• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE SUBCOMMITTEE ON HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES STATE CAPITOL MINORITY CAUCUS ROOM ROOM 418 HARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA THURSDAY, MARCH 26, 2009 9:05 A.M. PRESENTATION ON CHILD WELFARE SYSTEM IN PENNSYLVANIA BEFORE: HONORABLE KATHY MANDERINO, MAJORITY SUBCOMMITTEE CHAIRMAN HONORABLE MATTHEW D. BRADFORD HONORABLE TIM BRIGGS HONORABLE DEBERAH KULA HONORABLE JOHN MYERS HONORABLE CHERELLE L. PARKER HONORABLE JAKE WHEATLEY HONORABLE KATIE TRUE MINORITY SUBCOMMITTEE CO-CHAIRMAN HONORABLE BRIAN L. ELLIS HONORABLE JOHN R. EVANS HONORABLE DOUGLAS G. REICHLEY HONORABLE RICHARD R. STEVENSON ALSO IN ATTENDANCE: HONORABLE MATTHEW E. BAKER HONORABLE CURTIS SONNEY ————————— JEAN DAVIS REPORTING 7786 Hanoverdale Drive • Harrisburg, PA 17112 Phone (717)503-6568 • Fax (717)566-7760 2 1 ALSO PRESENT: LISA FRAELICH 2 3 4 JEAN M. DAVIS, REPORTER NOTARY PUBLIC 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 3 1 I N D E X 2 TESTIFIERS 3 NAME PAGE 4 LISA FLEMING 5 BUDGET ANALYST HOUSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE..................5 6 ESTELLE B. RICHMAN 7 SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WELFARE........20 8 ANNE MARIE AMBROSE COMMISSIONER, PHILADELPHIA DEPARTMENT 9 OF HUMAN SERVICES..............................33 10 JAMES A. LAUGHMAN EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF THE 11 HUMAN SERVICES ADMINISTRATOR, LANCASTER COUNTY...............................40 12 TERRY L. WATSON 13 DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF CHILDREN AND YOUTH SERVICES, CENTER COUNTY..................................46 14 MARC CHERNA 15 DIRECTOR, ALLEGHENY COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES.................................55 16 DANIEL A. STYBORSKI 17 PROGRAM DIRECTOR, LAUREL YOUTH SERVICES, BLOSSBURG...............64 18 ANDREA H. BOYLES 19 DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS, CENTRE COUNTY YOUTH SERVICES BUREAU, 20 STATE COLLEGE, PA..............................74 21 NANCY E. SABOL, MA EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 22 GANNONDALE, ERIE, PA...........................82 23 GWENDOLYN BAILEY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, YOUTH SERVICES, INC., 24 PHILADELPHIA, PA...............................87 25 4 1 (TESTIFIERS, cont'd.): 2 NAME PAGE JAMES E. ANDERSON 3 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, JUVENILE COURT JUDGES COMMISSION................95 4 JUDGE REA B. BOYLAN 5 COURT OF COMMON PLEAS, BUCKS COUNTY...................................105 6 ROBERT STANZIONE 7 BUCKS COUNTY CHIEF JUVENILE PROBATION OFFICER.....110 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 5 1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 * * * 3 SUBCOMMITTEE CHAIRMAN MANDERINO: Good 4 morning. 5 We're ready to start our hearing. 6 Lisa. 7 MS. FLEMING: I hope I can do this in eight 8 minutes. Again, my name is Lisa Fleming. I am a 9 budget analyst with the House Appropriations 10 Committee. 11 What I tried to do is I tried to boil down a 12 very complex system into a few slides for you. And 13 there should be PowerPoint handouts available. If we 14 run out, I'm going to have this posted on our 15 website, www.hacd.net, hopefully by the end of today, 16 if not, by the end of the week. 17 SUBCOMMITTEE CHAIRMAN MANDERINO: I'm sorry. 18 I didn't read my agenda. We did allot you a little 19 bit longer than eight minutes. I'm sorry. 20 MS. FLEMING: That's okay. Just in case. 21 The child welfare budget in the General Fund 22 budget, for those who don't know, is under the county 23 child welfare appropriation. 24 And when discussing what to do with the 25 Subcommittee hearing, we found out that the overall 6 1 budget for DPW tends to be dominated by questions 2 about the really, really big programs, your medical 3 assistance programs. 4 A lot of people like to talk about the 5 income maintenance programs, what they see as the 6 cash welfare programs, for political reasons and 7 other reasons. 8 But this is a really large cost driver in 9 the DPW budget that people don't always realize how 10 much money is actually going into the system. And 11 it's unique in that it's really heavily weighed on a 12 balance between the State and the counties and the 13 private providers. 14 So there's a lot of people affected by this 15 in the realm of the budget and, of course, the 16 Commonwealth's children are the ones that are most 17 affected at the end. 18 So with that, I'll try to do this overview. 19 And like I said, it's a pretty complex system. I 20 tried to make it as user-friendly as possible. 21 Basically, like I was saying, the child 22 welfare system is designed to provide government 23 services that are geared toward promoting the safety, 24 permanency, and well-being of the children of 25 Pennsylvania. 