This is the accessible text file for GAO report number GAO-03-611T 
entitled 'District of Columbia: Issues Associated with the Child and 
Family Services Agency's Performance and Policies' which was released 
on April 02, 2003.



This text file was formatted by the U.S. General Accounting Office 

(GAO) to be accessible to users with visual impairments, as part of a 

longer term project to improve GAO products’ accessibility. Every 

attempt has been made to maintain the structural and data integrity of 

the original printed product. Accessibility features, such as text 

descriptions of tables, consecutively numbered footnotes placed at the 

end of the file, and the text of agency comment letters, are provided 

but may not exactly duplicate the presentation or format of the printed 

version. The portable document format (PDF) file is an exact electronic 

replica of the printed version. We welcome your feedback. Please E-mail 

your comments regarding the contents or accessibility features of this 

document to Webmaster@gao.gov.



Testimony:



Before the Subcommittee on the District of Columbia, Committee on 

Appropriations, 

United States Senate:



United States General Accounting Office:



GAO:



For Release on Delivery Expected at 10:00 a.m. EST:



Wednesday, April 2, 2003:



District of Columbia:



Issues Associated with the Child and Family Services Agency’s 

Performance and Policies:



Statement of Cornelia M. Ashby, Director

Education, Workforce, and Income Security Issues:



GAO-03-611T:



GAO Highlights:



Highlights of GAO-03-611T a testimony before the Subcommittee on the 

District of Columbia, Committee on Appropriations, U.S. Senate



Why GAO Did This Study:



The District of Columbia (DC) Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) 

is responsible for protecting thousands of foster care children at risk 

of abuse and neglect and ensuring that critical services are provided 

for them and their families. Representative Tom Davis, Chairman of the 

House Committee on Government Reform, asked GAO to discuss the extent 

to which CFSA has taken actions to address the requirements of the 

Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) of 1997 and other selected 

performance criteria, adopted and implemented child protection and 

foster care placement policies, and enhanced its working relationship 

with the D.C. Family Court.



What GAO Found:



CFSA took actions to address six of the nine ASFA requirements related 

to the safety and well-being of children and met or exceeded four of 

the eight performance criteria GAO included in its study.



CSFA has established many foster care policies, but caseworkers did not 

consistently implement the six GAO examined. In addition, CFSA’s 

automated system lacked data on policy implementation for 70 percent of 

its foster care cases. The table summarizes three of these policies and 

the percentage of cases for which the data indicated the policy was 

implemented.



CFSA has enhanced its working relationship with the Family Court. 

Frequent dialogue now occurs between CFSA’s top management and the 

Family Court, CFSA has expanded its legal services to support court 

activities, and CFSA participates in various planning committees with 

the court. However, hindrances remain, such as scheduling conflicts 

between the two entities; unclear roles and responsibilities of 

caseworkers, attorneys, and judges; and caseworkers who are not 

familiar with cases that have been recently transferred to them.



www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-03-611T

To view the full report, including the scope and methodology, click on 

the link above. For more information, contact Cornelia Ashby at (202) 

512-8403 or ashbyc@gao.gov.



[End of section]



Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:



I am pleased to be here today to discuss preliminary findings from our 

study of the District of Columbia’s Child and Family Services Agency 

(CFSA), done at the request of Representative Tom Davis, Chairman of 

the House Committee on Government Reform. My testimony will focus on 

the extent to which CFSA has (1) taken actions to address the 

requirements of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (ASFA) and 

met selected performance criteria, (2) adopted and implemented child 

protection and foster care placement policies that are comparable to 

those generally accepted in the child welfare community, and (3) 

enhanced its working relationship with the D.C. Family Court.



My comments today are based primarily on our analysis of the 

information in the District’s automated child welfare information 

system, known as FACES, which CFSA is to use to manage child welfare 

cases and report child abuse and neglect, foster care, and adoption 

information to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). We 

analyzed cases in FACES that were at least 6 months old as of November 

2002 and verified the accuracy of its data. However, CFSA had not 

entered into FACES detailed information on the data elements we needed 

for our analysis with respect to about two-thirds of the District’s 

active foster care cases--mostly cases that originated prior to FACES 

going on-line in October 1999. Consequently, we also obtained and 

analyzed information from paper case files to supplement FACES 

information for some cases. We also interviewed District officials, 

CFSA managers, judges, and child welfare experts, and we analyzed 

federal and District laws and regulations, related court documents, and 

child welfare policies. Our final report will be issued in May 2003. We 

conducted our work between September 2002 and March 2003 in accordance 

with generally accepted government auditing standards.



