00:00:13,000	Today is Tuesday, June 17th. It is 3 p.m. Um, we’re in the Tom Baker room, so I’ll call to order the Burley County Human Service Zone board meeting and we we’ll start by doing roll call of the members. Gayle Becker. Kelly Burkland here. Senator Dever. Here. Tracy famous Here Jim Home Here Trevor Vannnett.

00:00:38,130	Director Florey. Here and Comm Bakke, for the record, is absent. All right, thank you. Um, next on the agenda is the approval of the meeting minutes from our March 18th, uh, meeting. So those are in your packet to review.

00:00:54,770	I think you were also sent those ahead of time, but if anybody had any, um, comments, questions, concerns, any corrections they wanted to know, otherwise I’m open for a motion on the minutes. I did make that motion. Perfect. I got a motion if wanted to second that. I’ll Thank you. OK, so we have approval of the, um, March 18th minute. So, um, all in favor say aye, ay, and he opposed same sign.

00:01:21,670	Motion carry, so, um, next on the agenda is the review of my annual evaluation, so, um, this would be my June 24th through June 20, or I’m sorry, June 2024 to June 2025 eel.

00:01:43,870	Um, this is completed in collaboration with the zone board, so Tracy receives this as my vice chair to add comments on behalf of the board and then as well as HHS provides their input, so that’s also in your packet you can see, uh, if you wanted to go over that, um.

00:01:57,270	Basically, um, part of the evaluation, I’ll just kind of go over it a little bit is I’m required to pick a value for the year that I wanna focus on, not that they’re not all important, but it’s integrity, collaboration, stewardship, uh, transformational leadership or advocacy. So this year I picked, um, advocacy as my goal that I want to work on.

00:02:14,730	Um, and so in summary, I won’t read it to you all verbatim on the record, but, um, basically I wanna focus on this in regards to, um, my child welfare team members are in the process of a case management redesign and during that, I participate in work streams for this redesign, and I can support my team through that. So that is time that I give to, um, the statewide redesign effort.

00:02:30,330	Um, I also advocate for the workload and case management, ensuring that team members are set up for success regarding the standards of administration that we’ll go over again later, um, and then, uh, this can include with partnering different zones or state partners to collaborate to address our caseload needs, um, regarding my team members and economic assistance, I sit on many work groups where we

00:02:49,470	address process and procedures. We share ideas and recommendations straight from the workforce. I take that very, um, serious when we’re meeting with, um, my management team from my economic assistance and. making sure they’re, um, perspective is shared because sometimes the decisions are made by people who aren’t actually, um, directly impacted by the work.

00:03:09,270	Um, And then in 2024 I was able to initiate outreach for um DOCR facilities. That was a great opportunity for my team members to stay connected to the Y while, um, serving a population to reentry, so, um, and then I just commun continue to participate in many local groups, um, systems of care, human relations committee, community collaborations, advisory groups, um, equal

00:03:31,270	partnerships, um. Anything that I can, I’m also on the board of social work, so just things I do, um, those groups that have more access to, um, those that I serve their lived experience that then I can bring back, um, to provide better service delivery.

00:03:50,400	Um, goal setting, I had to set for the year, um, I probably said more than I should have, um, but I continue to one of my goals is to improve the management team’s knowledge and progressive discipline, um, receiving feedback from my local HR that it’s been done well and consistently in certain areas, so just, um, continuing to build that competency to my management team, um, so it’s

00:04:08,130	not, um, heavy on me, but then as well as the others who are again more connected to the direct work, um, the goal of actively billing for targeted case management, so this was a slow start as we just started getting established as providers, but I’m very, um, hopeful that we can be, I did

00:04:23,530	say begin billing in 20 July 2025, but. I don’t know if I’ll make that goal, but. Um, more goals is just continuing our initiation of, um, cultural training events for the community. I’m responsible for, um, doing that.

00:04:43,270	We did one in 2024 in December, and then I just had some other things come up that, um, that wasn’t something I was able to prioritize, but I am working on, on getting those regular occurring so that we can do what we call keeping the culture alive, so there are events for the kids that we serve through our case management world, um, initially, I mean, I’d like to open it up to others, but, um, that we.

00:05:00,870	can provide educational on, um, certain cultural aspects for Native American youth, which is our highest population we serve. Um I continue to work on just the prevention, um, I just write in here that in 2024 or into early 2025, our number of foster care youth increased drama um drastically despite her efforts on, on prevention.

00:05:22,700	So we just continue to, um. I’ve gotten a lot of praise in our knowledge for safety determination, um, we’re one of the highest zones to use prevention programs like shelter care, and we’ll get into those more specifically, but just continuing to work on that, um, and serving families in home and, um, decrease the

00:05:39,270	number of custodial youth. And then finally my goal is just to continue our partnership with our foster parents, encourage, um, encouraging. We did start doing like a quarterly newsletter that’ll go up to Fosper so they have more idea of our caseload and capacity, um, as well as doing like a spotlight of a worker each

00:05:57,670	quarter so they can get to know our team a little bit better, so. Um And then I go over career development and um training, just different things I’ve done A again, um, at conferences I’ve attended or my work, um, I don’t probably go in here much with the work I do on the board of Social work is.

00:06:14,030	Pretty heavy as well. Um And then HHS does provide comment on the evaluation. So again, just a summary of what they said. I won’t read it all to you, but, um, just acknowledging the work that I’ve done on targeted case management, um, trying to get, um, the work, sorry, the work I’ve been able to do for my

00:06:33,200	economic assistance team and outreach with the OCR, um, Um, they know what the goal of mine of improving relationship with foster parents and things that I have been able to do and what they encourage me to continue to do, um, as well as acknowledging the, um, need for managing performance, um, they noted that I have created a

00:06:55,900	culture of accountability and my agency and, um, need my support of my supervisors to in in order to continue to do so. My leadership, integrity and firsthand child welfare knowledge has been greatly appreciated to not only my team but my peers, and I don’t shy away from, um, House needed to tackle and develop solid

00:07:13,800	community relationships, so. Um And then I did, if Tracy wants to go over in general, um, the comments that she made on behalf of the board. So director Flory, we have really appreciated your leadership with the zone and so I’ll share the comments that that I wrote in reflection, but then I would

00:07:33,670	open it up to any other board members and comments that they might. want to share with you. So Chelsea has demonstrated a strong commitment to the Burleigh County Human Service zone, the youth and families within our community as well as critical stakeholder groups.

00:07:52,330	Her advocacy for her staff is evident in her passion for supporting them in a variety of ways, including timely hiring a full-time equivalency positions, providing training, supporting their needs through the supervisor work stream process and her boots on the ground approach to the work.

00:08:14,100	Chelsea is not only willing but eager to step into any position when her staff requires support in meeting the critical needs of youth and families. Chelsea is an exemplar in reaching out to others across the state, for insight, communication, and brainstorming. She is a strong leader, but also sets the example of accepting guidance and support from others. She is an innovative and forward thinker, which is evidenced by her creativity and working with the DOCR facilities.

00:08:37,070	This is just one example of her proactive approach to serving those within the community. The advisory board supports Chelsea’s goal to move forward with training for the billing process for targeted case management. She was able to successfully work through barriers, which were beyond her control to make this happen.

00:09:00,770	This is a strength of Chelsea’s when barriers arise, which have out of her control, she remains positive and collaboratively works through issues. The board applauds her work with initiating the cultural training events and her commitment to supporting not only youth and foster care, but also the foster care community.

