Advances in Child Welfare

              The wheels are in motion for the rapidly
approaching implementation of Phase I of
Best Practice—Intake and Investigations (I &
I). It’s scheduled to begin in early October.
The I & I portion of Best Practice affects
service delivery for children and families
from the moment a call comes into the State
Central Register through completion of the
investigation. The emphasis in I & I will be
child safety and assessment. Along with
elimination of the priority system—designed
to ensure that cases previously designated of a
lower priority receive appropriate atten-tion—
Best Practice revises the allegations to
be more specific. The supervisor’s role will
be increased and will include consultations
with the Child Protective Service worker at
specified intervals.
According to Field Service Manager Marti
Wilzbach, “Best Practice Intake and
Investigations is such a great guideline on
how to proceed and make decisions. It gives
me more confidence. It’ll be a great
resource.” This is especially important to
managers like Marti, who are part of the
Southern Region, which is moving toward
paired teams. She and many other supervi-sors
and managers will be required to expand
their role from supervision and management
of follow-up staff to include management
and supervision of investigators.
I & I required the Department’s Rules to be
updated. These changes will be presented to
the Joint Commission on Administrative
Rules (JCAR) for approval in early Septem-ber.
The only remaining step prior to
implementation is training of staff. Many of
the Department’s supervisors and managers
have been selected to serve as Best Practice
Field Leaders. The Field Leaders will not
only train staff on Best Practice, but will
support Best Practice in the field and
maintain communication between the Best
Practice team and the field.
Best Practice team members have worked
with the Educational Partners and contrac-tual
staff on the development of the curricu-lum,
which was revised based on input from
Field Leaders. A training of trainers will be
held in late August. Training of Child
Protection and Follow-Up Supervisors will be
in early September, followed by training for
investigators and on-call staff later in
September.
With these things in place and the diligent
work of line staff and supervisors, Illinois can
be proud that we are providing the best
possible services to children and families!
a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a
Changing ... for the better
Ed Cotton
It was several years ago, just prior to Jess
McDonald’s return as Director of DCFS,
that I ran into Jess at a foster parent
conference in Springfield. His statement
to me was completely clear: “I want
Illinois to have the best child protection
system in the country – what will it
take?”
The Director has remained focused on
that objective throughout the past five
years, and we’ve launched several
successful projects designed to make that
happen.
NEW TECHNIQUES,
NEW ACHHIEVEMENTS
First, we developed the Child Endanger-ment
Risk Assessment Protocol
(CERAP), which marked a significant
change in how we assess child safety. It
has resulted in a dramatic decrease in the
number of children who are re-abused
after having been investigated by DCFS.
Then we instituted Clinical Practice
Retraining (CPR), which directed staff
toward investigative practices that engage
families while still protecting children.
Continued on page 4
N E W S O F B E S T P R A C T I C E / S A C W I S
Implementation of Best
a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a
Practice to Begin in October