Doctors, caseworkers, judges and agency providers in Florida's foster care system are often poorly-informed and need education and training when it comes to giving psychotropic drugs to children.

That's the fundamental conclusion of a new report released Wednesday by the Florida Department of Children and Families that includes 148 "findings" related to the case of Gabriel Myers.  Gabriel, 7,  apparently hung himself in a Florida foster home April 16 after being subjected to a series of dramatic changes and prescribed a series of dangerous, mind-altering drugs in the weeks leading up to his death. The drugs had been administered without a court order and without proper parental permission.

The report was complied by the Gabriel Myers Work Group, which was formed to address the child's death and which will present specific recommendations for system action at an upcoming meeting of the Task Force for Fostering Success. The task force was established in July 2007 to address gaps in Florida's child protection system.

The findings range from small changes - such as providing judges with desk references regarding each psychotropic drug - to a sweeping system overhaul that would develop a clear standard of psychiatric or behavior health care for children in foster care.

The report also calls for changing the mindsets of caseworkers and others who work in the system regarding how they view and treat children caught up in the foster care network.

"It is essential that all participants in Florida's child welfare system understand that each foster child should be cared for and treated as we would our own children," the report states.

"The primary issue to be addressed is not whether psychotropic medications are over-prescribed or under-prescribed in treating our children," the report continues. "Instead, it is whether such medications are necessary and properly prescribed, approved, administered, monitored, and as soon as practical, concluded for a child in care."

Among the report'sother findings:

 *Child welfare workers do not currently have sufficient training to understand and obtain information consent from parents for the use of psychotropic drugs.  

*Doctors routinely prescribe psychotropic drugs for foster children without knowing their full psychosocial histories

*Psychotropic medications are at times being used to help parents, teachers, and other caregivers calm and manage, rather than treat, children.

The report also takes caseworkers, agencies and others to task for their lack of concern for Gabriel's well-being, at one point saying that Gabriel essentially became "no one's child." Regarding Gabriel's specific case, the panel found:

* Appropriate agencies failed to respond when the foster parent clearly indicated by e-mail a number of behavioral issues and that Gabriel's foster care placement was in jeopardy. No action was taken to deal with the evident stress of the foster parent or his lack of success in managing behavior with punishment.  

*The treatment team did not provide Gabriel specific and  upfront therapy to deal with identified trauma, possible post- traumatic stress disorder, and depression. The only intensive therapy was directed at the prevention of sexual behaviors.  

*The case manager and supervisor did not ensure that recommended training to prepare the foster parents to deal with Gabriel's unique background and behavior was provided. 

 "No individual or agency became a champion to ensure that he was understood and that his needs were identified and met in a timely manner," the report states. "There appeared to be no sense of urgency driving the agencies and individuals responsible for Gabriel's welfare."

With vacations and some summer projects in the works at Youth Today, it's been awhile since we posted to the ChildWelfare Today blog. Following is a roundup of CW news from the past month or so. By no means is it comprehensive, so if you feel we left off something important, get in touch!

Funding

*** New private and federal grants were made available over the summer. Check the "Grants" section of our ChildWelfare Today page for all the details. Among the grants available: bridge grants for struggling CASA programs and financial assistance for under-funded child support enforcement agencies.

Headlines

*** There is some talk that Ismael Ahmed, director of Michigan's Department of Human Services, is D.C.-bound, in line for a job with the Obama administration at the Administration for Children and Families. 

Ahmed is at the helm of an agency that is just beginning its attempt to reform around a consent decree it entered after settling a class-action lawsuit with nonprofit litigator Children's Rights. We've written already about the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform's critique of the reform process thus far; its executive director, Richard Wexler, is not a fan of the approach taken by CR or Ahmed, and has been very prolific in his criticism of the process on NCCPR's blog.

Heard this from a local Michigan watchdog: Whatever one thinks of Ahmed, a headless state DHS this early in the reform process would be a setback.    

***Once upon a time, Michigan considered opting for a waiver offered by the federal government that would allow it to spend some of its child welfare allotment money on a more flexible array of services, including efforts to keep families together. The Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) took that waiver three years ago, which we covered at the time. The  New York Times' Erik Eckholm reports that the effort has precipitated a significant decline in the number of children entering foster care, a 32 percent drop statewide. 

Obviously, a decline in the number of kids in care isn't a victory in and of itself. Let's say a once-diligent system worsened over time, and simply did not bother to investigate each abuse/neglect claim vigorously; the number of youths entering care might drop, and it wouldn't necessarily be a good thing.

But if social workers are making educated decisions on what families can be engaged and assisted without foster care, and the number of youths in care continues to drop, it's hard to see that as anything other than progress.

The summer has not been as kind to the rest of Florida DCF, though. The agency is figuring out how to fix its medication procedures after the April death of 7-year-old Gabriel Myers, who allegedly killed himself in state care and who was prescribed multiple antipsychotic medications during his time with DCF.

*** Give this much credit to Florida on the handling of the Myers case: it has handled an ugly situation in a very public way, with live-broadcast meetings of the Myers work group and a website with updates on the investigation and various reforms. In New Jersey much the opposite is happening. New rules on sharing child fatality information might have prevented the state from publicly airing what was happening with psych meds in the system.

There are downsides to publicizing the information. Lots of details about a family's private life can come out. Further, child fatalities are a weak indicator of an entire system's performance; a bad system could go a year with no fatalities while a functional one suffered four. Because of the ugly imagery of events related to a fatality case, coverage can often go a long way toward fueling a foster care panic. But no advocate whom New Jersey paper The Star-Ledger could find said those concerns warrant a compromise in transparency.   

***We don't often go off on personal tangents here but I think this might warrant it. I am a horror movie fan. I abhor violence, but love the sensation of being freaked out a by a film (when there are only imagined, and not real, tragic consequences). The true test of a classic horror film, to me, is that it makes the viewer think twice about doing something...go in the water ("Jaws") or backpack in Europe ("Hostel"), to name two examples.

So when I saw that Warner Bros. had decided to release a horror flick simply titled "Orphan," my stomach turned. Really? A film aimed at freaking the audience out about a girl, traumatized by a life without parents, who terrorizes the family that takes her in? Making moviegoers afraid of the woods is one thing; making them fear adopting a child in need is very different.

At least one group of foster care alums felt the same way, and posted a very moving video response to the film on YouTube.

One of the alums featured in the response wonders why the orphan anglet couldn't have just been an aspect of the plot, not the title; why not just name the movie "Esther," the character's name? Totally agree. 