7 1 There's various goals of the system. The 2 ones that I picked out that I thought were worth 3 noting is protecting the children who have been or 4 are at risk of being abused and neglected, assisting 5 children who have been temporarily or permanently 6 Removed from their parents' homes, and supporting and 7 preserving families. 8 Like I said, this is a State-supervised and 9 county-administered program. The ultimate 10 responsibility lies with the Department of Public 11 Welfare, in particular their Office of Children, 12 Youth, and Families, OCYF. 13 That office will review county plans and 14 budget requests relating to the child welfare system. 15 They also develop and implement policies and 16 regulations. They monitor the policies and the 17 programs then and enforce program standards and 18 requirements. And it looks like I put county request 19 twice, but, you know, mistakes happen. 20 The counties provide the services to the 21 children and their families. The child welfare 22 services are administered by Children and Youth 23 Agencies at the county level. 24 Juvenile justice services are administered 25 by juvenile probation offices. And the determination 8 1 of need, of course, they use the guidelines the DPW 2 puts down and what's in State law and Federal law. 3 But the county agencies are responsible for 4 determining a child's need for services. 5 Like I said, there's many laws that govern 6 the system. There's the Public Welfare Code, the 7 County Code, the Juvenile Act, the Child Protective 8 Services Law, and Adoption Act. 9 The Public Welfare Code will probably come 10 up a little later because there are some proposed 11 changes dealing with the oversight authority of DPW 12 and the reimbursements of counties for services as 13 part of this budget proposal. So it was important to 14 point that out. 15 Just a little brief blurb about the county 16 responsibility. Regulations require that each county 17 provide services, again, to keep children in their 18 own homes; prevent abuse, neglect, and exploitation; 19 and to help families overcome problems that result in 20 dependency and delinquency. 21 Counties are also required to provide 22 reunification services, designed to reunite children 23 in placement with their families, and to provide a 24 permanent home for a child in placement where 25 reunification is not an option. 9 1 Those are what they're required to provide. 2 But counties often and should try to provide services 3 to prevent children from coming into the system in 4 the first place. And unfortunately, in tight budget 5 times, these are the type of programs that tend to 6 not get as much funding. 7 So when there's a possibility to fund these 8 prevention programs, I know that it's a concern of a 9 lot of members on both sides of the aisle to try to 10 find money for prevention programs because we know in 11 our heads that, you know, prevention is going to stop 12 a more costly system in the end. But when times get 13 tough, we are so often just pouring money into the 14 mandated services. So I think that's important to 15 note. 16 Again, this is just a list of the required 17 services that they're required to take at the county 18 level, placement services, adoption services, and any 19 other services that are ordered by the Court as well. 20 So the Courts also play a key role in the child 21 welfare system. 22 County employees are required to perform the 23 following activities: intake, investigation, family 24 assessment, case planning, and case management. But 25 for other services, counties may contract with 10 1 private providers. And that's where the private 2 providers come in in this joint system that we run 3 here in Pennsylvania. 4 And because the counties are contracting the 5 private providers, there's going to be a lot of 6 variance amongst the different counties with how many 7 private providers are providing those services, the 8 cost of those services. So that's important to keep 9 in mind, too, when we're discussing budget issues. 10 There's a few categories of services that 11 you might hear come up today. I tried my best. 12 There's not really good definitions out there, I 13 discovered, so we did some brainstorming in our 14 office to try to find some good definitions of these 15 types of services so when they come up in testimony, 16 you're not sitting there scratching your head. 17 In-home services includes things like 18 counseling, parenting skills, training, treatment, 19 and therapy. The overall goal is usually to improve 20 the home environment to prevent abuse, neglect, and 21 prevent placement and keep these children in the 22 home.

Load more

  179

Copy Link