In summary, CFSA has taken actions to address various ASFA requirements 

and met several selected performance criteria[Footnote 1], enacted 

child protection and foster care placement policies and procedures, and 

enhanced its working relationship with the D.C. Family Court; however, 

much remains to be done. CFSA met two-thirds of the ASFA requirements 

and half of the selected foster care performance criteria we used, and 

developed written plans to address two of the three unmet ASFA 

requirements and three of the four unmet performance criteria. In 

addition, CFSA has adopted child protection and foster care placement 

policies and procedures that are comparable to most, but not all, of 

those recommended by organizations that develop standards applicable to 

child welfare programs. However, CFSA has not adopted some key policies 

and procedures for ensuring the safety and permanent placement of 

children, and caseworkers have not consistently implemented or 

documented some of the policies and procedures that have been adopted. 

For example, CFSA has developed an automated child welfare data system 

to help manage its caseload, but detailed information for the data 

elements related to the policies reviewed had not been entered into the 

system for about 70 percent of its foster care cases. Further, CFSA has 

improved its working relationship with the Family Court through 

improved communication and top management support; however, both CFSA 

and the Family Court still need to overcome barriers that continue to 

constrain this relationship.



Background:



CFSA is responsible for protecting thousands of foster care children 

who have been at risk of abuse and neglect and ensuring that critical 

services are provided for them and their families. However, many 

children in CFSA’s care languished for extended periods of time due to 

managerial shortcomings and long-standing organizational divisiveness. 

As a result of these deficiencies, the U. S. District Court for the 

District of Columbia issued a remedial order in 1991 to improve the 

performance of the agency. In 1995, lacking sufficient evidence of 

program improvement, the agency was removed from the District’s 

Department of Human Services and placed in general receivership. Under 

a modified final order (MFO) established by the court, CFSA was 

directed to comply with more than 100 policy and procedural 

requirements. The efforts CFSA made during the receivership to improve 

its performance included establishing an automated system, FACES, to 

manage its caseload. The U.S. District Court ended the receivership in 

2000, established a probationary period, and identified performance 

standards CFSA had to meet in order to end the probationary period. The 

court appointed the Center for the Study of Social Policy as an 

independent monitor to assess CFSA’s performance and gave them the 

discretion to modify the performance standards. However, in the summer 

of 2002, abuses of two children placed in group homes were reported, 

indicating that CFSA’s operations and policies, especially those 

regarding foster care cases, may still need improvement.



Additionally, several federal laws, local laws, and regulations 

established goals and processes under which CFSA must operate. ASFA, 

with its goal to place children in permanent homes in a timelier 

manner, placed new responsibilities on all child welfare agencies 

nationwide. AFSA introduced new time periods for moving children toward 

permanent, stable care arrangements and established penalties for 

noncompliance. For example, it requires states to hold a permanency 

planning hearing--during which the court determines the future plans 

for a child, such as whether the state should continue to pursue 

reunification with the child’s family or some other permanency goal--

not later than 12 months after the child enters foster care. The D.C. 

Family Court Act of 2001, established the District’s Family Court and 

placed several requirements on the District’s Mayor and various 

District agencies, including CFSA and the Office of Corporation Counsel 

(OCC).[Footnote 2] The Family Court Act requires the Mayor, in 

consultation with the Chief Judge of the Superior Court, to ensure that 

D.C. government offices that provide social services and other related 

services to individuals served by the Family Court, including CFSA, 

provide referrals to such services on site at the Family Court.



CFSA operates in a complex child welfare system. [Footnote 3] The 

agency relies on services provided by other District government 

agencies. For example, both the Fire Department and the Health 

Department inspect facilities where children are placed, and D.C. 

Public Schools prepare individual education plans for children in care. 

In addition, CFSA works with agencies in Maryland, Virginia, and other 

states to arrange the placement of District children in those states 

and also works with private agencies to place children in foster and 

adoptive homes.