Research

***A study of 250 Romanian children found that youths moved into high-quality foster care from placements in institutions developed increased brain activity. "This study is one of the first to document the neural consequences of early institutionalization," according to Margaret C. Moulson, the study's lead author.

Interesting collaboration on this study: Romanian children, U.S. researchers, and money from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

***The National Governors' Association and the National Conference of State Legislatures are hosting a policy academy entitled "Achieving and Sustaining a Safe Reduction in Foster Care." It will be Nov. 5-6 in Tampa, Fla. State agencies interested in applying should contact Jody Grutza.

Two national child welfare organizations are teaming up to host webinars on the many provisions of the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoption Act, which was signed last year by former President George W. Bush.

The act was hailed as a major victory by many child welfare advocates. But with a down economy, states have been tepid about embracing new programs for which they would have to match federal dollars. And with a number of major nominees for leadership positions at the Administration for Children and Families yet to be confirmed, the administration has been slow to establish some of the procedural details about Fostering Connections funding.

These two web sessions will hone in on provisions for older foster care youth. Hosts for the online events are the National Foster Care Coalition and the National Court Appointed Special Advocates Association.

Register for the Aug. 5 session here

Register for the Aug. 19 session here

Child welfare in Illinois was in rough shape when the ACLU of Illinois filed a class-action lawsuit against the Department of Children and Family Services in 1988. That same year, a judge in Maryland signed off on settlement of a class-action lawsuit concerning Baltimore's child welfare system, which is part of the Maryland Department of Human Resources (DHR).

Illinois was very successful in implementing a new system, mostly because it committed to spend unmatched state dollars on up-front services that prevent children from ever entering foster care. Baltimore never really got better, and was still so bad in 2007 that Mitch Mirviss, the lead attorney in the lawsuit, was back in front of a judge asking him to hold DHR in contempt of court.

But developments this month have signaled a reversal of fortune for the two systems. Illinois social services were facing catastrophic cutbacks. An agreement by the state general assembly to borrow some money may soften the blow, and a federal judge stepped in to block at least some cuts to DCFS because they would "represent the certainty of irreparable harm to the children." The push to protect child welfare money got a nice little assist from some high-profile stars of the Chicago White Sox.

Despite those actions, the system will operate with far fewer resources next year, and a few of the many private providers that carry out child welfare services for the state believe the cuts will undo a lot of the progress made since the early 1990s.

In Baltimore, things are far from rosy. In his motion seeking a contempt of court ruling, Mirviss spelled out 96 alleged violations of the consent decree. But the motion for contempt led to mediation. And now he and his colleagues working on the case have been so impressed by the leadership of DHR Secretary Brenda Donald that the two sides have fashioned a proposed new  consent decree that could usher the city out of court supervision by 2011. A hearing on the new decree is set for early August. Donald, who became Maryland's DHR secretary in March 2007 was director of D.C.'s Child and Family Services Agency from 2004 to 2005, then became deputy mayor for children, youth, families, and elders (which is pretty much everyone, right?).

The new consent decree shifts the focus of reform to the same concepts that helped Illinois succeed early on: family preservation and family decision making. 

How much did the decision to make a new deal with the state hinge on Donald's presence? "A lot," Mirviss said, when asked that question.  "We definitely feel that the time is now. They will never have a better chance of coming into compliance."

His feeling is that Donald has the rare mix of talents - knows how to run an organization, has political acumen and has her ego in check - to go very far in her career. So who knows how long she'll stay at the state secretary level? National family preservation advocate Richard Wexler agrees: Donald gets it, he wrote in an opinion piece published by the Baltimore Sun.

To be sure: Donald has made strides in moving children in the system toward permanency, and there are about 1,000 fewer youths in Maryland's system  now than there were in 2027. But the state has a ton of work ahead of it if Baltimore is to be released from court control by 2011. The consent decree has 40 outcome measures (read about them here) that the city system must meet within 18 months.

"I certainly hope they comply," Mirviss said. "But it will take tremendous effort, and they won't get out unless they achieve full compliance" with the consent decree. Donald is on vacation, so she was unavailable for comment.

Not everyone is totally thrilled with the performance of DHR under Donald. Mirviss credits her openness to incorporating the ideas of advocates, but the leader of the state's most prominent youth advocacy group has found DHR tough to deal with under Donald.

"We have a tense relationship" with DHR, said Matthew Joseph, executive director of Advocates for Children and Youth (ACY). Joseph cannot remember a time where he had to file more public information requests to find out what he needs to know about DHR operations.

"I have not found them to be transparent," Joseph said. Donald's mentality, he said, appears to be, " 'I'm doing great work, why should you be looking at me at all?' Well, we have an agenda, and we have a lot of concern."

The tension is mutual. In a letter to ACY's board, updating members on DHR progress before the new consent decree was announced, Donald said "we are often surprised and confused by his [Joseph's] negative and inaccurate comments in the press." 

As far as the new consent decree is concerned, Joseph said he is interested in how DHR plans to move so quickly toward a new philosophy built around family preservation and including families in decision-making. Donald's letter to ACY's board mentioned a series of two-day training sessions on the family-centered approach. If that is the whole of it, Joseph said, the shift might be doomed from the start.

"Classroom training is not effective at all," he said. "Field training is important, and that's one of Baltimore's Achilles' heels." Then again, all local DHR departments should have been implementing family involvement meetings since December under DHR's new family-centered policy, so the system isn't exactly starting from scratch now.

Joseph is dubious about DHR's potential to steer Baltimore out of court supervision in such a short period of time -  "I really question if the agency has the capacity to achieve it," he told us - but he does believe the parameters of the new agreement are sound. "The department and the plaintiffs have formed a good relationship," he said. "I respect [the plaintiffs'] judgment on this issue."

Mirviss trusts Donald, and Joseph trusts Mirviss, so it's "to be continued" from there.

***The Family and Youth Services Bureau, a division of the Administration for Children and Families at Health and Human Services, is taking applications for state agencies that would like to be part of a five-year demonstration project on services to rural homeless youth. The applicant for any state must be the agency that handles independent living programs for youth aging out of foster care, and the state must pony up 10 percent of whatever the approved cost of the project is. There will be three grantees selected, and each will receive $200,000 per year.

***Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), who authored the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act that was passed last year, has introduced a bill that would modernize the measures for poverty in the United States. The MAP Act would use the recommendations produced by the National Academy of Sciences to devise a more modern calculation for who qualifies as poor.  For the most part, that means accounting for more modern physical necessities, and on the other side accounting for the increased availability of government assistance. You can read a summary of the bill here.

***The Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative released this report on its Opportunity Passport program in anticipation of Congress reauthorizing the Assets for Independence Act (AIA) this year. One big recommendation the initiative makes to lawmakers: Youths should be able to use their independent accounts, which are matched at up to $1,000 per year through AIA, to purchase vehicles.

For all of the political chicanery associated with Illinois, its services to youth involved with the child welfare system are regarded by many to be the gold standard among the 50 states. And with the help of some serious foundation investments in reform, its juvenile justice system has made notable strides.

So it does not bode well for youth workers across the country that, faced with a large budget gap for next year, the state general assembly signed off on a budget that does nothing short of decimate the programs that have helped Illinois stand out. The Department of Human Services, facing a $2.24 billion cut, would lose nine youth programs and would be forced to make enormous cuts to 20 others.

"In Illinois we have a good system because the state invested general revenue dollars where feds weren't going to help," said Dave McClure, executive director of Youth Services Bureau of Illinois Valley. "Illinois spent its own money; now it's taking it back."

The Department of Human Services circulated this memo listing youth programs on the chopping block. Among those reduced under this budget are delinquency prevention services, YouthBuild programs (at least state funds for them), and Redeploy Illinois, a highly successful juvenile justice pilot program that only recently had been approved for statewide replication.

The new world order would also include foster care caseloads of 50 instead of the current 15 (read that again), and would not include the 36 child advocacy centers that have been built up around the state. Those centers allowed trained experts to interview children involved in abuse/neglect cases while law enforcement, legal counsel and social service staff observed. The total annual price tag on that program is $4 million.

The budget bill is headed to the desk of Gov. Pat Quinn (D). He hates the bill, which basically took his proposal and cut it in half, but he's in a huge bind. To reject the spending cuts, he has to persuade  the assembly to approve new taxes that would provide a higher level of revenue for the state.

Without new taxes, some youth work veterans tell us, Quinn has no choice but to sign the bill as is. And you can imagine how popular the endorsement of a tax hike is at the moment, particularly for those in the general assembly with their eyes on a run at a Congressional seat.

The reaction of youth work executives around the state is something equivalent to the field of the stock market crash. A call to McClure at Youth Services Bureau of Illinois Valley revealed a rambling, voicemail greeting that explained it might take him awhile to return calls as he attempted to save entire parts of his organization.

"Help us ... if you can," McClure said mid-message, followed by a long pause. His organization almost certainly will eliminate park programs it operates in some communities that do not have their own parks and recreation departments, a teen after-school program and the therapy sessions it provides to abused youths.

"I've been here since 1978," McClure said when we finally caught up to him. "Now I'm taking apart much of what I've built up over the last 30 years."

In Bloomington, Project Oz Executive Director Peter Rankaitis said that reputation notwithstanding, he's known the legislature was okay with cutting human services. "It's been building for a long time," said Rankaitis, who will lose all funding for a juvenile diversion program run by Project Oz. "Human services over the last seven years has been taking cuts. My state-funded services for runaway youth gets less actual money than they did in 2000 for the same services."

Meanwhile, the need for services is only going up. Rankaitis said he's getting 10 applicants for every one he can accept into his transitional living program for homeless youth. Before this year the ratio was closer to 3:1.

Illinois' budgetary affairs will have no direct effect on any other state. But if this happens in a state with a good track record on investing in youth - with a plethora of youth advocates and lobbyists - in the state the president is from, what will 2010 look like in other states?

The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges is holding its annual conference in Chicago on July 12-15.

The conference offers a combination of workshops related to juvenile justice and child welfare. A few that looked particularly interesting:

*Front Loading the System: Powerful Tools for Early Permanency

* The Texas Model of Truancy Reduction: Responsibility, Accountability and Due Process (interesting, since the state is mostly known for its unproven daytime curfew experiment when it comes to truants)

*Trauma-informed Interventions for Youth with Behavior Problems in Juvenile and Family Courts

*What's In a Name? - Child Surname Issues (wonder if this is related to this study out of Shippensburg University)

*On Tuesday, July 14, there will also be an 8:30 a.m. session on hip-hop culture. It might be worth the price of admission just to watch judges take that information in with their morning coffee.

The fee for NCJFCJ members is $450; for non-members, it's $550. If you can register in the next three days, the fee is $25 less for either group.

***Eskinder Negash has been appointed to be director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, a division of the Administration for Children and Families that handles federal work on unaccompanied alien children and human trafficking.

Negash is currently the chief operating officer at the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI), a position he has held since 2002. He has three decades of experience working with refugee populations, both in the United States and in Sudan. Negash has first-person experience as well; he came to the U.S. as a refugee from Eritrea.

ORR's budget has grown about $100 million since 2005, when it was $485 million.

***We missed mentioning this in an earlier Notes, but ACF handed out $2 million of ORR money for its Rescue and Restore program, which aims to create anti-trafficking coalitions that will identify and assist victims of trafficking. The grantee is responsible for getting a local coalition up and running, and for re-granting at least 60 percent of its money to local groups to provide services.

Twelve grantees will divide the $2 million:

* Church United For Community Development (La.)- $150,000

* Civil Society (Minn.) - $100,000

* Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking (Calif.) - $250,000

* Contra Costa County, Office of the County Administrator (Calif.)- $226,000

* The Curators of the University of Missouri - $100,000

* Free For Life Ministries (Tenn.) - $100,000

* Illinois Department of Human Services - $249,000

* International Rescue Committee (Wash.) - $250,000

* Justice Resource Institute (Mass.) - $202,000

* Practical Strategies (Wis.)- $100,000

* Sacramento Employment and Training Agency (Calif.)- $238,000

* Southeastern Network of Runaway Youth and Family Services (Fla.) - $185,000

***The Finance Project's Youth Transition Funders Group put out two reports last month on youth aging out of foster care, part of its Connected by 25 project. One outlines strategies for upping the amount of housing available for youth who are aging out, and provides some examples of localities that have already employed the strategies. The other is aimed at helping child welfare leaders develop sound financial plans to support permanency for aging-out youth.

***MIT researcher Joseph Doyle compared the criminal outcomes of youth in foster care to those who were kept with their families, excluding from his sample cases where it was unanimous that the child needed to be removed. Doyle's report states that children removed from the home are three times as likely to enter the adult justice system later in life. 

