancement of vision for the kind of system we want to have for our kids and families and so I think if you got that I think the other thing I would speak to you for a minute and without getting into the too many particulars about the law I don't want to manage my time though is that what gets lost in some of this you've talked a lot today about trauma if I was like a media specialist I'd have been counting the number of times or some sitting down in that where it was mentioned we talk about it all the time I could tell you one of the things beyond the walking of your shoes is when I was right committed to meeting four weekends a year or an older view for an entire weekend in a hotel where we would use them they would become a policy group for me and a policy advisor there are tons of stories there are long term relationships with people that still see when we were talking about seeing kids later seeing kids you know many years later but I well you know I'm going to just promote you right now we were talking about seeing kids you know years later and the connections that are built and the really meaningful kind of work with kids but when I was hearing the stories I just fell down I'll forget one young person young lady who said you know my mom was using drugs she had different men in her house so I know the phone wasn't safe but we really didn't have a lot of work to try to make it safer to get out to talk with those issues but they did come in really from my home and she didn't get to say goodbye to her mom or even see you later to her mom she was moved to a different community it was isolated from her school we know that when we're intervening around safety we should try to keep as many other things as stable we know that that's what the KS for breakfast the next day or the friendships that are important to them the activities that are important to them are the hopes and dreams that they're working for we can keep more of that stable we can reduce the trauma and actually not interrupt the path a little bit but in this case we were moved to her and she said it happened all at once I was in shock and you guys know what you're supposed to do you took me to the doctor you got me seen and the doctor was like well she was a little sad, a little depressed so we need to get her to see the psychiatrist the psychiatrist says well she's suffering from depression and well she's having these mood swings she might be bipolar and she's going on and she said I was on medication I was going with therapy and I've been in therapy ever since I asked her and she said well what like I'm going to be talking about legislators and other people and I'm going to be in charge of the system at least kind of in charge of a lot of people what would you want me to say to people about your experience and cashiers or would you give me a question to share and she said I want you to tell people that I was sad and in shock I wasn't sick and you stopped treating me like I was sick and I heard that two things that are frustrating it's all over over again one is you see us as wounded and you don't even want people to know one of the foster care is a stigma even if I know older professionals that are foster care they don't tell people because they're thinking God this person's really smart really good but when are they going to come apart when is this all going to come on down so they don't like a stigma they don't like being seen as somebody that needs to be fixed nor does a trauma informer what happened and how we managed that looks along with you and they actually don't they feel like they're treated like a commodity that has moved from place to place without thought about the consequences for them had one young lady who heard her girlfriend she had finally been in a placement for two years she was 17 she was going to be able to stand since it was 21 and she wanted to and her other couple her friend went out had a night out drank a couple beers had a fender vendor accident nobody was legally drunk the foster family had got things worked out and nobody was going to be charged our first response in our system was when they heard about this on Monday was you're going to move by Friday or when are I going to move to we don't know we'll find you a place I was guaranteed that she was 17 years old and it was going to be a residential program somewhere and yeah I think residential is very valuable for the kids that absolutely needed but that was how she felt she said I'm going to run away I'm going to ask the judge to release me from the system if you do this I know this family is not working with but I had been here for two years and quite frankly she was involved in the behavior that many of our adolescents are involved in and we don't my son gave you a run for money and I never thought about living well probably it's not going to take that long to live in a different home but I think that wasn't our first response it was you need to live some of yourselves it was that you made a mistake all the research on adolescent brain development tells the staff that kids are in the phase of brain development and their adolescence almost equal and probably equal to zero or three it's just different part of the brain that you are it's exactly the function that they're mistaken about the consequences of their actions emotional regulation and relational skills are all that part of the brain it's very active so how do you learn to make good decisions you make some mistakes and you've got people around you whether it's in a residential program and mentors you care about or family how to learn from that mistake and hopefully not repeated and our kids we talk about normalcy earlier there were many cases where they didn't do that so we'll talk about reasonable parenting we'll talk about having kids and families if at all possible only in residential or counter care if they have some treatment supporting their long term transition to adulthood for extending the extent of JV services really prioritizing kinship care because we know from research that's typically more stable and less traumatizing to the child all those things are very helpful the demixes of some of the details get a little more complicated the great news