The management of foster care cases involves several critical steps. 

Typically, these cases begin with an allegation of abuse or neglect 

reported to the CFSA child abuse hot line. CFSA staff are required to 

investigate the allegation through direct contact with the reported 

victim. If required, the child may be removed from his or her home, 

necessitating various court proceedings handled by the District’s 

Family Court. CFSA case workers are responsible for managing foster 

care cases by developing case plans, visiting the children, 

participating in administrative hearings, attending court hearings, and 

working with other District government agencies. CFSA case workers are 

also responsible for documenting the steps taken and decisions made 

related to a child’s safety, well being, and proper placement. In 

addition, CFSA is responsible for licensing and monitoring 

organizations with which it contracts, including group homes that house 

foster care children.



HHS is responsible for setting standards and monitoring the nation’s 

child welfare programs. The monitoring efforts include periodic reviews 

of the operations, known as Child and Family Services Reviews,[Footnote 

4] and of the automated systems, known as Statewide Automated Child 

Welfare Information System (SACWIS) Reviews, in the states and the 

District of Columbia. HHS last reviewed CFSA’s child welfare 

information system in 2000 and its overall program in 2001.



CFSA Undertook Actions to Address Most ASFA Requirements Reviewed and 

Met Half of the Selected Performance Criteria:



CFSA took actions to address six of the nine ASFA requirements and met 

or exceeded four of the eight performance criteria we included in our 

study. Although ASFA includes other requirements, we only included 

those directly related to the safety and well-being of children. The 

performance criteria were among those performance standards that CFSA 

had to meet in order to end the probationary period following the 

general receivership. We selected those that, in our judgment, most 

directly relate to the safety and permanent placement of children in 

foster care. For example, CFSA signed a border agreement to achieve 

timelier placement of District children in Maryland, which addresses 

the ASFA requirement to use cross-jurisdictional resources to 

facilitate timely adoptive or permanent placements for waiting 

children. However, CFSA did not meet three requirements involving (1) 

proceedings to terminate the rights of parents whose children are in 

foster care, (2) annual hearings to review permanency goals for 

children and (3) notice of reviews and hearings. Table 1 summarizes the 

ASFA requirements directly related to the safety and well-being of 

children and identifies whether CFSA met them.



Table 1: Summary of ASFA Requirements Relating Directly to the Safety 

and Well-Being of Children:



ASFA Requirements Met: Include the safety of the child in state case 

planning and in a case review system; [Empty]; ASFA Requirements Not 

Met: Initiate or join proceedings to terminate parental rights for 

certain children in foster care--such as those who have been in foster 

care for 15 of the most recent 22 months of care.



ASFA Requirements Met: Comply with requirements for criminal background 

clearances and have procedures for criminal record checks; [Empty]; 

ASFA Requirements Not Met: Provide family members a notice of reviews 

and hearings and an opportunity to be heard.



ASFA Requirements Met: Develop a case plan for a child for whom the 

State’s goal is adoption or other permanent living arrangement; 

[Empty]; ASFA Requirements Not Met: Conduct mandatory annual permanency 

hearings every 12 months for a child in foster care.



ASFA Requirements Met: Develop plans for the effective use of cross-

jurisdictional resources to facilitate timely adoptive or permanent 

placements for waiting children; [Empty]; ASFA Requirements Not Met: 

[Empty].



ASFA Requirements Met: Provide for health insurance coverage for 

children with special needs in state plans for foster care and adoption 

assistance; [Empty]; ASFA Requirements Not Met: [Empty].



ASFA Requirements Met: Incorporate standards to ensure quality services 

for children in foster care in state plans; [Empty]; ASFA Requirements 

Not Met: [Empty].



Source: ASFA and HHS’ CSFR and GAO analysis.