00:09:21,870	The board is also very appreciative of her efforts to clearly communicate with board members, keeping the board informed. We’re fortunate to have you. Mhm. Anybody else comments. I, I just have. Yeah You We did ask Palm on this but I think a lot will be down. lot of good But a lot of its dri from by little. one Just, just I think Chelsea gets. Good feedback, but I just.

00:09:54,570	a lot of it is the problem, you know. are and we just provide with these. He does great work, you know. I think she’s doing the job she needs to do. Thank you. The only other thing I, I guess I’d like to add and kind of expound on would be the communication piece that’s mentioned in here.

00:10:19,000	Obviously I appreciate the communication that we have at this level, but also in the position I hold with the sheriff’s department, anytime I am in a need to reach out, uh, to Chelsea. It’s just the communication is great transparency and it’s just truly appreciated so thank you. Thank you. I’d like to add one thing too. Yeah.

00:10:39,330	Everything I hear about you is really top notch. And what I see too, so keep up the good effort. Thank you Um Yeah, no, overall, um, I appreciate this board. I appreciate the opportunity to serve, um, Burle County Human Service Zone and the Citizens, um.

00:11:01,770	The children, the families, um, that’s definitely my why, my passion. Um, I get told a lot that I’m too hands on. I need to not be hands-on or I need to let my team do things, but that is my leadership. That’s what keeps me motivated. Those are the things that keep me coming back the next day.

00:11:15,770	So often when, um, I’m not having good days and there’s kids in the building, you will find me seeking out those children cause I just need a break and um. Doing that, so yeah, I I appreciate you guys and your support, and I don’t plan on going anywhere, so.

00:11:34,400	OK, um, then I, I do require a motion and or second to approve, um, my evaluations of, um, will entertain a motion on that. No move Thank you. Thank you. I have a motion in 2, so, um, all in favor say aye. Um, and he oppose same sign. Perfect, thank you guys. Um, the next one will be the review of the Burley County Human Service Zone Policy Addendum.

00:11:55,400	So those are also in your packet. I did send those out ahead of time, um, for everybody to review because it is, um, this is our. Addendums to our policy, so for the human service zones we have an HR manual that is for all human service zones, and then, um, um, zone specifically could have addendums just to meet the

00:12:12,300	needs of those local zones, so that’s what you see here, um, in front of you, so I don’t know if anybody had any questions when they had the opportunity to review them, um, really any of the changes that were made were just to align with any HHS, um, Guidance or things to make things more

00:12:28,730	consistent across all zones, so there isn’t really anything that was, um, To impactful. I would also just add to that that this is kind of our opportunity to, um, marry Burley County’s policy expectations as far as what local expectations are, um, to our, our zone policy so this a lot of times when like the

00:12:49,170	Burley County HR department will have a some policy, some language change to a policy will implement that as well if it’s a, a policy that we can um address in here. So, um, leave without pay or not leave without pay, but um. Yeah, family medical leave, leave without pay, Le sharing.

00:13:07,730	That plan was updated, um, fairly recently by the HR department. So we made those language changes to match, so that would be the only. Other thing I’d add to that. Um, so there’s not any. Comments or recommendations or if there is open for discussion on that, otherwise, again, I’d entertain a motion regarding these, um, Policies usage? Yeah.

00:13:34,470	A person doesn’t use it all, instead of, Losing it And they give it to someone who needs extra sick leave. There’s a, a sharing policy, but there’s certain requirements for that. It isn’t listed here, but it’s listed somewhere else in the documents. Yes. OK. Thank you. Um-hum. Oh Did you have anything, Trevor? No, OK, um.

00:14:25,130	Sorry I was just going to go on and I didn’t know if you’re going to say something. um, yeah, so if anybody, if you don’t have any questions, I just need to motion and a second to approve these. I saw Like Thank you. And we have a motion in a second, so I’ll just say all in favor say aye. Right.

00:14:50,730	Alright, any opposed same sign. Alright, motion carries on that. Thank you guys. Um, now we’ll just get into really the agency reports and the updates. Um, I’ll kind of go over the economic assistant ones, assistant ones today. I don’t have too much to update on.

00:15:18,030	Um, and again, a lot of the work we do is statewide, um, driven from local, um, Agencies providing the service delivery, but, um, we operate on this as a statewide team for most of our groups.

00:15:36,170	So as of June 1st, um, our lie heap, that’s our heating assistance program, went to a year-round program with the first wave of reviews coming due in October and then the remaining reviews will um be aligned with the other program over the next 18 months if the family’s enrolled in another program to just help, um, not have all the reviews happen at one time.

00:15:54,330	Um, this will help, um, with paying electrical utilities, um, oh sorry, the help with pain electric utilities is currently, um, on hold while they look at block grant funding, um, and sorting out kind of where the funding was coming from because there was, um, grant funding that. impacted this program.

00:16:13,530	Uh, the next area would be the TANF modernization, which is soon to roll out, um, data is not yet determined, but, um, recently the supervisors and leads along with workers from economic assistance, community option, and housing, uh, state policy staff attended a training they called goal for it, um, the.

00:16:31,200	The point of that training was really to roll out what tan of modernization is going to look like, um, the next training session is held in August for all workers that, um, process and participate in the, um, the TAA program. Um, our most recent, um, we just had an all staff meeting on May 27th. Um, so this was for my economic assistance team.

00:16:50,970	We had ministry on the margins come in and they did a presentation on the programs that they offer, um, again, it’s just my attempt to try to, um, Bring that team, um, a lot of them work remote, so it’s an opportunity for them to come in person and get some, um, continued education as well as learn about their communities so when they’re serving, um, Um, clients who live here, they might have an extra resource, um, we’re going to continue to look for other community partners to come in

00:17:06,430	and share at future meetings. Um, it was well received by that, um, that group of employees, they enjoyed that time. Um, we also have an EAP come in and talk about stress management and burnout, but I think, um.

00:17:21,330	The response was maybe we’ll take a break from that at the next meeting and just try to focus on, um, community partners coming in, so. Um, otherwise it’s just kind of continuing to look at the statewide model, things that can be improved, you know, we’re over 2 years into the redesign process now, so it’s just a good point where we’re evaluating what we didn’t redesign what worked, what

00:17:40,300	didn’t work, and what we want to do different. Um So yeah, I don’t know if anybody has any questions on economic assistance. Um, I just, tell people I get complaints from. Mhm You from paperwork when you codes locked.

00:18:13,770	Or The zone You know, when I eat those pills to be able to help, but it’s complicated. see I for Very good and Jesus Mm for Just Oh You Oh, is this my God that’s what she’s asking. His Mike is No Um Sorry, Trevor, we’re deciding if your mic was on. Um. OK, thank you, um. No.

00:19:00,070	Um, no, Trevor, I appreciate your comments, you’re always um definitely somebody I look forward to give me, uh, feedback on specifically communication that’s being delivered to those that we serve, um, whether that’s coming in the form of a notice that maybe um complicated or cause panic to those who are receiving the notice to your experience with the call center and, um, wait times and responses that you’re getting.

00:19:20,500	So I do pass all your concerns along, so yeah. Just frustrated me. I here. Here, you know, it’s just Constant, uh. They’ve done the paperwork for, Last month and.