***Sacramento County's death review team, which analyzes the death of any child under 18, noted a spike in child abuse/neglect-related deaths from three in 2007 to 12 in 2008. So the county is bringing in the Child Welfare League of America to help CPS managers right the ship.

***All is not well in Milwaukee, which has for 11 years been engaged in child welfare reform brought by a settlement with nonprofit litigator Children's Rights. It's gained some recognition for its work in really tough cases using the Wraparound Milwaukee program, but its caseworkers feel burned out and its pool of foster homes has been drastically depleted, as Journal-Sentinel reporter Crocker Stephenson writes in this article. The challenges facing the system were recently documented in an independent report required by the lawsuit settlement.

The National Coalition for Child Protection Reform (NCCPR) is not the biggest fan of Ismael Ahmed, the director of Michigan's Department of Human Services, an agency that last year agreed with nonprofit litigator Children's Rights on a reform plan.

You probably won't see NCCPR Executive Director Richard Wexler and Children's Rights boss Marcia Lowry eating ice cream cones in the park together, either. Wexler - who  won't even write out the name of Lowry's organization without preceding it with something like, "The group that calls itself...," - seems to respect CR's desire to force systems to act right but is often peeved at the remedies CR believes are necessary to achieve that end.

So it's not surprising that Tapeworm in the System, NCCPR's new advocacy piece about Michigan DHS's use of institutions, blasts both Ahmed and CR. Ahmed has talked the talk on helping families stay together, Wexler writes, but endorses a budget that NCCPR said reveals a "pro-provider anti-prevention agenda." Children's Rights' lawsuit, which set this entire process in motion, "read like a thinly-disguised attempt to transfer resources away from birth families and into the pockets of private agencies and middle-class strangers serving as foster families to poor people's children."

This is typical Wexler, using what he calls the "give 'em hell" approach to advocacy. And whether you agree with his specific views or not, his methods are worth studying, as evidenced by his first go-round with Michigan.

NCCPR's first report, Cycle of Failure, honed in on what the organization saw as a "war on grandparents" that was spurred by the Children's Rights lawsuit. At issue was the fact that, per the consent decree between CR and Michigan, an attempt would be made to license the homes of all relatives caring for youths removed from their homes. An October memo from DHS said:

Effective October 1, 2008, children entering DHS foster care custody or being re-placed cannot be placed in the home of a relative unless the relative is willing and able to be licensed as a foster family home.

NCCPR issued its report in February. The next month, Michigan DHS softened its position with a follow-up memorandum outlining the circumstances in which relative caregivers could seek reprieve from formal licensing.

"I certainly don't think our report was the only reason" for the change, Wexler said. "But it wouldn't have happened without us."

It's clear what NCCPR wants to change with report number two: Michigan's use of institutions - which by definition are homes for 12 or more youths - as placement options for foster children. Just over 15 percent of youth in the system are placed in these institutions each year, according to documents provided by DHS to the federal government.

"One-size-fits-all is what Michigan has now, and the one size is institutionalization," Wexler said, an example of his penchant to, at times, opt for flourish over accuracy (since 85 percent of the children in care are not housed in a way he describes as the one size).

CR Senior Staff Attorney Sara Bartosz disagreed with Wexler on the placement numbers, telling CW Today that Michigan relied on institutions less than the average state. Not true: the national average for institution placement is 10.2 percent, although Michigan reports so few youths in group homes (those with fewer than 12 people) that its total placements to congregate care (institutions plus group homes) does come in line with national standards. There were 3,103 youths in institutions in 2006, and only 46 in group homes.

Will this report serve as the same kind of catalyst as the first one? It certainly will be harder to elicit change this time, for political reasons. There wasn't exactly money in the balance with the last change prodded by NCCPR; nobody lost dollars because DHS took a more reasoned approach to sanctioning relative caregivers. Curtailing how many youth are taken in by large residential organizations would certainly affect those groups' bottom lines, which means possible job losses in a state that has lost more than its share during this economic spiral.

Wexler said the only way Michigan will move the dial on institutionalization is if child advocates can find a way to work with the state's fiscal conservatives. He believes the fiscal conservatives can be sold on the idea that the state could save money without sacrificing safety by cutting back on institutional placement. "Both have an interest in curbing institutions," Wexler said.

It isn't an easy partnership - since child advocates are often pushing against financial hawks - but it isn't without recent precedent. In the juvenile justice field, rehabilitation-minded advocates have pined for less reliance on locked facilities for decades. Recently, successful attempts at closures have been aided by fiscal conservatives who were convinced of the cost-benefits by organizations such as Fight Crime: Invest in Kids.

If you aren't watching what your state legislators and governor are doing with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families money (TANF), now is the time to get on it. The Administration for Children and Families, a division of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a rule yesterday that spells out specifically what the Recovery Act allotted for: the relatively unrestricted use of unspent TANF funds.

Here's what that means. Before the Recovery Act, TANF money remained with a state even if it went unspent in the year it was distributed ("carried over" money, in government speak). But there was a caveat: states could only spend those dollars on direct assistance and payments to needy families or support services for unemployed parents like child care or transportation.

Now, the restrictions have been lifted. A state can now use old TANF funds, the rule says, for "any allowable TANF benefit, service, or activity such as job skills training or re-training activities, employment counseling services, parental counseling services, teen pregnancy prevention activities, services for victims of domestic violence, after-school programs."

How big a deal is that? Depending on what state you are in, it's either huge or not a big deal at all. Data from ACF indicates that about a dozen states spent all of their TANF money in fiscal 2007. Some states left only a couple million unobligated.

But a lot of states are carrying a pretty significant balance of TANF dollars. Six of them (Colo., Ga., Hawaii, Md., Ohio, Tenn.) posted more than $100 million in unobligated funds for 2007, and another eight (Ark., Ky., N.M., N.Y., Ore., S.C. and Utah) reported between $50 million and $100 million.

Until now, that  money could not be used a community-level venture at attempting to improve families and prevent the kind of situations that often lead to child welfare system involvement.

Whether any of that money gets into the hands of youth service providers is up to those providers and the people that lobby for them. It is not required of these states to spend the TANF reserves; the rule just means that if they want to, they can spend it on a wider array of things.

So between the thrift mentality that appropriately has beset most state finance leaders and the scores of other industries that could seek out these dollars, pressure almost certainly will need to be applied if that money is going to get to after-school programs, pregnancy prevention, family preservation or any other TANF-approved venture.