is they're still developing some of the details you kind of have a hand in that and the plan that you and your agency are going to submit I mean because of that point I support delaying to have more time to plan if it was early in the first leg but we had actually been working on it for a long time some of those same themes and it's just a different situation there so different states will have to make the best decision but going with a vision and a plan and think about how it can be an opportunity and I think you can manage some complications I really do I'm thinking if I was still buying a system would I worry about any of this I'd be most excited I'd definitely be worried about certain aspects of it and think about how to fill those gaps but the trauma form aspects of it the family focus, the kinship focus to be out of the name of Family First there's a, going to Navy States really there's fancy things made out of exactly up to the name but I think those are some real opportunities for you to move some things forward that I know from hearing you talk today you really care about and I did anti-casing foundation just like case and county programs just to clarify anti-casing to Baltimore based on Baltimore case and county programs in Seattle we are working together on Family First case and county programs it also works on juvenile justice income efficiency but I think we stand ready to engage with you in whatever you have made sense with your agency with the legislature to help you navigate some of these challenging decisions and actually advocate for you in some cases for when we are in multiple states like a certain things in Michigan for instance, there's not enough evidence-based practices on the list and a lot of them are really insufficient for some of the programs I know that will work so the federal government is now issuing guidance for their own name that's where states can do their own study of programs and can actually support those programs through Family First match until the federal government gets a chance to the clearinghouse gets a chance for you to do that program with the promise of no money to be regrouped that they all make clearinghouses and you can still do them for real or even after they are found in the clearinghouse so it is a chance to really take some programs you will care about, make work and study them and actually help make them better for the clearinghouse with no financial risk that's why probably one of the risks is that if you get a program where everybody loves it and that kind of goes away that's a lot of challenges for the legislature to figure out how to address that but I do see them responding to places where their challenges and they are responding on some kind of care provision for their challenges so I think this could be kind of it there can be a given take in this but I think again it has to be guided by a vision and ultimately and Amy talked about this other talk about when we focus on the needs of the children I can tell you the system is a grown Missouri we said we were child focused we were not we actually thought that when we removed the kid that we would save that child when the kids would tell us that was the worst night of their life because even though they work they would feel safe but they were not being well cared for they didn't know those things so it was very difficult we were still listening to that big front so when you kind of go down those pathways and those themes of family first there are tremendous opportunities and again we'll help you navigate the details others will be there to help you navigate the details so I have a family and of course I am worried about yes do I care about my residents period of work yes I would be discerning the whole part of my life if I didn't work I saw kids transform their lives but I also had a chance to build really effective programs and all of ours are not that kind of what's good for them so I think at that point you're not going to talk much you're going to have tons of details I'm assuming you're talking about before there's even stories in the PowerPoint today that you had a chance to tell you but I'm not the only student today so I'll be respectful of that any questions for people before I give way to others I don't know what their people do as well in the beginning of your or what I understood you were going to say is that states can define imminent risk so are they doing it by rulemaking or is the legislature defining it for the purposes of this and we'll do a I don't consider imminent risk prevention I'm sorry I mean prevention is that families aren't in their first place and so very sugary because my problem actually is that family first is not primary prevention it's kids that kind of doorstep so by no definition there's even new words of these things but what I learned in the world I came up with is you know primary prevention and it is not primary prevention at all what states are doing part of the state plan has to be defining canons and has to be heard by the federal government it's being addressed a variety of ways in some cases the agencies defining it in their plan they submit but they put together other cases the legislature defining it so what is this plan that they are submitting is this in response to the families first legislation or is this their regular plan no this is a this is a response to but I think what they've done I think our college from the HCT I think what they've done is they're not rolling any actually to their 40 plans but they actually have to submit a family first plan and how they're going to comply and half of these specific things like canons to be approved and those types of things and some states are trying to identify the things that are outside of the process so basically in terms of are we to look to the Title IV A plan which I don't know really is necessarily shared with the legislature but you would have now would be your Title IV A plan that typically is done every four or five years and then you have your annual reports that are that's that would be the plan from the federal perspective that would guide your use of 40 dollars and I think the challenge for us and I'm looking to the appropriations members is