00:19:48,670	They say they have to do it again, so it’s very scary for these families, and it’s, it’s hard, you know, I had one client that Sent Extra money out of their debit card because their EBT card was locked on a weekend, so we’ve really got to watch that because. That is affecting clients. And I would just appreciate, you know, the department and you working on that because I know we can they can’t call. They don’t know the EBT edge, you know. Um-hum.

00:20:11,630	Nobody’s there. It was just a random case of all the cards locked, sorry, and then they had to unlock it, so. I just really feel strongly that we got to work on that. Thank you. Mhm Um, to driver’s points with the EBT cards, we as directors talk about how we wish they were locally delivered.

00:20:33,030	Um, we used to be able to issue those right in the office. We’ve talked about this at this meeting too, but um, now they’re delivered from a third party out of state, a vendor, and so if somebody loses their card, they have to ask for another one and it could take a week or two to get one issued

00:20:44,430	to them, so it puts a hardship on families, and I’ve also heard from my community partners or stakeholders that run their, um, food pantries that they’re seeing an increase of people who, um, are needing those temporary boxes because they’re waiting.

00:21:00,770	For their um cards to come, so that is still a conversation that we have as, um, our association of directors that we would like a hybrid option where you can still use that out of state vendor, but we still have the option to issue a card in person. You know, and I, I think though too is when their cart is locked.

00:21:19,930	We can I have a place to, I’m hearing that it takes 34 hours with EBTNs to figure this stuff out. Um-hum. It’s, yeah, it’s complicated. I’m on the DCIL board and Their workers try to. help these clients. Each client takes. 4 or 5 hours to figure. stuff out, so we got to really work on this. It’s getting to the point where People are not even.

00:21:49,900	Wanting to apply for the program because it’s just. Either the paperwork loss or the EBT edges aren’t working, so we got to really push. On that, I’ve had 2 cases where. That’s been a problem. And so I would just encourage the department to let.

00:22:11,730	You guys have a little say at the local level, I feel it’s too much. Complication in the system. That’s good feedback. Thank you. Um, OK, that’s all I had for that program, so we’ll just move into our child welfare updates, um, so I did ask, um, Kayla. She is a supervisor over our CPS unit to come today.

00:22:36,400	She put a presentation together, um, off of our last board meeting, there was definitely an interest in wanting to, um, I don’t know if everybody remembers it was 3 months ago, but interest in just wanting to have more conversation regarding our process from, um, our involvement with the family to the safety planning part, um, we won’t get into like what

00:22:53,130	case management looks like then we can talk about doing that at a future meeting, but just to break it up, we’re gonna start with from the moment of um reports received through intake to, um, our safety determination and, um, some of the prevention services that we do, um, and so I didn’t plan

00:23:07,400	too much more than this because I wanted to make sure you guys had time for, um, hearing Kayla, and when I asked her to do a presentation, it’s like, well, you want 15 minutes or an hour, um, so Kayla is well versed in all the, um, aspects of child protection and the different

00:23:21,430	assessments that we do, so, um. feel free to ask her questions, and if we don’t know the answer, we’ll definitely get back to you, but I just wanted this board to have an opportunity to engage in, um, have a deeper understanding of what we do in that way, so.

00:23:32,500	I will kick it off to you Key and make sure your mic’s on too. Hello everybody, um. OK, so there’s no really formal, I guess, process to doing this. You can ask questions as I go, um.

00:24:01,130	So prior to the zone receiving any reports, they go through our centralized intake unit, and so that is a unit that is around the whole entire state of North Dakota, um, we do, they do have 19 members that make up that unit. There’s a centralized line that’s added on here for people to call.

00:24:20,170	So usually if you have any contact with anybody at the zone, usually that’s on even our email like after our name as well, to be able to call in and make a report. Um Intake will call if you do, if people do file a 9660, they’ll call to do follow-up questions.

00:24:39,130	There are several questions on our intake tool that need to be followed up on so that we make sure we have all the details and everything when we’re going out to meet with the family. Um, then the intake unit will make the decision if the report actually meets the definition of child abuse and neglect.

00:24:58,000	So if it doesn’t meet that definition, I’ll talk about this a little bit later, what the report is considered, but it is still stored in our system, so we still have record of it, but it just doesn’t get pushed through to a full assessment and get assigned to a child protection worker. Um, during that process, the intake worker will decide the categories. So our categories in child protection are A, B, and C. Um, I’ll go into the details of those as well a little bit later.

00:25:21,870	Um And then we do get what’s called a full kit, so, um, Jim Holme knows when we send stuff over to the sheriff’s department. Typically we’re sending it with, we call it a full kit, but it’ll include the intake tool that intake will have filled out, and then a 960 if the person filing it filled that out and

00:25:43,830	then maybe it’s a police report, um, because law enforcement would have already responded with them, or maybe it’s like medical documentation. we would have got with it. So we try to have everything kind of together so that that worker can have all the information at one time.

00:26:02,970	And then, um, we do provide referrals to tri tribal and law enforcement agencies, and those are called ARs administratively referred. We’ll talk about that a little bit later and then those AAs like I talked about, that’s those reports that we do receive them, we keep them.

00:26:21,700	They are in our system, but it’s not something that gets pushed through to a child protection worker to go out to assess. Um, this is just talking about everything that goes into a report. So if you are calling to file, these are the types of things that we’re looking at, of course, if you do not know some of these details or you have more details, that’s perfectly OK, um, if you call in and you have

00:26:45,230	very limited information, um, an example I use is like you’re in the Shields parking lot and you make an observation of a family that you do not know, you’re obviously not gonna have that information other than probably their and model of their car and what you observed, right? So we often do get

00:27:02,230	reports that are, we say that they’re just unknown reports, and then we try to investigate to find if we can see if it belongs to a family, and if we can identify them to make contact. So on the bottom, it kind of says um by law the reporter information is confidential.

00:27:20,970	Reports filed may be shared with juvenile court law enforcement, tribal partners, or other authorized agents, so just so everybody does know whether it falls in the sheriff’s department jurisdiction, tribal jurisdiction, or Bismarck Police Department, it does get sent to a law enforcement entity every single time.

00:27:42,800	It does not matter if it’s an educational neglect report or if we have a very severe home condition. Or bruising an injury to a child. We do send those to law enforcement mainly because then they can do some follow up on their end, and they’ll kind of let us know, give us some guidance if there’s been any recent reports of that family or reason to be

00:27:59,870	concerned or if they should plan to go with us, um, to make contact with that family. So here’s the definitions of the AA and the AR reports, um, administratively referred reports are going to be the ones that, um, they fall outside North Dakota CPS jurisdiction, so that’s going to be um Not in North Dakota,

00:28:27,100	um, the reporter implicates the subject is not responsible for a child’s welfare, so this is a non-caregiver. I’ll tell you this is probably the one that causes um the most angst for, um, I mean, I guess child welfare staff, but also the general public.

00:28:47,330	The definition of a caregiver, um, under century Code is not what you or I would typically expect. It’s not gonna be every person that’s ever taking care of a child. So usually, um, there are situations where law enforcement can charge somebody with a crime because they did commit it, but it might not be that that person is considered a caregiver under the definition um of North Dakota

00:29:04,570	Century code. So that kind of becomes a little, once we determine that they are not a caregiver, we then cannot assess it. We can’t have a finding, a CPS finding on somebody that can’t even be considered a caregiver.