Youth-focused reform efforts had another strong showing this year among the finalists for the Innovations in Government Award, which is funded by the Ford Foundation and overseen by the Kennedy School of Government's Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard University.

In 2008, it was the juvenile justice field front and center. Washington, D.C.'s Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services made it to the final 50, and Missouri's Division of Youth Services was one of the six award winners.

This year, it is efforts at serving families involved in the child welfare system that garnered three of the 16 finalist spots. Any program selected as an actual winner will receive $100,000.

The State of Maine, for its child welfare reforms: Like last year's nominee, the D.C. Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, Maine's child welfare system was in dire straits before new leadership and philosophy took hold. Mary Callahan, a former foster parent, got things started by speaking frequently and poignantly about the fact that the vast majority of children who came into her home could easily have stayed with their parents. Under the leadership of Gov. John Baldacci (D) and Jim Beougher, director of the Office of Child and Family Services in the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, Maine has sought to reduce the foster care caseload by using data better, keeping more youths with family members, and focusing more resources on family preservation.

Milwaukee County Behavioral Health Division, for Wraparound Milwaukee: The program will accept any youth that fits the following criteria: has a serious emotional or health need, has been referred from the child welfare or juvenile justice system, and is otherwise headed for placement. Wraparound tailors an entire plan of services to that youth and his or her family. The program got its start in 1995, when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Center for Mental Health Services gave the county a six-year, $15 million grant to develop comprehensive, community-based care.

City of Louisville, Ky., for Neighborhood Places: Since 1993, the neighborhood places have served as more accessible portals to services for those in need. Families go through one intake and assessment process, and sign a consent to release information. That enables staff from four major providers of youth and family services - who daily are in place at eight "neighborhood places" and three satellite sites throughout the metro area - to work together and determine what any given family is eligible to receive. The State of Louisiana plans on adapting the model for New Orleans.

***The Administration for Children and Families issued two solicitations for the Strengthening Communities Fund, which is part of the Recovery Act funds allotted to the agency. Both solicitations carry a deadline of July 7.

The Nonprofit Capacity Building Fund will make 34 grants of $1 million to organizations that will serve as lead agencies in their area. Grantees will be tasked with helping other area nonprofits serving children and families increase capacity on five counts: organizational development, program development, collaboration and community engagement, leadership development and evaluation of effectiveness.

The State, Local, and Tribal Government Capacity Building Program goes to public agencies for some "helping you help us" work. The agencies can use the money to help nonprofits and faith-based groups build their capacity to assist states and county agencies provide services to families. Priorities include helping nonprofits adjust services based on needs created by the economic downturn, bringing groups together to seek out Recovery Act funds, and improving the coherence of local referrals for services or benefits. ACF expects to fund about 48 projects with $250,000 each over two years.

***The Family Defense Center, a Chicago-based group that advocates for families involved in the child welfare system, has launched an interesting new project that CW Today will be keeping tabs on. The Mothers Defense Project will take on the cause of mothers who the FDC believes have had children removed from them illegally, and make efforts to publicize the facts of such cases. 

That is a well-timed endeavor. Lots of newspapers, hampered by buyouts and layoffs, are struggling to fill pages with valuable content. So you would think that feeding editors and reporters the lede to potentially interesting features should have more impact now than ever.

The project, which had its initial planning meeting in mid-April, is profiled on page five of this newsletter from FDC.

***The mad rush to finalize legislation for the year in the State of Washington produced an interesting experiment for the state's child welfare system. After a lot of back and forth between legislators, lobbyists and Gov. Chris Gregoire (D), a deal was struck to conduct an enormous experiment in privatization.

In a nutshell, 20 percent to 40 percent of the state's caseload will be taken over by caseworkers and staff employed by private providers, while the rest will remain under the auspices of state social workers. In the experimental areas, the state workers will still handle initial investigations and foster care licensing.

This constitutes one of, if not the, largest side-by-side comparisons of private and public child welfare operation. On top of that, the reform bill requires the Children's Administration to change all of its contracts to performance-based agreements in less than two years.

"In the past, we've based funding on caseload sizes and service volumes, which rewards and encourages bigger caseloads and more services," said state Rep. Ruth Kagi in a statement last week. "The new approach will focus on rewarding those service providers who most effectively help at-risk children and families," Kagi said.

A report measuring the performance of the privately run areas will be produced by 2015. Anyone interested in following this and other developments with Washington's system should read Olympian reporter Adam Wilson's blog. Excellent resource.

***A couple of resources on the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoption Act. First, the National Governors Association hosted two webcasts over the past two months on the act. One features leaders from the child welfare agencies in Connecticut and Massachusetts discussing how to use the act to assist older youth in care, particularly those on the precipice of aging out. The other is a discussion about the act's education provisions with Pennsylvania leaders and American Bar Association Assistant Staff Director Kathleen McNaught. The ABA has also produced a basic Q&A about the education portion of the act.

Also worth perusing is the Juvenile Law Center's report on the act, which was born of  a convening the organization held right after the act was signed into law by President George W. Bush in October. Discussions of the act's provisions focused on six main themes: permanency and planning, education, employment, health/mental health, housing, and court practices. 

***On June 22, the Performance Institute's Center for Social and Youth Policy is hosting an online training session about child and family service grants available under the Recovery Act. The 90-minute session is designed to help organizations figure out the distribution of new funds and how a private or nonprofit provider can tap into those dollars. Tuition is $199.

In an unusually swift manner that bucks the common practice of secrecy characterizes most child welfare agencies, the Florida Department of Children and Families has established a Web site devoted to giving a full and public accounting of the circumstances surrounding the death of a child in state care.

From a detailed timeline to concessions that mistakes were made in handling the case, the website contains an abundance of information concerning the death of 7-year-old Gabriel Myers, who reportedly hung himself in the shower of his foster parents' home in Margate. The child's death followed a series of placements that broke down and decisions to administer psychotropic medication without parental consent or judicial approval.

The Florida Department of Children and Families is currently conducting a review of all foster children in its care who have been prescribed medications to make sure there is parental consent or a court order. That report will be posted on the website when it is complete.

Child welfare reform advocates say it's rare for child welfare agencies to post information as comprehensive as the website on the Gabriel Myers case.

"It's very unusual for a child welfare agency to tell the public this much about a case where a child 'known to the system' died, but it's not unheard-of," says Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, based in Alexandra, Va.

"This much candor is rare in itself," Wexler said. "But I've never before seen an agency make the information so accessible."