I believe that we do a bunch of our funding through global commitment, right? And then not for anybody to do other things with 40 and I'm not quite sure what it is, right? Yeah, and I'll get confusing on this whole commitment and whether you've done it or not. Yeah, I think there were things that we're going to make fiscal and the administration that I was going to figure out what the scheme and what that means and then you have to debate what the senators say. Yeah, so you're referring to the data that you're going to do correctly. But luckily Senator Westman handled the ECI project for the Senate appropriations committee. You know, this will show up for you in the April 40th plan there is one aspect of the law, the residential treatment program from the U.S. government even to the audio plan in states could have accessed those in October of 2018 if you have so much for those programs. So there are some things you could do without a plan but most of that is going to require a plan. But I think there are fiscal implications like what do you allocate for prevention services because you do have to commit a 50% match and you have to have a maintenance of that for a based on depending on how your budget process works or where you want to put your money and some legislatures are starting to put money into, for instance assisted residential programs in a TV state. I look at that as a challenge. It seems to be medicalizing for the treatment. It is based more on the nursing staff and all that. In some states the money is going to be standard or reoriented so some are putting more money into kinship, supporting kinship supports. There are things you can do through the budget process that are very philosophical in line with this. Eventually your state will have to submit a plan and say this is our go-by date and they will have to decide either with what they submit and the federal government approves or conjunction with you or through you because it does have implications for what you might be asked to find if you think about it. There is wisdom to going broader and there is wisdom to going narrower which depends on and I think you can change your definition through your plan, subsequent plans as you move forward. It is not exactly affirmative from this. But what it does, when you have more things that might fall on the prevention side you are going to get a 50% match and you are going to get it on your whole population versus just the statement that is already qualified. So there is an advantage to spending more money on the front end than much children in custody, in terms of your federal budget. We spent a lot of time today talking about happy lessons but Ramon I am sure every state has a problem with toddlers who are born to undignified parents who are parents who are then incapable of taking care of their child and I don't know any of my friends who I have right here who are taking care of their children and in many cases there is just interest in care and not just state involved in some cases the state is involved in some of those cases and some of those parents are spending their retirement and these is there any place in here in this family's first initiative that could deal with that problem may the assumption that maybe the parents will get better and be able to end to take care of their child but right now down to one priority is getting high. I think there are three places I can think of right now that I have from completely so I can observe the right one is the residential substance abuse treatment has been an effective option in some cases for moms with their babies so that's an option that they weren't helping them before and now they could. Now the problem is there aren't many of those programs that exist I think eventually you are going to find you already have some on the list in the home visiting realm you are going to see a lot of different programs I think parents and teachers that are now in their family partnership that are very especially their family partnership are very focused on those issues that could be an intervention that you could utilize. I think the kinship navigator programs that could help folks like your discussing the grandparents and so forth get the resources they need could be very helpful and provide supports for families where relatives can actually raise the baby maybe while mom and dad are getting treatment and maybe more permanently so I think there are some great opportunities there I know in some cases states will of course will still choose to bring those children into custody which then I know in Missouri we provide foster care parents foster care payments to grandparents raising their children Many of the people I'm talking about don't want to involve the state they have their informal arrangements with their child but their child to take care of their grandchild in some cases they go through the probate crisis further further complications complicates things for probate judges who really aren't I think the best option there are going to be if you could include you could include the families you're talking about in your candidacy definition which would allow that I'm thinking of preventing prevention with the chair and truly that is trying to prevent the child from their difficulty so I would include in your candidacy definition would be one thought and then your kinship navigator programs would certainly be a support to them again you're going to have to and maybe if you construct them in a way where the model is one that doesn't include a lot of coercion and build additionalness a lot of folks have mistrust of the government and don't want them involved so I know we're also trying to navigate that and have more family-focused models that could build relationships so people aren't so hesitant to ask for help so I think how the agency that constructs those programs and especially how you manage from candidacy to referral some will say direct referral to the program and the state won't touch the case at all that's possible some will have a light touch check it out and hand it on quickly and then the candidacy definition clear and then your levels of engagement from your agency clear would be really helpful because