00:29:26,800	Um, and then if it happens on, um, An Indian reservation in the state of North Dakota that does have to be sent, that would be sent to that applicable tribe. And then Um, CSB is child sexualized behavior, um, when the CSB cases do come in, we at a minimum will put a safety plan in place with the family, but these are situations again, law enforcement is typically getting involved, and then we’ll make a decision if we’re

00:29:47,670	doing a forensic interview with the child and then law enforcement will make a decision if, if it’s a chargeable offense for that, for that child. Um, the only thing I’d add so far is like clarification, the non-caregiver, just some examples for you would be like, um, a neighbor to a child, like something happened, you know, a

00:30:05,930	crime may have been committed, but they’re not technically um deemed the caregiver. They don’t meet the definition of that, um, a cousin who’s staying at the house, he doesn’t provide any caregiving to that child.

00:30:21,570	They’re frustrating because we know that it happened, but they’re technically not deemed a caregiver, um, and then the other thing is around the child sexualized behavior. So those are really sometimes we refer to them as kid on kid.

00:30:39,000	So we look at during those assessments, the age of culpability, like what, what happens, so sometimes it is a, you know, 25 year olds engaging in, um, sexualized behavior or, you know, if it, is it normal curiosity? We work with the families on education around that supervision, or sometimes it’s more egregious acts of, um, things that happen where it might be, um, you know, a 12 year old and a 2 year old, you know, so there’s just different things that happen that come into play in those cases that

00:30:52,270	we have to consider, um, but the ultimate goal is getting. Both the victim and, um, the child who engaged in the act. I don’t wanna um refer to them as a perpetrator because really they’re still children, but really the ultimate goal is to get them both services for, um, the trauma and the behavior and

00:31:08,270	try to correct those things so that’s kind of the approach we take with those they’re very family engaged in the event we’re working those cases and the family isn’t engaging or we have reason to believe they failed to take action.

00:31:23,770	That’s a whole another, um, report that it needs to be made to then assess the family’s capacity, but they’re really, um, centered around the family. And then the administrative assessments, those are the ones like I say, we do have them stored in our system, but they don’t meet criteria for child abuse and neglect.

00:31:42,630	Um, so just some examples of those are things of those the child in question is over 18, um, there’s no credible or or causal reason to suspect abuse or neglect, um, and it was addressed in a previous assessment with no no new incident of maltreatment.

00:32:03,270	Um, so sometimes it’s frustrating calling in as a reporter because You’re not going to be privy to a lot of the information that you’re reporting, um, and it’s just important as mandated reporters to know your job is to do the reporting, and then if there’s further assistance needed that child protection will reach out.

00:32:31,070	OK, our response time so response time is, I always refer to this, this is gonna be our law enforcement requests, our on calls, our middle of the night calls, um, these are your serious physical injuries, sexual abuse, um, ingestion of, um, illegal substances, domestic violence with an immediate risk to children, um, and no caregiver available. Those are just some examples of those. Oh, hold on, I got to go back to this one. I didn’t make a bee examples of um category B reports are like exposure to domestic violence.

00:33:00,930	Psychological maltreatment, um, allegations of abuse where there is no injury, um, and usually the determination of whether a report is going to be an A or a B is determined on age and vulnerability, so there can be a lot of factors that change it from the category, um, and these are gonna be our

00:33:19,070	response times, right? This is law enforcement’s calling us, they’re on the side of the road with the family. Mom and dad are getting arrested, um, and there’s no caregiver. We need to come right now to relieve them to take those.

00:33:34,070	kids and either find family or they have to come into foster care, so that’s kind of the piece where, um, that’s gonna be determining, I guess, what the request is as far as how promptly we respond. And you also can take up to 24 hours to respond to that. I’ll tell you that’s not typically how it is.

00:33:51,870	Usually we get a Category A and somebody’s going out like, we’re going out soon, like soon, soon to address those. And then our category B’s are gonna be 72 hours or 3 days response time that we have to make face to face and see those kiddos.

00:34:17,270	Um, when we talk about um the Category A, usually we have present danger that is happening within that family. Um, that’s what we’re going out to assess. This is something that’s immediate, significant, and clearly observable. These are things that are happening right now, and the family is unable to control them within the home.

00:34:32,130	I always tell workers, if you are leaving this situation and you have the ick feeling and you don’t feel like this family can keep everything safe and together, we need to have a plan. We need to have a safety plan. Either people are going in.

00:34:47,900	People are going out, um, we have to come up with something and if they can’t come up with that plan, our next steps then are to talk about, um, are to talk about custody, whether we’re, it’s, it’s appropriate for us to take custody of those kiddos. Some examples of the present danger that um we have when we do when we train staff are physical conditions of the home, home conditions are hazardous.

00:35:13,900	Um, this is, you know, you’re thinking of, um, dog feces, exposed wires, kiddos are crawling around, they have access to chemicals, they have access to paraphernalia, um, they have stuff stacked up on the walls, and it could fall on top of them. Those are the types of home conditions that are going to be hazardous.

00:35:33,070	Um, caregiver caregiver is unable to perform essential duties because they’re under the influence. Those are gonna be the situations where, um, we, we are a law enforcement determine that they are under the influence and they can’t caregive for the children. Um, sexual abuse.

00:35:56,270	Um, child requiring immediate medical attention and say that a parent is unwilling to address that, we will then um give them options on making sure that that gets addressed whether they have to go to the walk-in or it’s usually the emergency room.

00:36:16,270	Um, and then injuries to the face, head, serious bruising, burns, broken bones, and cuts, um, this is typically gonna be a situation, um, that doesn’t really matter the age of the child, that’s really, um, determined on reports from collaterals, reports from that kiddo, and then obviously what we observe when we come in contact with them. So Chelsea referred to our shelter care program, um, that we often use, so we wanted to incorporate this in here and just talk about it a little bit. The shelter carere program is relatively new to North Dakota.

00:36:39,370	This is a prevention service. I did put the policy on there so that people can look it up if they would like to later, um, but this is a temporary care situation, so, um, where a child just needs a safe bed outside of the home.

00:36:55,870	Um, the length of time that this can be done is anywhere from one night to 14. nights. Um Typically, they want us to use it for 7 days. They want you to use it for a week and then the licensing department asked that we put in an additional request for up to 14 days, and they’ll let us know if it’s approved or

00:37:12,400	denied. Um, we haven’t gotten them denied when we reach out for them, so typically it’s a, um, they’re very good to work with us on, on working these prevention efforts.

00:37:32,900	Um, the provider does have to be a licensed foster parent in order to be a part of the shelter care program, um, it’s the only thing that’s really different for foster families is that Say that we place a kid in shelter care today, and they have to go to the walking because they skin their knee or they need to go in. We still need a parent’s permission in order to medically treat, because we do not have custody of that child.

00:37:49,200	So we will have a conversation with the parents and the parents have to agree to this program. They have to agree that this is something that they are willing to do and so we will let them know they’re, you know, there’s gonna be times we’re gonna need to call you and we might need to ask

00:38:02,700	questions, um, so please be available for us. Um, and then all families and children that we work with are eligible for this service. So that’s the eligibility requirements and then just some numbers as far as what we have done so far, um, Burle County has utilized this program in 76 cases that we are

00:38:26,070	the highest county in North Dakota for using the shelter care program, um, 32 of these cases have entered shelter have entered foster care. So what that means is we utilize the shelter.