Wexler noted that the website even includes links to news stories critical of the agency.

"It's one more sign that a child welfare agency once synonymous with failure has turned the corner and is making real improvements," Wexler said. "And when it comes to candor, Florida DCF is now the national leader."

From a policy perspective, there is nary a person with a bad word to say about the guardianship assistance payments established by the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008, passed by the last Congress and signed by President George W. Bush in October.

The program allows states to use a portion of its Title IV-E money from the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) to assist relatives who are willing to become legal guardians of youths who would otherwise be destined for foster care.

How it works: A state or county agency comes to an agreement with a relative willing to take guardianship, assists them financially in gaining legal guardian status, and pays them a regular benefit that can be  as much or less than the state's assistance to foster parents. Because these arrangements require less monitoring on the part of a child welfare system, it enables agencies to devote their staff to fewer youths.

Representatives for child welfare systems and agencies like the program. Family preservation advocates like it. President Barack Obama already set aside about $50 million in his 2010 budget for it. So why have only six states officially submitted plans to ACF to opt in for the funding?

The District Columbia, Tennessee, Rhode Island, Maine, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Oregon are  the only ones who have submitted the necessary plans to start guardianship assistance programs under Title IV-E, the entitlement money provided to states for foster care.

There appear to be a few reasons that other state agencies are taking their time deciding whether to opt in:

1) Legislation. The National Association of Public Child Welfare Administrators (NAPCWA) is interviewing every state about its efforts to implement Fostering Connections Act programs. A number of states are interested, said NAPCWA Director Anita Light, but have determined that they will need to pass new legislation in order to start participating in IV-E GAP.

"It's not that those states are not supportive, they just have to make changes," Light said. NAPCWA has produced final reports for eight states, with 10 more coming soon.

She expects to see more states in this situation to submit plans to ACF by the fourth quarter of this fiscal year. CW Today is skeptical. Legislation can take a long time to hammer through in states where legislatures convene only once or twice a year. And any bill that remotely involves spending will be tough because of reason number two...

2) The economy. Fostering Connections enabled states to access IV-E money for this venture. But like IV-E funds for foster care, it's not free; states have to match the money, many at 50 percent (poorer state contribute less).

Matching it with any other federal dollars is prohibited. So implementing GAP means ponying up for the payments and any costs involved in creating a system to manage it.

That probably wouldn't have been a problem if the act was passed in, say, 2007. But with a bad economy already and much worse budget shortfalls projected for most states in 2010, the words "increase" and "spending" aren't used consecutively in many state budget debates these days.

"In some cases, it's the additional costs associated with implementing optional programs," said Light. "Maybe a year ago,  we wouldn't be having the issues."

That is a shame, because there couldn't be a better year to implement GAP from a fiscal perspective. The stimulus package upped the federal contribution of IV-E money for 2009, so this is the year states will pay the lowest share of its child welfare costs.

That all frustrates advocates like Terence Kane, public policy analyst for Generations United, who is preaching the potential for cost savings. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the feds would save $791 million between now and 2018 through GAP, so states could reasonably anticipate savings as well since it is a matching program.

But it doesn't surprise Kane, either. "States are going to be hesitant about new options in this economy," he said. Our job is "continuing to educate" states.

One thing that might help here is the $14 million solicitation ACF put out last week for projects that would help states make Fostering Connections Act programs work.

3) TANF is cheaper. States that operate guardianship assistance programs now have three basic options to fund them. One is using state revenue (and you can guess how stable anything completely state-funded is at the moment), two is a IV-E waiver project arranged with ACF, and the other is through its block of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) grants.

Because of the aforementioned structure of IV-E GAP, continuing to operate out of TANF might be an attractive option. It can set its own rules for who is eligible and how the program works. And best of all from a fiscal perspective, states don't have to match the TANF money.

The rules for IV-E GAP also may have miffed some states operating their own programs. A letter sent to ACF in April criticized the agency for barring states with existing programs from incorporating their current caseloads into the new program.

That rule and others were announced in interim program instructions issued to IV-E agencies in December, before the new administration took over. Any changes to them are highly unlikely to come before Carmen Nazario, Obama's choice to lead ACF, is confirmed by the Senate.

4) Impact on Adoption. John Mattingly, the commissioner of New York City's child welfare system, is well-regarded for his efforts at child welfare reform (in the city and, before that, at the Annie E. Casey Foundation). But even he is approaching the idea of a subsidized guardianship program with caution because of its implications on adoption. Mattingly addressed his concerns in an e-mail to the Center for New York City Affairs in April:

"Those of us who have been in the field long enough know that most times, relatives will adopt if reunification is not a live option, if the agency supports them in their decision, and if it will achieve permanence for the child. In sum, kinship guardianship can be the best option for a small percentage of children, but the State of New York needs to be careful to craft regulations for its use that will continue the emphasis on adoption for most children who cannot return home."   

The thinking there is that adoption is still the more permanent result for the child, and relatives who would otherwise adopt might like the benefits of the guardianship better than any help they'd get for adopting. Fair enough. But the question is, how do you regulate that? And if you can't think of a perfect way, is that concern really worth not implementing GAP at all?

5) Crafting a Standard Agreement. Once a state opts in to IV-E GAP, "it is obligated to provide such assistance to any child who is eligible for title IV-E kinship guardianship assistance payments," according to ACF's program instructions. In other words: Once you're in, you're in all the way.

The basic eligibility stuff is the same as foster care; if a child meets the criteria for reimbursement for IV-E foster care, he or she counts for GAP too. The other determinants are more subjectively made by local agencies:

    -Are reunification or adoption not appropriate permanency options?

    -Does the child demonstrate a strong attachment to the prospective guardian?

    -Does the guardian demonstrate a strong commitment?

State and local agencies will need to train staff to recognize who qualifies, and how to start that process.

The agencies also will need to develop a standard agreement for guardians to sign that spells out what would void the guardianship. Advocates and watchdogs should keep eyes on those agreements, because there is already evidence that they could vary from state to state. For instance, Oregon's agreement stipulates that if a child covered under GAP is incarcerated for 30 days, the agreement is terminated. California (which runs its own program and hasn't opted into IV-E GAP yet) extended its guardianship program a couple years ago to include kids who were coming home from incarceration.

***A few new funding announcements from the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), which may finally have a permanent boss soon.