[End of table]



We analyzed automated data related to eight selected performance 

criteria and found that CFSA met or exceeded four of them. For example, 

one of the criteria requires sixty percent of children in foster care 

to be placed with one or more of their siblings; we found that as of 

November 30, 2002, 63 percent of children were placed with one or more 

siblings. The areas in which CFSA’s performance fell short included 

criteria related to (1) social worker visitation with children in 

foster care, (2) placement of children in foster homes with valid 

licenses, and (3) progress toward permanency for children in foster 

care and (4) parental visits with children in foster care who had a 

goal of returning home. For example, none of the 144 children placed in 

foster care during the 2-month period prior to November 30, 2002, 

received required weekly visits by a CFSA caseworker. In addition, 52 

of 183 foster care children (32 percent), for whom CFSA had not met the 

progress towards permanency goal, had been in foster care without 

returning home for 36 months or more. Twenty-two of these children had 

been in foster care 5 or more years without returning home. A complete 

list of the performance criteria and our analysis is shown in appendix 

I.



CFSA has written plans to address two of the three unmet ASFA 

requirements and three of the four unmet performance criteria we 

selected for our study. One of CFSA’s plans includes actions to address 

one criterion for which the agency fell short--parental visits. This 

plan, the Interim Implementation Plan, includes measures that were 

developed to show the agency’s plans for meeting the requirements of 

the MFO issued by the court. The plan states that, for new contracts, 

CFSA will require its contactors to identify sites in the community for 

parental visits to help facilitate visits between parents and their 

children. However, CFSA does not have written plans that address other 

unmet criteria, such as reducing the number of children in foster care 

who, for 18 months or more, have had a permanency goal to return home. 

CFSA has also not implemented the ASFA requirement to provide foster 

parents, relative caregivers, and pre-adoptive parents the opportunity 

to be heard in any review or hearing held with respect to the child. 

Without complete plans for improving on all measures, CFSA’s ability to 

comply with the ASFA requirements and meet the selected performance 

criteria may be difficult. Furthermore, unless these requirements and 

criteria are met the child’s safety may be jeopardized, the time a 

child spends in foster care may be prolonged, or the best decisions 

regarding a child’s future well-being may not be reached.



Agency officials cited external demands, including court-imposed 

requirements, staffing shortages, and high caseloads, as factors that 

hindered CFSA’s ability to fully meet the ASFA requirements and the 

selected performance criteria. For example, program managers and 

supervisors said that the new court-imposed mediation process intended 

to address family issues without formal court hearings places 

considerable demands on caseworkers’ time. The time spent in court for 

mediation proceedings, which can be as much as 1 day, reduces the time 

available for caseworkers to respond to other case management duties, 

such as visiting with children in foster care. Furthermore, managers 

and supervisors reported that staffing shortages have contributed to 

delays in performing critical case management activities, such as 

filing for the termination of parental rights. Staffing shortages are 

not a unique problem to CFSA. We recently reported that caseworkers in 

other states said that staffing shortages and high caseloads had 

detrimental effects on their abilities to make well-supported and 

timely decisions regarding children’s safety. We also reported that as 

a result of these shortages, caseworkers have less time to establish 

relationships with children and their families, conduct frequent and 

meaningful home visits, and make thoughtful and well-supported 

decisions regarding safe and stable permanent placements.[Footnote 5]



CFSA Has Established Many Foster Care Policies but Lacks Others, and 

the Extent of Implementation and Documentation Varies:



CSFA has established many foster care policies but, caseworkers did not 

consistently implement the six we examined. In addition, CFSA’s 

automated system lacked data on policy implementation for 70 percent of 

its foster care cases. When CFSA’s caseworkers are not consistently 

implementing the policies essential steps are not always being taken 

for all children in a timely manner. As a result, children may be 

subject to continued abuse and neglect or efforts to achieve permanent 

and safe placements may be delayed. Furthermore, without information on 

all cases, caseworkers do not have a readily available summary of the 

child’s history needed to make future decisions and managers do not 

have information needed to assess and improve program operations.



CSFA Has Established Many Foster Care Policies but Caseworkers Did Not 

Consistently Implement Them:



While we previously reported in 2000[Footnote 6] that CFSA lacked some 

important child protection and foster care placement policies, CFSA has 

now established many such policies and most are comparable to those 

recommended by organizations that develop standards applicable to child 

welfare programs. For example, CFSA has policies for investigating 

allegations of child abuse, developing case plans, and establishing 

permanency goals for foster children. In addition, one policy is more 

rigorous than suggested standards. Specifically, CFSA’s policy requires 

an initial face-to-face meeting with children within 24 hours of 

reported abuse or neglect, while the suggested standard is 48 hours or 

longer in cases that are not high risk. However, CFSA still lacks some 

that are recommended, namely (1) written time frames for arranging 

needed services for children and families (e.g., tutoring and drug 

treatment for family members); (2) limits on the number of cases 

assigned to a caseworker, based on case complexity and worker 

experience; and (3) procedures for providing advance notice to each 

person involved in a case about the benefits and risks of services 

planned for a child and alternatives to those services.