there are even some of the engagement work you can build some of that under your administrative cost for some of the case work and stuff that's needed to get out of sight how much you want your case worker involved in the cases that the senator was talking about because that may not be wise I would start the view that if we get involved where we don't really need to get involved in one that may not be necessary but some of these cases have some risk to get to them where you want to have an icon and figuring out how you figure that out that's where the agency is going to have to do to make this work I think that's what some of the most substantial decisions would be candidacy, referral processes whose handle on those cases at what point they might referral for formal custody those are going to be some of the toughest decisions and those in the most part are agency specific yes and you're not suggesting that they would be all no I'm not suggesting about those those events and how the case work is managed and all that and to me those are the company agents so how can you see what recommendations do you have for legislative input or no input or oversight or whatever well I have a couple suggestions I think one is to touch this through your budgeting process and if you believe in prioritizing prevention you may want to prioritize prevention in your budgeting process you may find you want to provide additional supports for things like supporting your program to navigate the QRTP kind of designations you may decide could you explain that so if your programs are already competitive the way and the joint commission that they have a really easy path to this they generally already have to meet all those requirements programs like a hard time are going to be your small programs and I understand most of your programs are small programs programs are a lot larger than foster care that is allowed under this I mean we have quotes that are under 12 yeah I know some additional advice coming on our QRTP status but in just consultation and support and navigating those requirements and maybe there are some options here for even co-ops or something I just think about how could those small programs pool resources together to have the kind of support they need without everybody having to do it themselves so if there is a way to support those agencies I would also, some states are choosing to think about how they research and develop evidence for programs who always have like these programs we know really work but then maybe you're never going to get on that list because that's a lot of help and that's the tragedy in some of this you've got some of these programs that are on for a long time on that list I mean the list so far is some great programs but it's disappointing because it doesn't represent the universe of things that we know work so we're always supporting programs getting to that level so we can actually then claim the money on those programs I looked for lists I didn't see on those the rumor is it's currently under review and I can't imagine it won't be on the list because we're strong evidence so you know they did some low hanging fruit I think in New Zealand right now there's no kids should navigate a program on this the two programs they want that don't have an evidence yet so they're looking at like two more now so there's some real challenges on that but you may want to provide some support at the state level with your programs and agencies to do that I think that's the main the other items you just have to decide how far you want to get involved like if you there's some you're even candidacy as in the question of the agency if you're determined, submitted a plan, get approved you can say you want a voice on that you know I think those are just things you've got to think about depending on the future of your working relationships and how far you want to go what do you people say have a voice and make a decision about whether or not to have a voice in Canada well so you I never served as a representative but I feel like I have because I spent a lot of time we had one time when our foster youth actually held a hearing of legislators and they actually had seats that seemed like their questions but I think one way to do that is by having your agency communicate with you about what they're thinking and have these kind of conversations so if you have any concerns about it then you can decide how involved you want to be from that and I would use hearings and things like that as a way of just keeping yourself in the conversation and talk to your advocates and show your advocates some kind of thoughts about this and really make sure just from an oversight standpoint that your agency is involving a lot of partners in this because there are lots of questions about who should be involved, who should be here from until you almost never hear from the birth families and youth have a voice but often in a limited way like share your story with us so I think how you can use the work that you do to make sure people are really engaged and the process is to ask your agency questions about who are involved and how and make sure it's meaningful because this is clearly there's no way of legislation for the agency to accomplish this alone there's another big message in this is that we're going to need the whole community to take responsibility for the safety and proper care of children and to answer your questions responsibly we've got to manage that we've got to think about collaboration we've got to think about even leadership occurring throughout the system you've had programs proposed to you today that people aren't looking at and processes today so I think you can put a major role in that I know if I was still in Missouri I'd have to be getting a lot of questions about this and then you'd trust my answers and I don't want to get involved to the extent that it's not going to be meaningful which I think is generally the better approach in most sense I didn't take too much time but that's one of your responses but this is all about questions the other information is we can does anyone else have any more questions I just have one one quick question it's kind of a big question but you mentioned