Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Child Welfare Timeliness topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
DCFS reports fewer children in foster care but lawmakers press agency on initiation delays and staffing
Summary
Director Wright told the Senate Children and Youth Committee that Arkansas saw declines in foster care counts and steady closures but flagged a drop in timely investigation starts; legislators pressed DCFS on staffing, training and pay as drivers of the delay.
At a meeting of the Senate Children and Youth Committee, Director Wright of DCFS presented quarterly and calendar-year reports showing a decline in the number of children in foster care and progress on permanency, while acknowledging problems with timely initiation of maltreatment investigations.
Director Wright said Arkansas accepted 26,813 maltreatment reports in calendar 2023, with roughly 20,000 assigned to DCFS and 5,933 assigned to the Arkansas State Police. "This past calendar year we closed investigations timely at 80%," she said, while noting initiation — the point when a worker must see a child within 24 or 72 hours depending on priority — had slipped in some areas.
Major Geoff Drew of the Police Crimes Against Children Division gave a related quarterly hotline summary earlier in the meeting, reporting the statewide hotline received 15,983 calls and 8,228 were accepted for follow-up. "CACD handled 1,403 of those," he said, while DCFS handled 5,033 and 1,792 were assigned as differential responses.
Lawmakers focused much of their questioning on why some areas show low initiation rates but high completion rates. Senator Love noted one area showed a 52% initiation rate yet a 97% case completion rate, and asked how DCFS reconciles the difference. Director Wright explained that a missed initiation window by even an hour counts as late for the initiation metric, whereas closing a case within 30 days is a separate timeliness measure. "We are hiring people every day at DCFS, but it takes time to get them trained and get them out into the workforce to actually be able to do the work," she said.
Several legislators pressed whether pay is the central retention problem. Director Wright called compensation "a factor" among others such as the emotional intensity of the work and long hours. Senator Love asked about supports for staff mental health; Wright described a pilot secondary-trauma training developed with UAMS and encouraged use of the state employee assistance program (EAP).
On foster care counts and permanency, Wright said the state ended the calendar year with approximately 3,600 children in foster care and that entries and discharges are roughly balanced, with discharges outpacing entries in recent quarters. She reported adoptions finalized for the calendar year numbered 783 and said 73% of foster-care discharges in the most recent quarter were to parents or relatives.
Members asked DCFS to provide additional data: hiring and training counts by county (requested for Pulaski County and Area 3), a report on average lateness when initiations miss their windows, trend analyses from exit surveys, and supervisor caseload tracking. Wright agreed to pursue those items with HR and agency teams.
The committee also heard a statutorily required ‘‘overturned investigations’’ report, which Director Wright said is presented under the act referenced in the report materials. The fourth-quarter performance report showed 7,394 maltreatment reports for that quarter, with a combined timely initiation rate of 73%, 3,837 children served in in-home cases, and 3,553 children in foster care at quarter end.
The meeting began with routine procedural votes: the committee voted to batch five sets of minutes and then to adopt the five packets of minutes, and concluded with Wright thanking members and the panel adjourned.
