Colorado’s child welfare system is state supervised and administered by Colorado’s 64 counties. The Division of Child Welfare oversees child welfare practice, provides policy direction and provides 80 percent of the funding for services. Counties contribute approximately 20 percent of the funding through local revenues. The Colorado Department of Human Services’ (CDHS) Division of Child Welfare is composed of a specialized set of services that strengthen the ability of the family to protect and care for their own children, minimize harm to children and youth, and ensure timely permanency planning. Services stabilize the family situation and strengthen the family’s capacity to care for their children. When safety is not possible within the family, services focus on the child’s need for a stable, permanent home as quickly as possible.
Missouri is a Midwestern state populated by over six million residents making it the 18th-most populous state of the Union and is comprised of 114 counties. For the purpose of child welfare services the state is divided into 6 geographic regions. The Missouri Department of Social Services is collaborating with six private child welfare agencies including Cornerstones of Care which is the awarded contractor for recruitment, licensure and retention of resource families in the identified region, their subcontractor Foster Adopt Connect, as well as privatized foster care case management partners; Missouri Alliance for Children and Families, Crittenton Children’s Center, Great Circle and Missouri Baptist Children’s Home. Each of these agencies will be participating in a pilot of the NTDC curriculum in the northwest corner of the state which includes the greater Kansas City metropolitan area. The curriculum will be offered only to non-relative resource families.
Oklahoma is located in the South Central region of the United States and is comprised of seventy-seven counties. The Oklahoma Department of Human Services will be working with the National Resource Center for Youth Services out of the University of Oklahoma to pilot the NTDC curriculum in Oklahoma County and contiguous counties. The curriculum will be offered to both relative and non-relative families who reside in or around Oklahoma City, the state’s largest metropolitan area.
Illinois is the 6th most populous state in the United States with a total population of approximately 12.8 million people. Cook County, which includes the city of Chicago, has a population of more than five million. Illinois is both urban and rural and has 102 counties which comprise the four regions designated by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (IDCFS). These regions include:
The Georgia Division of Family & Children Services separates it’s 159 counties into 14 regions for services. DFCS is piloting a new curriculum in Region 4 located in the west central part of the state. The project will include the participation of 12 counties: Carrol, Heard, Troup, Coweta, Meriwether, Fayette, Henry, Spalding, Pike, Upson, Lamar and Butts Counties, and 12 private agencies: Bethany, Meritan, Wellroot, Bloom Our Youth, New Beginnings, Georgia Parent Support, Christian City, Winshape, Ray of Hope, NECCO, and Families 4 Families. Both kinship and non-kinship families will participate in the NTDC curriculum.
The Florida Department of Children and Families is ultimately responsible for the care, safety and protection of children, pursuant to Chapter 39, Florida Statutes. However, with the passage of legislation in 1996 mandating the Department establish pilot programs to privatize foster care and related services, the state has moved to a community-based care model which combines the outsourcing of foster care and related services to competent service agencies with an increased local community ownership of service delivery and design. A statewide network of comprehensive, community-based care lead agencies have been equipped to manage and deliver services to Florida’s foster youth. There are currently 18 lead agencies throughout Florida that are responsible for the provision of foster care and related services either directly, or by contract through a local network of providers.
The National Training and Development Curriculum will be piloted in seven Kansas counties including: Johnson, Wyandotte, Miami, Douglas, Shawnee, Osage, Franklin, and Miami. Results from the pilot sites will be compared to the results for families in six central Kansas Counties including; Sedgewick, Reno, Kingman, Butler, Sumner, and Harvey. The counties include the six urban populations in the state as well as four rural or densely-settled rural counties. All child placing agencies in the pilot and comparison site counties will be participating in the evaluation of pre-service training for prospective adoptive and foster families, and kinship parents.
The Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community (SRPMIC) is a federally recognized tribe that has 9,000 enrolled tribal members who are made up of two tribes, the Pima and Maricopa. Their tribal lands is made up of 52,600 acres and is located in the metropolitan Phoenix area (Scottsdale AZ, Maricopa County). Since SRPMIC is a sovereign nation they provide numerous types of services to their membership and as such do not have any local, state or other agencies involved in their NTDC pilot and they will offer the curriculum to families who are interested in becoming licensed through their tribal child welfare agency.
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This product was funded by the Children’s Bureau, Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, under grant #90CO1132. The contents of this document are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the Children’s Bureau.