that we should look at parts of the law that will advance our system for vision and that it sounds like it's a huge consideration in terms of what we prioritize and I don't know if you have any familiarity with the Vermont system but I'm wondering if off the back you have one or two take a look at this aspect something that's we're hanging through that you really think could move a lever significantly that we should really look at it and consider within that whole kind of new legislation it's kind of a tough question it's a tough one because I don't feel like I know the Vermont system I don't feel like I know the Vermont system well enough I can tell you what I've been looking at in Missouri and it would really be our Missouri's estate I'm going to look at your data Missouri's estate for instance has 8.9 children in foster care for the national average of 5.8 5.9 so I would be really trying to focus on prevention there because we were getting a lot of families because there was just no other option to support their needs including a lot of the behavioral health concerns and so forth so I would be really all about I mean prevention would be huge for me you know the kinship that's just on kinship and family-based placements I think would be huge I think Boston Missouri now would be trying to manage all the aspects of it and trying to use it a little bit you know Senator Sears and I were talking about this our dual justice programs were really good it was very good to go to Harvard to work all that stuff our treatment programs actually in the contrast side for shovel for our art and your is good I think probably would be using it to try to focus on the quality of that programming that's just the nature of the foster care quality program I was looking at our dual justice I wouldn't be focused on that at all but I really would encourage you to look at your data because that's been telling you a lot actually I don't know what your number of care rates are here are sort of about 12% we have our 9 out of 18% so we want to get a lot to fire although those old-time goals I just felt like kids were sometimes there too long or as a first-placement whether it was just a matter or not so for instance if you really invested in family finding for instance on the front end and get that first-placement method relative to him with the support on the trauma removal that was always my dream and navigate some of that then you probably don't even have kids acting out as much but they need psychotropic and counseling so I really would focus on prevention and then I always thought I would focus on or if I had more time on a formal little moment right afterwards because I think that sets the trajectory for the entire case and I got really robust if I waited for those for an in-home intervention from just separation time so I had a home visitor come and work with foster parents and grandparents around how they could help the child navigate the separation and they threw things like how can we keep normal so I was just making choices about what time they go to bed even if there are routines we almost got that funded I thought it was safe there's a lot of money down the road in the trajectory of some kids winding up years in counseling and all the money spent on all that it's been a pleasure and I'll be happy to come back came back on short notice this time and now that I've seen the beauty of your study I think I've told my wife we've got to get back here where she is thank you very much thank you hi Nina get your new Nina you have her hand out okay folks we have our hand out from in San Jose and I've had the pleasure of working with Nina I've had the pleasure of her expertise at NCSL and some readings that I've fallen to and I'll have her introduce herself and go ahead Nina thank you so much good afternoon to the chair there's a committee as the rest of the staff my name is the Children's Examiner and I'm the general manager I understand that you all do have a paper handout so I'm going to go back a little bit and I will just say I want to like to like to like to like to like to like to like to get down we are a bipartisan nonprofit organization a region that provides service in the federal system and now every state is carrying forward an extension of your research staff and call upon at any time for any of your needs on any topic and we'll be glad to help you on that in part throughout the chair and in the next session with any of your research and by the way let's take policy or law in any way we think you provide objective and non-partisan information for you but if you take the handout of those steps and questions for long-distance and foster care care clothes, these opioid and substance abuse crime fly by the state I was invited to question the number of children of the age of one under an interim foster in 2018 and quite a high level shift in child welfare funding structure and see a lot of activity and interest for the legislative response to the country we've been given a lot of communication feeling a lot of the question and I'm going to give you a summary of that today like that it got to slide 8 going to our website, click on this bill we're going to provide a summary of my little picture of my relationship to the legislation with all of these and we anticipate the questions the legislative government has to incentivate the country foster care guidance to meet the few I already think are required in the court example some states have established foster care provision services programs others some guidance on the implementation process some states have required to teach a plan on a digital issue in the legislation and this is a screenshot of some of the magical ceremonies from our website they also require the analysis and cross projection to determine how they also require the accounting for the analysis of their in-home foster care provision services programs and funds will be added to the legislation as legislation in the case of needs that must be done in the RCT mayoral legislation also we have a new report role in the QRT requirement again the new report requires you to do the analysis on the specific time frame and double the state bill and that is such a miracle