CFSA did not consistently implement the six policies we examined. We 

selected policies that covered the range of activities involved in a 

foster care case, but did not duplicate those examined in our review of 

the AFSA requirements or the selected performance criteria. For three 

of the six policies, data in FACES on all foster care cases indicate 

that the extent to which caseworkers implemented them varied 

considerably. Table 2 summarizes these three policies and the 

percentage of cases for which the data indicated the policy was 

implemented.



Table 2: The Extent of Implementation of Selected Foster Care Policies:



Policy: Initiate face-to-face investigation of alleged child abuse or 

neglect within 24 hours of receiving an allegation on CFSA’s child 

abuse hotline; Percent of foster care cases

for which the policy was implemented (N= 943): 26.



Policy: Complete a safety assessment within 24 hours of face-to-face 

contact with the child; Percent of foster care cases

for which the policy was implemented (N= 943): 13.



Policy: Complete a risk assessment within 30 days of receiving an 

allegation on the hotline; Percent of foster care cases

for which the policy was implemented (N= 943): 73.



Source: FACES data and GAO analysis.



[End of table]:



In some cases, it took CFSA caseworkers considerably longer than the 

required time to initiate an investigation or complete safety and risk 

assessments. In 93 cases, CFSA caseworkers took more than 10 days to 

initiate the investigation and in 78 cases, it took caseworkers longer 

than 100 days to complete a risk assessment, more than three times 

longer than the 30-day requirement.



For the other three policies, we reviewed case files and examined 

related data from FACES for 30 cases, because officials told us that 

the information related to these policies was not routinely recorded in 

FACES. One policy requires caseworkers to complete a case plan within 

30 days of a child’s entry into foster care. Our analysis and file 

review found that case plans were not routinely completed within 30 

days. Another policy requires conducting administrative review hearings 

every six months. These reviews ensure that key stakeholders are 

involved in permanency planning for the child. We found that 

administrative review hearings were rescheduled for a variety of 

reasons, such as the caseworker had to appear at a hearing for another 

case or the attorney was not available. The third policy requires 

caseworkers to identify and arrange for services for children and their 

families. It was difficult to determine whether services recommended by 

caseworkers were approved by supervisors or if needed services were 

provided. Managers said that sometimes services are arranged by 

telephone and the results not entered into FACES.



Officials said that several factors affected the implementation of some 

of the policies we reviewed. Agency officials explained that, in part, 

the data on implementation of the initial investigations and safety 

assessment reflected that the District’s Metropolitan Police Department 

was responsible for the initial investigation of child abuse cases 

until October 2001 and that data was not entered into FACES. CFSA now 

has responsibility for both child abuse and neglect investigations. 

Further, program managers and supervisors said that several factors 

contribute to the time frames required to initiate face-to-face 

investigations, including difficulty in finding the child’s correct 

home address, contacting the child if the family tries to hide the 

child from investigators, and even obtaining vehicles to get to the 

location. Caseworkers’ supervisors and managers explained that 

generally, the policies were not always implemented because of limited 

staff and competing demands and the policies were not documented 

because some caseworkers did not find FACES to be user friendly.



CFSA officials said they recently made changes to help improve the 

implementation of some of the policies we reviewed. CFSA has focused on 

reducing its backlog of investigations and reduced the number of 

investigations open more than 30 days from 807 in May 2001 to 263 in 

May 2002. CFSA officials said that they anticipate a reduction in the 

number of administrative review hearings that are rescheduled. The 

responsibility for notifying administrative review hearing 

participants when a hearing is scheduled was transferred from 

caseworkers to the staff in the administrative review unit, and 

notification will be automatically generated well in advance of the 

hearings. Additionally, another official said that CFSA has begun 

testing a process to ensure that all needed services are in place 

within 45 days.