00:38:44,200	program for 7 or 14 days and once we reach that 14th day, we were unable to reunify with the parents and so the kiddo did end up coming into foster care. And then 44 of these remained in either like CPS just kept them or in home case management services was open with them and working with the family and the kiddos were able to return back home. And then I guess the average length of stay is 12.5 days.

00:39:05,070	for that program. Um, the only thing I’d add is that for a CPS worker and you have, um, and even in Homeworkers too, they can utilize a shelter care program, but, um, imagine you’re a CPS worker and we’ll talk later about numbers and stuff when I go over that, but you know, you have, um, 20 open

00:39:22,070	CPS assessments and this, um, you have an instant and present danger and you’re, um, responding to the family and you’re offering them this prevention program for 7 to 14 days. That is when the work of that worker really kicks into gear. You have to be, um, pretty aggressive about working with the family on.

00:39:37,570	Whether it’s remedying conditions with the home, getting mom to AARC to get her out of a um, a bad environment that the kids are not able to be in either, um, contacting the tribe to let them know, hey, we’re involved with this family.

00:39:52,530	What do you know or what sports can you offer? Um, how can you help us engage with the family, um, that’s really when we’re doing a lot of that work, and it’s got to happen Fast and Furious cause your goal is in that 7 to 14 days, you have stabilized this family, which is, um, it’s a heavy lift for a worker who has a high caseload, and the

00:40:05,330	cases keep rolling in, so they could get another. So next week, that’s another present danger in shelter care, so it’s a lot for people to manage.

00:40:20,930	Um, it’s a lot for my supervisors to keep tabs on, um, like Kaya we’re thankful for, um, the licensing unit for the foster parents cause they definitely um keep us in line and um homes that were placing kids in and amendments to their license and Yeah, go ahead. Um, I I just have a question now, is this something that the child can initiate. Or is that geared and, and I’m not talking about an 89, 10 year old, maybe a teenager who’s.

00:40:44,430	That battles with parents or, so we do have a few things that we can do with that, right? There are situations where a child is, whether they’re fearful of being home, or there’s just a lot of parent-child conflict. So in those situations we, we sure can use the shelter care program.

00:40:59,500	Again, parents have to agree to that, but we also can utilize youth works, so the kiddos can like if a parent and child is having a conflict, a kiddo can go and stay there for a night or two for the weekend, um, I don’t know the number of days that.

00:41:14,930	They typically have them stay, but it’s kind of like a time out, right, for, for a parent and a, and a kiddo, and then usually if the youth works program is utilized in the shelter, they will have a, a kind of discharge meeting or they will have a conversation with them to come up with, you know, when this happens, what can we do next time, right?

00:41:31,870	It’s, it’s much better for children to be stay overnight at a friend’s house, right? Stay overnight at a at a uncle’s house, something like that at a neighbor’s house, um, and then have to come into foster care or be with strangers, right? So just being really mindful and planful of those situations, but yes,

00:41:49,600	there are times that we have come in contact with kiddos and they’re like, I’m not going home, right? Or me and mom or dad are having a lot of conflict, um, and so we got to come up with a plan and we’re very much a part of that. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah Thank you.

00:42:07,600	Other thing I was gonna add, um, is this program was kind of started because of our short stars, like we did have a, you know, situations like Chelsea talked about where um the ones that we always say are the, the housing issues, right? Like, say people are getting evicted or say that their people are

00:42:27,600	homeless and they’re, they’re gonna get a place on the 14th, right, or whatever, um, those are the situations that this was kind of created for. And so this really has curbed a lot.

00:42:47,230	a lot of um foster care stays for kiddos, um, and it’s really become a routine now, like for us to utilize, um, so it’s been a positive thing for us, I feel like. Yeah, I think one case that really stands out is like those situations where we might be opening in home or working with the family, they’re doing, um, mom is engaging really well, but Mom has, um, maybe she needs to go on and deliver another baby, and so we’re

00:43:02,230	sitting there and she’s like, I don’t have anybody who can help me with my other two kids. What are we gonna do? I don’t have family support. This is When we as zones were like, we’re taking custody of children for something like that, right? And they’re not able to be there.

00:43:14,970	So this program is huge for just telling we can use a shelter care program. Um, they can go there for a couple of days while this happens, we get mom settled back in and that kind of stuff.

00:43:29,030	So that’s just one example of, um, something that doesn’t really have to be abuse and neglect, right? Like we think about, we’re giving you examples of like a present danger and things like that, but there’s times where it is not that, um, uh, it’s not on the parent, it’s just the lack of resources and support they have. So this, this program has been fantastic and when you pair this with the use of um.

00:43:44,800	Dollars that we have in the zone to support families with um. Purchasing um items for their home maybe that they need to remedy or um securing the housing whether we pay for an application for, um, rent, um, uh, for securing an apartment.

00:44:02,570	I mean, there’s just ways that we’re just trying to get more creative and helping the family and stability because in the, um, The long run, we want to prevent the entry into foster care, so. This has been, I don’t want to say fun, but it’s been good to see like the work of my team, get creative and think outside the box and know, um, there’s no wrong, um, question to ask cause everything usually leads to the

00:44:19,570	right answer, so it’s been good. Well, and it’s nice because we can safety plan with a basketball coach, right, with a church leader, with a neighbor, with a, you know, you talk to those teenagers, they’re not going to stay anywhere that they don’t want to stay, right? So you want to be creative, you

00:44:33,400	want to be able to do that so that kiddos can be safe. they want, they’ll stay where you have them go and not put them in a foster home and then they run, right? We don’t want that. So yeah, I’d say kudos to to like Bismarck public schools.

00:44:49,970	We’ve had a lot of luck where, um, that family may identify the previous 2nd grade teacher for that kid as a support or somebody in that school and as long as, um, they feel like it’s all agreed upon, um, with them.

00:45:04,870	That’s what we consider kin, right? That’s comfortable for the child, so we’ve been able to do a lot of safety planning with, um, and I think later I’ll talk. Vict of kin placements and the percentage that we have placed with them, so that’s been great. Yeah, that’s a good call out. So, um, the different child protection assessments that we complete, um, the first one I’ll talk about is alternative response.

00:45:22,130	So this is our substance exposed babies. Um, I have, well we have um one worker specifically that does these cases, we have seen, um, quite a bit of success with that. I actually did that, um, before I became a supervisor, so it’s really kind of a specialty.

00:45:42,800	You have to have a um different kind of mentality, different kind of understanding of the situation, so, um, these are the cases. You’re really working a plan of safe care with the parents, you’re surrounding them with their safety supports, getting that all in place so that when we are not involved, that there are going to be people that step up to the plate for this baby and step up to the plate

00:45:57,330	for mom and dad, um, typically the alternative response assessments are, are focused on mom, um, but there is a lot of stuff that and referrals and services that will go into place for the dads too.

00:46:18,530	So it’s making contact with early intervention, with healthy families, with whatever hospital or provider they choose, um, and making sure everybody kind of stays connected on that, in that way. We do work these for a minimum of 6 weeks.

00:46:37,730	So under the policy, the worker only has to go every other week to make face to face contact, but we do make contact every single week is usually our requirement, um, that we feel the most comfortable with cause babies are vulnerable and we just want to make sure that Everybody’s doing OK. I’m the middle column is our um standard child protection assessment.