like a lot of changes the early introduction to the teaching plan has been created but it also requires an inventory of existing provision programs and taxes to provide the identification of a network of services providers now in this new example with the legislation we're tracking with two updated regularly we just updated again last week we keep the legislation on there so many people perhaps fail and again if you don't know anything about the legislation and we'll be providing more information on any of the bills state authorities are looking at guidance and what are the things we want to do is prepare a list of that because it's been a great interest to be able to use the two legislatures and also budget years program and a variety of pieces as well about like images just I want to I think if you are doing any compiling on like one sheet of definitions and things like that that would be very helpful okay please thank you alright, slide 12 is really good I'm sorry we're back we'll be talking about a lot of stakeholders including all kinds of folks in the court education Medicaid or child services health and provider communities and again also the state children's families we're seeing a lot of work and development on those outcomes but I'm sure what we care I think it's just necessary that we get it being appropriately leveraged so when you're looking at value first you're looking at Medicaid you're looking at the budget you're looking at something about what the state should want for the children's families I think we know how to actually develop the value for the central subcommittee and the government's legislation and the current 2019 discussion like being oriented and after this on the next slide we're giving it something similar or the law makers how is the implementation work with they did an act of legislation and by the way there was representation for the legislative executive and judicial branch of the government on this monthly basis they've got the implications of it with the state so it took the design which we are trying to apply in Virginia to develop physical actors any around family firms there's no double work for it and they look at things like the weakest of efforts they also define the way the children are working here they work on determining the current residential treatment provider's ability to use QRTD requirements and other things, it's set to here to implement this October 1, 2019 but I understand they may be taking some of it away now in order to better prepare to be required and the prevention prevention fees as well so on that slide it says expected implementation date what are they implementing they're three branch team or the other things family first has done a review of the dates and the two major the major implementation date the first date 1, 2019 and that is the date when the dates can begin cleaning reimbursement for provision services if they have options to participate in the provision services provisions of family first and for the congregate care provisions which are a group team however, family 21 it will be in the congregate care procedure knowing that the dates would need time that this would be a heavy burden for many states for all those states such as Vermont states that don't have evidence-based provision services they need a heavy burden to be but they may not be accredited by the national body or by the state it doesn't, they may not have the requirements around 24-7 burden staff so and that's what that implementation is thank you Nina I just wasn't sure what you were referencing so that's clear now thank you thank you thank you starting where it would look like 5-10 years from now slide 18 to think about what the next steps might be when they get back to their home state what they knew about this meeting was in August but so it's no a new census date was moving forward 2019 implementation of this date was what to do when a census family first held a census date and we asked the number of male congregate here so Nina in identifying those four are those questions or assessments that NCSL and others think are important benchmarks for moving forward yeah we did work with the family program to come up with a question I put the Colorado quiet analysis on how many homes are available how many children are in care and how many foster homes are available what types of foster homes whether or not they're right in them what that number is how does that compare to the number of children in care and we believe that because family first is requiring that the group placement stage the line that the group placement should be for children with very specific diagnoses that there will be a need to put the children that don't need those requirements into family hospital so that they can critical to know what that count is Nina I'm going to need you I apologize we've delayed the call on you back I'm going to need you to wrap up I just got a note saying there's only has 15 minutes from this time now no problem you can just be like so I'm going to come up and make it count Nina thank you so very much and I appreciate your willingness to educate this group and take us forward so thank you again you're welcome bye sorry thank you I know just a little bit 4 5 to leave thank you thank you and thank you for agreeing and I realize that now is 15 minutes if not to talk with us yeah and I have an extra conflict about what the problem is okay I'm not sure we have the slides we have the slides we have got a bunch of information on what is family first so we we know right now a little bit about what is family first what we're really wondering about is what is our role as legislations okay without going into your slides given your time if you can focus on that that would be helpful well perfect if you have a question what I'm sure I'm going to give you the beginning of the slides here just provides a gather information about what you're currently working with you know we've begun to learn more about how some of the children are really glad to talk with them about for those younger for those with temporary things that they can have who's wanted to be quality but as you'll be provided for what the reason to talk with them for a number of