However, without consistently implementing policies for timely 

investigations and safety and risk assessments, a child may be subject 

to continued abuse and neglect. Delaying case plans and rescheduling 

administrative review hearings delay efforts to place children in 

permanent homes or reunite them with their families. Further, without 

knowing whether children or families received needed services, CFSA 

cannot determine whether steps have been taken to resolve problems or 

improve conditions, which also delays moving children toward their 

permanency goals.



In addition to its policies for managing cases, CFSA has policies for 

licensing and monitoring group homes, plans for training staff in group 

homes, and a goal to reduce the number of young children in group 

homes. CFSA’s policies for group homes are based primarily on District 

regulations that went into effect July 1, 2002. According to a CFSA 

official, the agency was precluded from placing children in an 

unlicensed group home as of January 1, 2003. As of March 2003, all CFSA 

group homes were licensed, except one, and CFSA was in the process of 

removing children from that home. In the future, CFSA plans to use 

requirements for licensing group homes as well as contractual 

provisions as criteria for monitoring them. CFSA also plans to provide 

training to group home staff to make it clear that, as District 

regulations require, any staff member who observes or receives 

information indicating that a child in the group home has been abused 

must report it. Further, CFSA has a goal to reduce the number of 

children under 13 who are placed in group homes. CFSA has reduced the 

number of children under 13 in group homes from 128 in August 2002, to 

70 as of February 2003; and, has plans to reduce that number even 

further by requiring providers of group home care to link with agencies 

that seek foster care and adoptive families.



CFSA’s Automated System Lacked Data on Many Foster Care Cases:



While CFSA’s policies with regard to is automated child welfare 

information system --FACES--were not among the six policies we 

initially selected for examination, in our efforts to assess CFSA’s 

implementation of the selected foster care policies, we determined that 

FACES lacked such data for about 70 percent of its active foster care 

cases. Of the population of foster care cases at least 6 months old as 

of November 30, 2002--2,510 cases--data on the initial investigation 

and safety and risk assessment policies were not available for 1,763 of 

them. CFSA officials explained that all of these cases predated FACES 

and the previous system was used primarily to capture information for 

accounting and payroll purposes, not for case management. Top agency 

managers said that CFSA does not currently plan to make it an agency 

priority to include data in FACES for these pre-FACES cases. 

Additionally, FACES reports showed that data was not available on many 

of the more recent foster care cases. For example, complete data on the 

initiation of investigations and safety assessments were not available 

for about half of the 943 cases that entered the foster care system 

after FACES came on line. Officials explained that their plans are to 

focus on improving a few data elements at a time for current and future 

actions.



Complete and accurate data is an important aspect of effective child 

welfare systems. HHS requires all states and D.C. to have an automated 

child welfare information system. These systems, known as Statewide 

Automated Child Welfare Information Systems (SACWIS), must be able to 

record key child welfare functions, such as intake management, case 

management, and resource management. However, it its review of FACES, 

HHS found the system to be in noncompliance with several requirements, 

including the requirements to prepare and document service/case plans 

and to conduct and record the results of case reviews.[Footnote 7] In 

addition to the standards and requirements established by HHS for all 

child welfare systems, the MFO requirements stress the importance of an 

automated system for CFSA. Many of the requirements the MFO imposed on 

CFSA direct CFSA to produce management data. For example, the MFO 

requires that CFSA be able to produce management data showing (1) how 

many children who need medical reports received them within 48 hours 

after the report of neglect or abuse was supported, (2) the caseload 

figures by worker for all workers conducting investigations of reports 

of abuse or neglect, and (3) the number of supervisors with at least 3 

years of social work experience in child welfare.



It is very important to have accurate and timely automated case 

management data for all cases. An expert from a child welfare 

organization stated that there is a great need to transfer information 

from old case records to new automated systems in a systematic way. 

Without such a transfer, paper records with important information may 

be lost. She said that records of older teens have been lost, and, with 

them, valuable information such as the identity of the child’s father, 

has also been lost. Without data in FACES, if caseworkers need missing 

data they will have to look for paper records in the case files, some 

of which are voluminous. This file review effort is much more time 

consuming than reviewing an automated report and requires more time for 

caseworkers to become familiar with cases when cases are transferred to 

new caseworkers. Complete, accurate, and timely case management data 

enables caseworkers to quickly learn about new cases, supervisors to 

know the extent that caseworkers are completing their tasks, and 

managers to know whether any aspects of the agency’s operations are in 

need of improvement.