00:46:59,730	So these are fact finding assessments, um, That enables a determination to be made, um, providing that we are looking out for the protection and treatment of an abused or neglected child, um, these are often referred to as a standard or a full assessment, and then at the end of these, we are determining, I know we talked about present danger, but we’re, we’re determining if impending danger exists with these families.

00:47:16,200	I will go in more detail about that a little bit later, but that’s something that we are just anticipating if we step away from this family and we do not provide case management in some capacity, it’s likely that this behavior and this condition will not stay controlled without somebody’s involvement, so we need to have a safety plan in place.

00:47:32,330	We need to have those safety providers checking in with that family, whatever that looks like. Um, typically, this is, um, the schools checking in with kiddos, um, doing they typically are already on a daily check-in. Um, so we’ll add that as part of the plan, um, so usually that’s a really good support in that area. The last ones are family service assessments, so these are your old a neglect reports.

00:47:53,100	These can also include um an adequate supervision or children in need of services, so this is an assessment that’s deemed to be a low risk, and there isn’t any safety concerns noted in the report.

00:48:14,470	If we get it as a family service assessment, um, and something does come up, that’s safety related or we get additional concerns. Typically then it can’t be a family service assessment anymore, and it’ll get kicked. To a standard child protection assessment.

00:48:31,800	Um, examples of the family service that I’ve done as a worker where, um, a neglect where it was a grandmother raising, you know, her teenage son, um, grandson, and, um, when I was able to go in, we just talked about setting some. Boundaries, right? Like the Xbox gotta go away before bed so that kid can get to bed and get up in the morning, setting some things to maybe be motivators for the kids, so you’re really creating goals and a plan for the family.

00:48:47,930	It’s not due to their, um, negligence that these things are happening. It’s just because they just need some extra support. So it’s a different approach. It’s not like Kayla said, it’s more like an engagement, um, other one is, um, home conditions with the two kids in the home are 13 and 16, they contribute to this home condition, right? We’re

00:49:02,600	going to work with the family and like, maybe we need to set up some chores, maybe we need to have some rewards and consequences, that kind of stuff to just help families and support them, so that’s also been a good um car of assessments to kind of separate them from those who truly it’s

00:49:15,900	more of a neglect. Um, so when we staff our child protection assessments, um, after we gather all of our facts and everything, um, we do staff them with, um, a field service specialist.

00:49:38,730	So that is through the Department of Health and Human Services, an employee through there, and they are the ones that um make the final decision, whether it’s a confirmed, unconfirmed assessment terminated in progress, um, unable to determine. Those are our Those are the typical findings that are listed on here too. The maltreatments that um are listed there in the middle column.

00:50:02,730	Um, so prenatal exposure, medical neglect, environmental conditions, sexual abuse, physical abuse, psychological maltreatment are just a few. Um, and then the last column just says are basically the definitions assessment terminated and progress essentially means that the worker went out to make contact with the family and the allegations in the report are not accurate, right? You go out and it’s typically the opposite, or there isn’t any factual basis around the information

00:50:25,870	that’s in the report. So it would be terminated, there isn’t a reason to continue to, um, do additional interviews. There isn’t a maltreatment, um, it. Again, it’s still documented in our system, but we don’t have to do a full assessment essentially on that. And then the other ones are unconfirmed.

00:50:45,470	Confirmed, confirmed with an unknown subject and then an unable to determine. So even though we do an unconfirmed finding, it doesn’t mean that um there aren’t concerns within the family, so that’s where we’re gonna be looking at if there’s impending danger that continues to exist, and if we should stay involved with the family to help support them.

00:51:09,470	Um, so these are just some of our examples of the impending danger that I talked about, um, one, I’ll just talk about a couple of them, I guess, that we use on a pretty frequent basis. Um, I would say the number 7 parent or caregiver is behavior is dangerously impulsive, or they will not, cannot control their behavior.

00:51:30,870	So that’s gonna typically be the one where we have concerns for drug use, um, concerns for alcohol use. Unfortunately, that’s pretty prevalent in our community and so it’s um almost rare now that we don’t have that in some capacity in most of our assessments that we’re dealing with.

00:51:52,730	Um, another one that we typically deal with is number 13, lacking knowledge, skills, and our motivation necessary to meet a child’s basic needs. Those are gonna be those situations, right, where, um, medical needs aren’t being met, um, educational needs aren’t being met, um, and so we need to kind of continue to be involved with them to help remedy that, um, and have a safety plan surrounding that

00:52:12,470	family. When we talk about impending danger, these are the criteria that we look at. So observable, vulnerable child, out of control, imminent and severity of what’s happening. So you, even though like say a vulnerable child they have in there that it’s a 0 to 6. We have had situations where kiddos are 1315, 16.

00:52:37,730	It really depends on even their cognitive abilities or, um, you know, where they are at, emotional maturity wise, if we can use that as a um reason for continuing our involvement.

00:52:54,670	I won’t read these all to you guys, but no, I just say the short and sweet is like you’re observable, um, you have to be able to articulate it like what are you seeing? What are you, um, observing in the family? The vulnerable, like Keyla said, there’s a whole array of what is vulnerable, um, and then out of control, there’s nobody else who can control this.

00:53:11,430	There’s not another caregiver in the home, not a family member who’s stepping in, um, imminent, it’s likely to continue in the next few days or weeks without intervention and then severity, which, um, what is the impact to the family if, um, intervention doesn’t take place or we don’t have a plan.

00:53:29,330	So our workers have to be able to articulate what this threshold we call it, um, in order to explain Why our involvement is in the family, and then they also go through like a safety determination to, to, um, where it helps them understand what level of intrusion they need like Kayla said earlier is that in and out, like somebody out of the home, somebody in the home, Grandma’s gonna move in to help monitor things or maybe

00:53:43,830	the um concerning caregiver is going to move out or people are gonna come do checks, um, everyday or we kind of have to walk through with the family what’s realistic for their lifestyle and the needs, but the goal is always to, um, preserve the family you. while ensuring the safety at the right level of intrusion.

00:54:01,970	Yeah, we always try to just think that it’s always gonna be easier for the kiddos to stay in the home. So what can we do to make that a possibility or make that happen.

00:54:21,400	And then just safety planning around Chelsea kind of talked about this, but um if impending dangers are found to exist within the family unit, worker must work to complete an in-home or the out of home safety plan. So this is our safety plan determination. Um, when is the danger happening, right, if mom and dad are um intoxicated only on the weekend.

00:54:39,330	That’s the only time that the danger is happening, that’s what we’re gonna form our safety plan around, right? People don’t need to be there from Monday to Thursday, right? Then if something changes, then we have to change that safety plan, um, but it’s typically gonna be around, we want to be the least invasive that we need to be with the family.

00:54:56,200	We don’t want to be so intrusive if it’s not necessary, right? There’s plenty of cases where it is necessary, but if it’s not necessary, we want to be, um, least intrusive always while keeping kids safe.

00:55:13,470	Yeah, I think when safety framework rolled out, one of the examples that they gave was a two-parent household, um, and mom struggle with mental health and Dad struggled with substance use and then there was various kids in the home like Asias, um,,,, 16, and 13. So the danger was different for each of those kids based on their vulnerability and their needs and those interactions with the caregivers.