-Family Connection Discretionary Grants: Support demonstration projects that try new approaches to keeping system-involved kids connected with their families. There's some freedom to advance a new idea, but it has to be within the context of these four priority areas: Kinship Navigator Programs; programs utilizing intensive family-finding efforts; programs utilizing family group decision-making meetings; and residential family treatment program.

ACF is going to make about 30 awards, and the range will be $450,000 to $1 million per year. It's mostly looking for state and local agencies, although a private entity can seek funding with the endorsement of the governing agency in its area. Deadline is July 6.

-Expansion of Head Start: This is $102 million from the stimulus package for existing Head Start programs to use to expand either the area it serves or the universe of low-income students eligible for enrollment. There is a high ceiling on awards ($5 million), but grantees have to bring 20 percent of the cost to the table from other sources. Deadline is June 23.

***For anyone who can make it Chicago in late July, the American Bar Association is offering  free training on how effectively to represent child victims in criminal cases. 

***The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption came out with its annual list of the Best Adoption-Friendly Workplaces. The ranking is based on financial reimbursements and paid leave given to employees who choose to adopt.

The winner, for the second year in a row, was Wendy's, the well-known burger joint chain founded by Dave Thomas. View the top 100 here.

***Children's Rights, the nonprofit litigator, based in New York, has persuaded a U.S. district judge to grant class-action status to its lawsuit against the State of Oklahoma Department of Human Services. Does CR ever lose a court hearing? It's doesn't seem like it. From the details reported here by Tulsa World reporter Ginnie Graham, this lawsuit will come down to the state agreeing to set some standards for caseloads for its frontline workers. CR also has an ongoing lawsuit in Rhode Island.

***Denver-based American Humane has received $250,000 from the Colorado Department of Human Services (via federal TANF dollars) to address racial disparities in the state's child welfare system. It will launch the Colorado Disparities Resource Center, and will partner in that venture with University of California-Berkeley's Child Welfare Resource Center and the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (which has already taken steps to address racial disparity).

The center will be run by Donna Parrish, who will answer to John Fluke, head of American Humane's Child Protection Research Center.

***Al Zimmerman, the former spokesman for the Florida Department of Children and Families, has been sentenced to 24 years in prison. Zimmerman pleaded guilty in January to producing and selling child pornography; one of his subjects was a foster child.

Those who have read our first subject-related blog, JJ Today, know our routine: We try to post original pieces throughout the week, and Friday is generally reserved for more quick-hit summaries: notes about funding, interesting media coverage, anything else.

***HHS's Administration for Children and Families put out a whole bunch of funding notices in April. Here are some details on some of the larger ones:

Mentoring Children of Prisoners: $9 million for 70 awards, and most types of governmental bodies and nonprofits are eligible. Deadline: June 19.

Family Support Centers 360 and Family Support Centers 360 Special Initiatives: $2.5 million between the two of them to set up centers that serve the families of people with developmental disabilities. Letter of Intent deadline: May 27.

Street Outreach Program: Funding for organizations that serve runaway and homeless youth populations, designed to help forge relationships between youth on the street and organization staff; $5 million for 50 awards. 

***The task force created to help steer Michigan's child welfare system on the right track came out with its initial report this week, which is rather hard to find on the website,  so just use the hotlink here. The state got itself into serious trouble by terminating the parental rights of way too many children in the 1990s and early 2000s, who then clogged the system. It recently settled a class-action lawsuit with CW litigation group Children's Rights.

The task force's solutions include making a heavy investment in front-end services designed to keep some families together and prevent others from ever having cases opened with the Department of Human Services (DHS).

"Michigan has a number of effective early-intervention and family-preservation programs, but state and federal policies and funding streams too often drive children into out-of-home placement," task force co-chairs C. Patrick Babcock and Carol Goss wrote in a Detroit Free-Press column announcing the report. "The task force believes strongly that resources should be redirected to addressing problems early, before it is necessary to take the more costly and traumatic step of removing children from their homes."

Babcock, who used to run the state's DHS, tells CW Today he is a big fan of DHS Director Ismael Ahmed. "I have great respect for him," Babcock said. "He is one of most competent people we've had" at DHS.

But Richard Wexler, who heads the National Center for Child Protection Reform, questioned how devoted Ahmed could be to family preservation given the budget he and Gov. Jennifer Granholm submitted for 2010, which level-funds or cuts lots of front-end programs.

Babcock is hoping that one of the task force's proposals can make the difference: a tax on beer of about two to three cents a bottle. The money would be dedicated for use only for family preservation or juvenile justice prevention, Babcock said. But in financially devastated Michigan, he concedes, the group has already "caught some flack" for proposing any kind of tax.

It may come down to a state media campaign featuring beer-loving Michiganders supporting the tax. Seriously.

***It would be hard to pick a recent villain in the realm of youth work that rivals 64-year-old Judith Leekin, who was sentenced to 10 years last summer for fraud after getting lots of money to care for - and then abusing - New York City children she adopted. Now, lawyers for the children want the city to pay up for not paying better attention.

Leekin used four aliases to adopt 11 New York City children, then left them locked in rooms at her home first in New York and later Florida. She used the $1.7 million she received over the years on herself. All of the children are now between 16 and 28, and all suffer from either mental or physical disabilities.

A lawsuit brought by two Florida attorneys on behalf of 10 of the children asks for damages from the city on the grounds that the city did not properly investigate Leekin's fitness as a mother or monitor the children's care in her home.

The city does not appear open to settling the case, as indicated by comments in this New York Times story. But you wonder whether it would let such a tragic case go to a jury when the Administration for Children's Services faces the same reality as every other New York agency: looming budget cuts.

***Florida will look into the suicide of Gabriel Myers, a very young child in its care. The 7-year-old took his life in a foster home nine months after being removed from his birth parents, and there is a concern that prescribed medication played a role in his suicide.

***Congrats to Karen de Sa of San Jose's Mercury News, whose series on California's juvenile dependency courts has won her a Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association. The series revealed that hearings on reunification lasted just minutes, and children and parents often were provided substandard legal representation. 

The Mercury News web page featuring all of de Sa's stories and coverage of its effects leaves out one article detailing a darker part of the aftermath. Gary Proctor, who ran the legal firm that represented parents in Santa Clara family court, announced that he would get out of the dependency court business after the series chronicled a lack of preparation time and resources on the part of his staff. A month after the series ran, Proctor committed suicide.

This is the first of many updates on our new online feature, CW Today. Something between a blog and a newsletter, our goal here is to provide our child welfare readers with a regular dose of news and insight on all aspects of the field: business, available funding, reform efforts, job opportunities and other features we'll develop along the way.