CFSA Has Enhanced Its Working Relationship With the D.C. Family Court 

by Working Collaboratively, But Hindrances Remain:



CFSA has enhanced its working relationship with the Family Court 

through its commitment to promoting improved communication and by 

expanding its legal support services for court activities. CFSA 

participates in various planning committees with the Family Court, such 

as the Implementation Planning Committee, and assists in providing 

service referrals on site at the Family Court. Since 2002, attorneys 

from the OCC have been located at CFSA and work closely with 

caseworkers. This co-location has improved the working relationship 

between CFSA and the Family Court because CFSA caseworkers and the 

attorneys are better prepared for court appearances. Additionally, 

training sessions have been held that included CFSA caseworkers, OCC 

attorneys, and Family Court judges. Furthermore, frequent dialogue 

between top management at CFSA and the Family Court and top management 

support have been key factors in improving these relationships.



However, CFSA officials and Family Court judges noted several 

hindrances that constrain their working relationships. These hindrances 

include scheduling conflicts between the court and CFSA, an 

insufficient number of caseworkers, caseworkers who are unfamiliar with 

cases that have been transferred to them, and the unclear roles and 

responsibilities of CFSA caseworkers, attorneys, and judges. For 

example, CFSA officials said that Family Court judges often override 

caseworker recommendations that affect children and families. Family 

Court judges told us that they believe caseworkers do not always 

recommend appropriate services for children and their families. As a 

result of these conflicting perspectives, court officials said that 

appropriate decisions affecting children and families might not be 

reached in a timely manner.



Conclusions:



While CFSA has met several procedural ASFA requirements and other 

performance criteria, developed essential policies, and enhanced its 

working relationship with the Family Court, it needs to make further 

improvement in order to ensure the protection and proper and timely 

placement of all of the District’s children. To improve outcomes for 

foster care children, CFSA needs a comprehensive set of policies; 

effective implementation of all policies; complete, accurate, and 

timely automated data on which to base its program management; and an 

effective working relationship with the D.C. Family Court. However, 

gaps in its foster care policies, inconsistent policy implementation, 

and incomplete automated data may hinder CFSA’s ability to protect and 

improve the outcomes for the District’s children. We expect to have 

recommendations in our final report that will address these issues and 

strengthen CFSA’s operations.



Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement. I will be happy to 

respond to any questions that you or other Subcommittee Members may 

have.



GAO Contact and Acknowledgments:



For further contacts regarding this testimony, please call Cornelia M. 

Ashby at (202) 512-8403. Individuals making key contributions to this 

testimony included Carolyn M. Taylor, Mark Ward, Sheila Nicholson, 

Vernette Shaw, and James Rebbe.



[End of section]



Appendix I: GAO’s Analysis of Selected Performance Criteria:



Performance Criteria: 1. Current case plans for foster care cases; 

Forty-five percent of foster care cases have current case 

 plans.; Met; GAO Analysis: As of September 30, 2002, 46 percent of 

foster care cases had current case plans.



Performance Criteria: 2. Visitation between children in foster care and 

their parents; Thirty-five percent of cases in which children have a 

 goal of returning home have parental visits at least 

 every 2 weeks.; Not met; GAO Analysis: As of November 30, 2002, 1 

percent of children with a return home goal had parental visits at 

least every 2 weeks.



Performance Criteria: 3. Social worker visitation with children in 

foster care; Twenty-five percent of children in foster care have weekly 

visits with caseworkers in their first 8 weeks of care; 35 percent of 

all children in foster care have at least monthly visits with a social 

worker.; Not met; GAO Analysis: As of November 30, 2002, no children 

had weekly visits; 0.3 percent had at least monthly visits with a 

social worker.



Performance Criteria: 4. Appropriate legal status for children in 

foster care; No child in emergency care (legal status) for more than 90

 days.; Met; GAO Analysis: As of November 30, 2002, no children in 

emergency care more than 90 days.



Performance Criteria: 5. Current and valid foster home licenses; 

Seventy-five percent of children are placed in foster home with 

 valid licenses.; Not met; GAO Analysis: As of November 30, 2002, 47 

percent of children were in foster homes with valid licenses.