00:55:28,100	So for the 13, and this, this is like our case study when we rolled this out to train on it was, um, you know, there could be parent-child conflict then between the 13 year old and the parents because Of, um, those issues that the parents are having, and then all the way down to where the one year old is a different level because they need more supervision, right? They need more care and

00:55:42,530	control from that caregiver. So your safety plan will, um, can have different layers to it where somebody might be coming in to be more hands on with the younger one and helping mom and dad with that where the 13 year old may be leaving the home a few times a week to take a break from that parent-chi

00:55:57,270	conflict. So it really takes a family-centered engagement to determine what that safety plan needs, who can participate in that. We’re always asking the family like who do you have, who are your supports and how can we build that, cuz our interventions with family, we want them to be short-lived.

00:56:14,470	We want to build the, um, independence and the ability for them to um live independently from our like us having to be involved, so it’s just kind of helping them understand that, getting connected to services. Other case management like um the UN Service Center. So it doesn’t have to be us ongoing, so yeah. Any questions? comments. Mhm Well, thank you, Kayla.

00:56:47,470	Um, so yeah, like just going over this presentation, this is really then how we get to case management, and then that’s a whole another conversation on, on the policy and procedure on case management.

00:57:04,530	So, um, our goal is always to keep cases moving through impending danger within home, um, which is then, um, a category of cases where we’re providing that to families connecting them to services for, um, the children, the parents, that can be a substance abuse, mental health, and then working to get the stability so we can eventually phase out, um, they have requirements on those keys.

00:57:21,370	places to see those kiddos 2 times a month in, um, person, so that’s in their safety sports home, so, um, whether that’s their home or they’re gonna stay with a relative or kin. Um, and then the other level of intrusion would be when things elevate to the point where we need to, um, Have custody of the children, which is all done through our court systems.

00:57:37,170	So those aren’t decisions that we just make at the zone, we have to staff those with, um, juvenile court and we have hearings and, um, all those things, so. OK, well, thank you, um, for that part. And so then I’ll just kind of go into other. Child Welfare information, um.

00:58:01,670	So for Kayla’s team and child protection services, they received in the month of May, uh, there was 224 reports of abuse, neglect received, how she talked about some of those don’t meet the level of abuse and neglect, so of those reports, um, 171 resulted in CPS assessments, so the, uh, other ones of those were able to get screened out either they were uh as she went

00:58:18,830	over, they were 88 or AR depending on the the criteria. Um, so currently our total open CPS assessments is 348, and I believe on Kayla’s team, you have 12, um, workers to those assessments are divided amongst.

00:58:40,130	Um, and then in the month of May, they were able to close 88 assessments, so, um, this, I’ll, I can kind of jump into, sorry if I jump around on you, but I also have in front of you, um, we’ve talked previously about measurements, so on April 28th, you’ll kind of, um, have like a packet with a letter from HHS. This was, um, it’s now being provided to our board.

00:58:55,700	So I kind of talked about this at our last board meetings so you guys had an idea what these measurements were, these standards, just so we could start talking about them going forward, so you received, um, the board did a letter.

00:59:09,930	from the executive office, um, outlining the point of these administrative, um, standards and what they all are. So again, we went over them in detail last, um, meeting, so, um, there’s ton I gave you a couple different handouts on them, but I’ll just kind of talk a little bit about um the CPS ones.

00:59:28,070	So those are numbers, um, 4 and 5, so timely CPS assessments, and number 5 is CPS face to face visits, um, are timely CPS face face visits. So you’ll see, um, October, November in regards to number 4 of the assessments, we, um, Our stat that we got was 65.9% for timely CPS assessment.

00:59:48,870	So that means that we fell in line with policy and completed them on time, which I believe is um 90 days. Maybe I’m wrong. I don’t have that in front of me, but, um, and so then is it? Oh, don’t, it’s 62 of things Kayla.

01:00:09,730	Um, so in this last quarter then, which was January, um, February and March, um, in number 4 for timely CPS assessments, we did increase to 80.4%. So that was huge kudos to that team in increasing that measurement. So we went from a severe failure to meet at that 65.9 to a meet standard. Um, the other one was the face to face. So we were at an 86.

01:00:31,830	7% on those face to faces are built, um, based on that, those categories Kayla talked about, like the A, B and C, um, so A is 24, B is the 3 days, and then C is the 14. So did we meet that time frame, um, so the October through December quarter, we, um, we meet standard at 86.7 and then at the last one we were at an 88.3.

01:00:47,130	So again, we saw an increase in that we continued to meet standard in those. So again, just. Context around the number of assessments they have or they’re receiving. That’s a lot of work that unit’s doing, um, there’s a lot of action that goes into it and then getting all that entered.

01:01:00,500	So, um, I’m really proud of their numbers, what they’re doing, obviously, I strive that I want to see 100 on all, on all things, but I can’t, um, I can’t not give them credit for the work that they’re doing, um, there is a dashboard that, um, myself and the, um, program manager over child welfare utilized with the

01:01:19,730	management team to, uh, we can drill. Down all these measurements, so I can specifically drill down, uh, face to face timeliness and then in there you can see each worker, and it will tell you the num um like literally by the minutes that they missed that face to face. So if I receive this report at 1 p.m.

01:01:36,770	and I had 24 hours and I didn’t make my face face the next day until 1:05 p.m. I technically missed my 24 hour time frame, but, um, I get to see by how much. So that is just helpful cause sometimes it’s, you know, we might have got to the school.

01:01:51,900	see Johnny, and he’s in the middle of a really fun activity and he’s having a good day and he had a pretty rough night, um, because of what’s been happening. So we may work with the school and say we’re going to come back later.

01:02:05,670	Um, so it’s just coordinating, which is why we work really hard to, um, call ahead of time and say what’s their schedule. So those are just examples of sometimes we can’t locate if they’re not school-age kids, we might not be able to locate them. Timely Um Yeah, so I’m gonna go over, um, when I’ll kind of bounce back and forth when I get to the case management one, but that is my CPS update.

01:02:24,270	Um Foster care in home parenting services. So currently I have, um, 204 youth in foster care, 33 of those youth have the um termination of parental rights in place, so those are kids that we are in the process of either, um, permanency planning.

01:02:40,870	They have an adoptive home and we are working on the adoption home study and we’re waiting on a court hearing, um, for permanency or we are in recruitment actively for, um, homes that are willing to adopt those kiddos or we’re in a search for them. Um, in home, we serve 35 families. That is just.

01:02:59,630	Um, that data is driven by the number of families, so each of those families could have more kids though, so like when a uh case manager says I have 5 in-home cases that could be, um, 15 children or more. You just don’t know. It just depends on the size of the family.

01:03:14,030	And then parent aid services, I have 4 parent aids and then they have a lead who also does um some different courtesy case management when, um, kiddos are here from other zones or out of state, but, um, so that that’s a team of 5 of them then and they have 88 families that they’re serving. So again, they’re gonna be working with mom and dad separately on goals, depending on what they need.

01:03:30,500	They’re working on the kiddos with things, um, a lot of the work that that team is doing is transports and visits, so they help us out, um, tremendously with getting kids to appointments and um helping supervised visits.

01:03:51,870	Um, we are seeing a continued shift towards kinship and relative-based foster placements with 73% of kinship providers offering respite care, um, so we’re just seeing an increase in the number of, um, kids that were able to place in kinship or relative placements.

01:04:08,900	Sometimes we still have custody of kids in their place with relatives because of, um, custodial needs of the children, right? Like we might have a child who could be placed with a grandma and then we lose parent engagement and the kid needs something that I don’t have a custodian to make the decision on. So then we end up taking custody of those youth. That’s just like one example of how that can happen.