Of course, the best way for us to optimize this coverage will be to hear from readers, so use our comments section, or e-mail me to weigh in on what we're writing about in CW Today posts or to let us know what we should be covering.

OJJDP announced a new funding opportunity for mentoring youth in foster care. Check it out, along with other grants available, at GrantsToday.

The National Center on Crime and Delinquency has begun work on a major new project: The National Center for Girls and Young Women, which will be based in Jacksonville, Fla., and funded with a $500,000 start-up grant from the Jessie Ball duPont Fund.

The new venture will be run by Lawanda Ravoira, who will need no introduction to JJ professionals in the center's home state. She recently served as vice chairwoman of Florida's Blueprint Commission on Juvenile Justice, and served for 14 years as CEO of the PACE Center for Girls, which serves 4,500 at-risk Florida girls each year.

The center couldn't come at a better time. It is entirely possible that, should Congress reauthorize the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act next year, judges might not have the option of sending status offenders to any secure facility by 2012.

That would significantly affect what judges do with girls, who are committed to such facilities for status offenses with far greater frequency than are their male counterparts. Translation: it's time to develop and proliferate some services tailored to girls.

We e-mailed Ravoira for some of her thoughts on the state of girls in juvenile justice.

JJ Today: You hear and read a lot that girls are the "fastest-growing" population in juvenile justice; the phrase "girls represent the fastest growing segment of the juvenile justice population" gets 32 hits on Google. Do you believe that is still true today, or has the growth in the percentage of juveniles who are female subsided?

Ravoira: Girls are the fastest growing juvenile justice population. The national picture shows that crime rates are decreasing for both girls and boys, but the rate of decrease has been slower for girls. Nationally, since 1997, there has been an 18 percent decrease for boys who are incarcerated compared to only an 8 percent decrease for girls. However, there are 14 states where the female juvenile rate of incarceration has increased more than 30 percent since 1997.

JJ Today:  In announcing the center, NCCD President Barry Krisberg said that many girls' programs "were boys' programs painted pink." What are the fundamental differences in how you reach female offenders?

Ravoira: What must first be understood about girls is the pathways that lead girls and young women into the justice system. To successfully reach girls, we must address the victimization and past trauma that often results in a girl's involvement in the justice system. Girls can be especially vulnerable and misunderstood due to the effects of past trauma and emotional factors (e.g., depression, anger, self-destructive behaviors and mental health/clinical diagnosis) that contribute to delinquent behavior. Girls can present with extreme mood swings that include being withdrawn, aggressive or even assaultive. Some girls internalize their pain while others act out and display intense feelings and destructive behaviors that result in involvement in criminal activity.

JJ Today: Give us some examples of projects, research you guys want to take on at the National Center for Girls and Young Women. Do you see the center becoming the authoritative voice on females in juvenile justice, or simply serving a supportive role?

Ravoira: The center will be the leading voice for girls in the justice system and for those girls who are caught in the justice and the child welfare systems. Our work will be grounded in advocacy that promotes systemic change and that is driven by the needs of girls and young women.

JJ Today: Are there any programs, counties, states that really "get" how to take girls in the system and successfully keep them from coming back?

Ravoira: This is an excellent question. At this time we are looking to find the state or even a local jurisdiction that is investing in girls and young women.

JJ Today: You've operated out of Florida for a long time. Gov. Crist put the blue ribbon commission on juvenile justice together, which you were a part of. But he only put $4.6 million towards your recommendations, right? Were you disappointed with the follow-through there, and what are your thoughts so far on new [state] JJ leader Frank Peterman?

Ravoira: I am not only disappointed, I am compelled to continue to speak out and challenge our elected officials to be courageous and invest in all of Florida's children - and particularly address the gender inequity in the treatment of girls and young women. Secretary Peterman has reached out to the National Center for Girls and Young Women and we are currently developing a gender responsive training program for the department.

JJ Today: What are the most frequent tell-tale signs for you that a girl is seriously headed toward a chronically-violent future, as opposed to a girl who may have done something that is likely to be a one-time thing?

Ravoira: It is imperative that when looking at the needs of girls, that we recognize it is the trauma that drives girls behaviors, and too often our system focuses on the behavior and the trauma that is the core issue is forgotten. Or worse we re-traumatize girls when they come into the system. When a girl does not have a network of supports, it is more likely that she will spiral into a situation that leads to unsafe living conditions. Without the support network (or programs and services that can provide the supports that any girl needs), it is more likely that she will end up getting deeper into trouble as a result of a lifestyle that is based on survival (living on the streets, needing to make money for food, shelter; etc.).

JJ Today: It's well-known that judges tend to detain and commit girls for things they probably shouldn't: 14 percent of ALL females 20 and under who were detained/committed/diverted to a juvenile residential facility on census day in 2006 were status offenders, as opposed to 4 percent of all guys.

But many judges will tell you they do that out of fear for a girl's safety in many cases. If those options are phased out (as has been proposed in the Senate version of the JJDPA reauthorization), what do you think those judges will do (and what should they do) when status-offending girls come before them?

Ravoira: First, we must address the gender inequity that exists in the justice system specific to this attitude that we will protect girls by detaining them. The result is not protection at all - it is an issue of inequitable treatment. The decision to detain should be based on the level of the public safety threat. Girls who commit status offenses can be better served in the community - in gender responsive community based programs and services.

When girls come before a judge for status offenses, the judge should work with the public defender and other professionals to refer her to the appropriate community-based programs. When these programs are not available, we should not punish girls for the lack of services. And I would ask - given that the same situation does not happen to boys - what do they do when boys commit status offenses? The response is not to commit them to locked facilities.

JJ Today: Given the high percentage of female offenders who have experienced physical or emotional abuse, do you think mental health screening should pretty much be automatic with girls at intake ... or that counseling should automatically be part of the disposition?

Ravoira: It is imperative that girls be assessed automatically with a gender responsive and culturally specific assessment tool. The assessment tool should be done as soon as she enters the system and recommendations should be driven by the needs of the girls balanced with the public safety risk.

The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges and the National District Attorneys Association are looking for presenters for the 2009 National Conference on Juvenile Justice, which will be held March 11-14 in Orlando. It will presumably be the first major JJ conference under a new president and Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention administrator (maybe not...that would be a quick turnaround confirmation-wise).

Go here by Sept. 15 to make a proposal. Questions? E-mail the council's director of conference planning Diane Barnette.