Performance Criteria: 6. Progress toward permanency; No more than 10 

percent of children in foster care have 

 a permanency goal of return home for more than 18 months.; Not met; 

GAO Analysis: As of November 30, 2002, 30 percent of children had a 

permanency goal of return home for more than 18 months.



Performance Criteria: 7. Foster care placement with siblings; Sixty 

percent of children in foster care are placed with one or

 more of their siblings.; Met; GAO Analysis: As of November 30, 2002, 

63 percent of children were placed with one or more siblings.



Performance Criteria: 8. Placement stability; No more than 25 percent 

of children in foster care as

 of May 31, 2002, have had three or more placements.; Met; GAO 

Analysis: As of November 30, 2002, 21 percent of children in care since 

August 1, 2001, had three or more placements.



Source: GAO analysis.



[End of table]



[End of section]



Related GAO Products:



HHS Can Play a Greater Role in Helping Child Welfare Agencies Recruit 

and Retain Staff. GAO-03-357. Washington, D.C.: March 31, 2003.



District of Columbia: More Details Needed on Plans to Integrate 

Computer Systems With the Family Court and Use Federal Funds. GAO-02-

948. Washington, D.C.: August 7, 2002.



Foster Care: Recent Legislation Helps States Focus on Finding Permanent 

Homes for Children, but Long-Standing Barriers Remain. GAO-02-585. 

Washington, D.C.: June 28, 2002.



D.C. Family Court: Progress Made Toward Planned Transition and 

Interagency Coordination, but Some Challenges Remain. GAO-02-797T. 

Washington, D.C.: June 5, 2002.



D.C. Family Court: Additional Actions Should Be Taken to Fully 

Implement Its Transition. GAO-02-584. Washington, D.C.: May 6, 2002.



D.C. Family Court: Progress Made Toward Planned Transition, but Some 

Challenges Remain. GAO-02-660T. Washington, D.C.: April 24, 2002.



District of Columbia Child Welfare: Long-Term Challenges in Ensuring 

Children’s Well-Being. GAO-01-191. Washington, D.C.: December 29, 2000.



Foster Care: Status of the District of Columbia’s Child Welfare System 

Reform Efforts. GAO/T-HEHS-00-109. Washington, D.C.: May 5, 2000.



FOOTNOTES



[1] These performance criteria were among those included in the 

performance standards that CFSA had to meet in order to end the 

probationary period following the general receivership. We selected 

those performance criteria that in our judgment most directly relate to 

the safety and permanent placement of children.



[2] The D.C. Family Court Act of 2001, established the Family Court as 

part of the D.C. Superior Court. The Family Court replaced the D.C. 

Superior Court’s former Family Division. Among other responsibilities, 

the Family Court handles child abuse and neglect cases and court 

hearings and other proceedings for the District’s foster children and 

their families. OCC provides legal support for CFSA caseworkers during 

their appearances before the Family Court.



[3] We issued several GAO reports that addressed CFSA operations and 

program plans. For more information see related GAO products. 



[4] Child and Family Services Reviews, conducted by HHS, cover a range 

of child and family service programs funded by the federal government, 

including child protective services, foster care, adoption, independent 

living, and family support and preservation services. The 2001 review 

evaluated seven specific safety, permanency, and well-being outcomes 

for services delivered to children and families served by CFSA.



[5] U.S. General Accounting Office, Child Welfare: HHS Could Play a 

Greater Role in Helping Child Welfare Agencies Recruit and Retain 

Staff, GAO-03-357 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 31, 2003).



[6] U.S. General Accounting Office, District of Columbia Child Welfare: 

Long-Term Challenges in Ensuring Children’s Well-Being, GAO-01-191 

(Washington, D.C.: Dec. 29, 2000), and U.S. General Accounting Office, 

Foster Care: Status of the District of Columbia’s Child Welfare System 

Reform Efforts, GAO/HEHS-00-109 (Washington, D.C.: May 5, 2000). 



[7] HHS completed its SACWIS assessment review of FACES in June 2000. 

The purpose of this review is to assess whether the child welfare 

information system performs functions that are important to meeting the 

minimal requirements.