01:04:22,430	Um, they, we still are gonna leave them placed with those relatives, but we just need somebody to have care and control over those, um, kiddos. Um, OK, so then if you bounce back to my standards, um, those for case management is, um, 1 through 3. Different things that we look at.

01:04:44,200	So again, if you go to the quarter of October through December for, um, I’m gonna pick on number 2, which is my face to face for, um, visits for children in foster care. We were 94.7, um, and this last one, we were an 85.

01:04:59,770	7, so January through March, um, part of what we look at is, it’s not that those things didn’t happen yet, the data just hasn’t been entered into the system this is pulled from. I mean, obviously I’m asking my team, are we not doing these things, but um mostly. What we’re finding is because of the overwhelming amount of cases I have in case management right now, um, and turn over an open positions.

01:05:17,870	I have case managers who are averaging anywhere from 23 to 39 um children on their caseload. The state standard is 12 to 15, so they’re managing sometimes double what is, um, preferred standards. So it’s not that they’re not happening, they probably just haven’t been entered, and this data was pulled. Um, another one to look at is um.

01:05:36,570	The in-home one is the one below that again, that’s the 2 visits a month. We did previously, we were at a 50, um, sorry, sorry, 65.3 and now we’re at a 53.9. That too we’re talking about, um, data entry and that one we’ve worked with the department on.

01:05:54,730	Um, that one is hard cause it’s simply oftentimes just the way you enter the data, you have to code it correctly for how it’s pulling, so, um. Working on that one. So those are kind of the two callouts, and again, we can drill it down by case managers so you can really address performance on those, um, another one that I provided you guys was, uh, the more colorful one on the front with

01:06:10,230	the charts. This, I just think it’s helpful for you guys to see how we fall comparatively with other zones, so really that cover sheet is the one that has all the measures and you can see the meat standards and, um, kind of your key for what all the color coding is for, but when you look at

01:06:26,670	Burley County, let’s just say, Um, for I’ll pick on that CPS assessment one because we did approving that one number 4, so we were at the um 65.9, um, for October through December and you can just see where we fall compared to other zones.

01:06:48,070	So obviously I’m gonna pick on uh cast, uh, Ward and Grand Forks cause they’re comparative to our size, um. Oh, thank you, um, so when you look at that, it just kind of helps you understand like where we are um compared to those zones, so. Yeah, um, this is just stuff I wanted you guys to get familiar with because.

01:07:08,900	part of HHS’s, um, initiative with these um measurements and standards is that they will go to his own boards and they expect that, um, I reviewed them or discussed them, so I just wanted you guys to get familiar with them, but. I don’t any questions on those. Um, OK, so then really in.

01:07:33,000	Wrap up to everything else I have for um child welfare just continuing collaboration that we’re doing, so we continue to meet monthly with Ask Juvenile Court, um, when school’s in session, we meet regularly with Bismarck Public Schools.

01:07:51,070	Uh, we’ve been engaging with the UND training center in the native, um, American Training Institute or we call it NAD on improving, um, services for, uh, the native families that we serve and the children, so, um, we do case reviews or case studies to talk about what we could have done different, how we can change our approach to be more trauma informed.

01:08:09,230	Um Uh, approach versus um kind of what we have been doing historically, um, we have worked with the Children’s Advocacy Center to, um, MDD MDT training, which actually Kayla does, um, so that’s for new members from law enforcement, uh, law enforcement prosecution, social services, um, we kind of do like an onboarding to talk about what happens in the life of a case.

01:08:29,000	Um, many of our staff participated in a recent human trafficking training, and then we just continue to collaborate with um Health and Human Services they’re gonna be coming and doing, um, some case reviews with us, um, because we have had a great spike since the end of 2024 and the number of kids entering here and, um, they’re often asking me why, and it’s not, I always tell them I’m not out drumming up

01:08:45,670	business, um, but there’s obviously something going on that that does happen. So whether that means um I kind of feel like we’re the Aftermath of an earthquake that happened, so whether that’s because there’s housing issues in our community, or we need more services for, um, family-based treatment services, we then end up being the, um, catch of the

01:09:04,330	family afterwards. So we’re just trying to look at these cases and determine, um, what led to that, what prevention could we do, and then what other services can be there for? Um, trying to get kids back home quickly, so yeah. And I just have one little, War to the.

01:09:27,800	Our transportation taxi service won’t be around, I don’t think for much longer. that will be another barrier for families as well. There won’t be a cab service, uh, I don’t know if you guys seen that in the news, Chelsea. There was. Yeah, actually and I think that’ll be a barrier for your family as, as well, because there won’t be that non-emergent.

01:09:52,330	Like they won’t be able to have their rides to the clinic or anything like that, so I don’t know if you guys can help them with that. Yeah. Driving them.

01:10:09,470	Yeah, we do a lot um for our families with transport is pretty much taken wherever they need to go, um, kiddos to school, it’s a lot on our hos too, so we actually still do a lot of transports when kiddos are in foster homes, um, because they might get placed on their school, um, of origin community, but we want to keep the kid in the same school, so if they usually go to school in Lincoln and their foster homes in Mandan, we

01:10:22,730	understand that’s a burden on the fostertro, so we try to do as much as we can, um, to help with that, but, um, to your point, Trevor, yeah, I participated in the when you were on the panel for the human um relations.

01:10:36,400	and I try to stay on top of transportation in the community because that is a big impact. To my family’s, yeah. Um, that’s really all I had for program updates. I’ll try to cruise through the rest of the agenda. Thank you guys for being patient.

01:10:53,070	This, I knew this would be a heavier meeting cause of um other things we had, but on the next on the agenda was the financial report, so I’ll punt that over to Tean to kind of give an update. Alright, so in your packets, um, we just gave you guys, um, basically a handout that shows comparatively, um, what our current 2025 budget looks like compared to our recalculated 2025 budget, um, in the time frame of May and June every

01:11:15,070	year, we work with our state fiscal partners to, um, review and revise the existing annual budget for for our zone. So that’s what that is.

01:11:30,500	And then at the same time, um, we take a look at next year’s projection, um, so that is there for you as well and so each of those have now been approved by our state fiscal partners, um, so that’s just information there for you to review, um, pretty much from 2025s, um, revised budget to 2026, there’s really no. Changes um of note um for anything really. Outstanding other than there’s some programmatic decreases, and that’s really, um, a representation of some.

01:11:59,800	Services that are the State Department will be taking care of directly on their end. So we’re not going to see some of those payments, um, run through our own offices anymore, the state will be handling those through, um, kind of collective contracts and things like that on their end, so.

01:12:14,830	Um, another thing that you might see on there is we had the, um, We were financed for another county vehicle. So right now we have really one county car that’s operable between all my staff, otherwise we rely on like rentals, um, for when they’re doing out of town or longer travel, so, um, that is in the budget for the rest of

01:12:31,730	2025 that I need to, um, procure another vehicle, so you’ll see that and then it’s out of the budget for 2026. Any questions on that? Um, next on the agenda is public comment. There is no public to comment, so we’ll cruise and um just to the end of the agenda.

01:13:00,200	I don’t have any other business, um, uh, really it’s just everything we kind of went over today, those are our priorities, things we’re working on, um, so I just again appreciate this board’s time, your guys’ support, um, advocacy and your own way that you’re connected to this agency, um, so I appreciate that. Um, so if there’s nothing else during the meeting. Thank you.