reasons we're going to be early for a number of reasons but slide nine is sort of the first draft we looked at the data from Haan who's going to make these conclusions we looked at why children have to share that with Haan how might these terms be made and we looked at the reasons you know a lot of those reviews with mental health and care of the kids and the critical number of people who have mental health and care of what you're reading so we've gone through the issue of what you're going to do for how you're thinking about how you'll be at home while you're taking care of the children who are being provided to the children so slide nine is the reason you've done a lot of information on young children I think it's really cute that you understand that you at your parent and your children and your friends and your children and you've done a great job and since you've done a lot of information about children and your family you'll see that you've done a lot of things about that and you've done a lot of information on the child and so that's what you're going to do and you'll see it from the book what it was to say, but the real change just forwarded is that, well, if you have a mom who can't give her a baby to children, it's going to be quite a detail. I don't know if it's going to be a lot of talk about it, but I think it's a comment on what you can do. I'm going to say there's a lot of people who don't know about it. So I kind of just forwarded, I don't know if it's going to be a lot of talk about it, but the power of the baby is moving forward. Twenty years ago in Texas you said you were So that said, and once you decide to move forward, you need to correct those questions. How do you make it seem to be a good thing to do where it's going to become a good deal and not to be taken away from the kind of space that you're staying on? What are the best ways to do this in a kind of effective way? How do you make it into a better question? You need to answer those guys. What are the same thing? Same thing. How do you make it into a better way? So make sure that we'll continue on our way to get back to the stuff. Your families and children. We've got a fair amount of talking with them. We'll be able to make it to help them. Truly, think through what is the best way to do it. Do you have strategies at another time? If one of our goals is to talk to families and children, how do we get families and children, or how do we get two families and children without going to the usual and customary advocacy and organizations that provide services? Boom. We see they need to have a solution of their own conversation. And you, I mean, if you rate it as, we ought to be able to figure it out because of what's going to be for, what's it going to be, how do you know who your families are? A lot of people don't need to know what they're doing and what their department is doing. There's a lot to gain by doing it with the department around getting things from child protection. So if we're trying to look at it, we need to check with some of the families that we now don't need to complete. And so some of the places that we see those families that we've got a couple of other places to play in, in games, don't go to work, we have several classes on two terms, for example, because they realize they don't need to come in and have competition. It's not possible. Okay, thank you. Sure. You know, the next piece of this is, and the fact that you're also in the military and you're looking for this talk about, that you're actually acting with, you know, you're not, you're not, which is half of what you're doing without the aid of the ones that you've got to get together. Well, I know that the issues that are all so important and the ability that you all have to get together, the ability that we have to be in the first place, how to get together, how to get together, how do you get together, for example, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? What's going to play? And then what are we going to do? So we're going to make this show right now that we're also going to be in the second place. We're going to be playing polka, the terminal stage. And then you can't be done by the time we're 11. That's when we're still not 30, so try to be able to be, a group that's in there to really get together and be a couple of times. And that they will really take a picture of a band in an early, un-way, as well as making sure that I'm kind of bringing all the ideas to the table and all. One right now, the block, the what do you want me to think about? Well, it certainly was. And I want to be respectful of the fact that you have another meeting right now. So you may need that in contact. And this is really very helpful, especially the summary of it and the role of legislators. So thank you very much. Thank you. All right. Well, thank you so much for coming to this meeting. Thank you again so much for talking to me today. Thank you. Bye. Can I talk to you? We've been having a few minutes to write it. Yeah, we've been having a few minutes to write it. We just read it, so I can't write it. In the next minute, before we all onto one app, because every one day, our point is kind of self-improved. We have two more minutes. One is to write by the end of August. October 31st and November 21st. Oh, we have three more. Yes. Oh, OK. Oh, a few. 17, yes. And the one on the 31st is going to be across the street at the tax building on the 4th floor. I'll send an email up over to the floor. Did I ever tell you guys that? Yeah. I didn't. Well, I'll send it again as we get through it now. Well, what I'm certainly thinking about while we all are being in the room is that we start out the next meeting with a conversation about where are we and where do we want to go. And we also, I'm sorry, maybe you were on email. Maybe it was just me and I and Katie that were on the email. But we promised to have the back representation center come in and have an opportunity. I've also shifted. It's not on the SO side. Oh, OK. OK. Oh, to come in. Yes. And you know, people have the department the opportunity to come in as well. And then if there are other things we want us to make sure we put on that day, we both guess we'll start there.