Advisory/Implementation

Advisory/Implementation Committee

Present Members

Justice P. Harris Hines, Supreme Court of Georgia, Chair

Ms. Doris Walker, Division of Family and Children Services, Director of Foster Care

Mr. Duaine Hathaway, Georgia CASA, Executive Director

Judge R. Michael Key, Troup County Juvenile Court

Ms. Kathleen Dumitrescu, Former Cobb County Legal Aid, Director

Judge Peggy Walker, Douglas County Juvenile Court

Judge Hugh Stone, Chief Superior Court Judge, Enotah Circuit

Judge James Morris, Cobb County Juvenile Court (retired)

Nikki Marr, Former Judge, Dekalb County Juvenile Court

Mr. Robert Grayson, Cobb County, Special Assistant Attorney General

Judge Stephen Goss, Doughtery County Superior Court

Mr. W. Terence Walsh, Alston & Bird, Chair, State Bar Committee Children and the Courts

Ms. DeAlvah Simms, Office of the Child Advocate

Judge Tom Rawlings, Middle Circuit Juvenile Court

Dr. Normer Adams, Georgia Association of Homes and Services for Children, Executive Director

Past Members

Judge Bryant Culpepper, Bibb County Superior Court, Former Chair

Judge Cliff Jolliff, Hall County Juvenile Court

Judge Sanford Jones, Fulton County Juvenile Court

Judge Stephen Franzen, Gwinnett County Juvenile Court

Ms. Carol Campbell, Former Division of Family and Children Services Deputy Director

Judge Ronald Rentz, Early and Clay County Juvenile Court

Judge Virgil Costley, Newton County Juvenile Court (retired)

Judge George Hearn, Walton County Juvenile Court

Ms. Diane Drennan, Permanent Homes Program

Ms. Vicki Kimbrell, Georgia Legal Services

Ms. Sylvia Caley, Georgia Legal Services

Ms. Stephanie Baldauff, Office of the Attorney General

Ms. Susan Phillips, Children's Trust Fund, Executive Director

Committee Liaisons

Eric John, Executive Director of the Council of Juvenile Court Judges (CJCJ)

David Ratley, Executive Director of the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC)

BackgroundBackground

In 1994, Congress created a grant program in response to the dramatic increase of children in foster care, of child abuse and neglect cases and the expanded role of courts in achieving stable, permanent homes for children in foster care. This grant program is called the Court Improvement Program (CIP). The CIP is administered by the Children's Bureau under the US DHHS, ACF. The funding is given directly to the Supreme Court of each state that applies for it. Forty-eight states and the District of Columbia are participating in the grant program. Each recipient state is required to complete a detailed self-assessment, develop recommendations to improve the court system and implement the recommended reforms.

The 1995-1996 Assessment

The Supreme Court of Georgia received its first CIP grant in 1995. The AOC renamed the CIP to the “Child Placement Project” (CPP). An Advisory Committee was appointed by the Supreme Court. As a condition of the receiving the grant, an assessment of deprivation (civil child abuse and neglect) case process was conducted by the AOC and included a mail survey of all judges with juvenile court jurisdiction, Special Assistant Attorney Generals, court clerks, and Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS) caseworkers. DFCS is a division under the Department of Human Resources (DHR). In addition, an in-depth study was done of ten counties selected to represent the diversity of the Georgia. These counties included both superior court judges and juvenile court judges. The information was collected anonymously and was aggregated at the state level.

To see a copy of the 1996 Final Assessment Report written by then CPP director Karen Worthington, see:

http://www.state.ga.us/courts/supreme/cpp/

or call 404-657-9219 for a printed copy.

The CPP assessment focused only on the child deprivation cases that come to the juvenile courts. These cases do not represent all child abuse and neglect cases. In the majority of these cases, DFCS works with the families and/or relatives to solve problems without court involvement. The cases that cannot be worked out come to juvenile court and are usually the most serious cases. The number of deprivation cases filed in Georgia’s juvenile courts in 1995 was 16,182. The number of cases filed in 2001 was 16,509. Below are the recommendations from the 1996 report. Work toward these goals continues today.

Improvement Implementation Goals of 1996

1) Develop and implement uniform methods of record-keeping and court management of juvenile court caseloads.

2) Increase education and training and provide cross-training and trial manuals for all persons working in juvenile court cases.

3) Develop and distribute standards of practice for judges with juvenile court jurisdiction,

attorneys practicing in juvenile court and court personnel working on juvenile court cases.

4) Ensure representation of all parties, including children, who are the subject of the proceedings, at all stages of decision-making by the courts.

5) Provide state funding for a juvenile court judge in every county or circuit and provide for full-time judges wherever the workload is sufficient.

The 2002 Summer Assessment

Since 1996, benchmarks towards these goals have been recorded in the CPP Progress Report and Strategic Plan of 2001, which can be viewed at http://www.state.ga.us/courts/supreme/cpp/

or call 404-657-9219 for a printed copy. In the wake of the 1997 Adoption and Safe Families Act, the CIP grant being refunded for an additional four years, and the most recent Child and Family Services Review of Georgia's child welfare system, it was decided and was written into our state's Program Improvement Plan that the juvenile court system would undergo another assessment to measure Georgia’s improvement progress for deprivation cases. In addition, Georgia is facing a title IV-E review in the summer of 2003 specifically to review the court order findings in child deprivation cases as required by federal law.

Changes in federal and state law now require Georgia's juvenile courts to provide substantially more oversight on deprivation cases. Time frames have been shortened, more frequent hearings are required, permanency hearings are required, and more information sharing is required by the courts. In addition, the federal government will be conducting on-going reviews that analyze the performance of every state's child protection system. Georgia did not pass the federal review and has written a program improvement plan, which must be complied with by September 2004. These federal reviews are not just looking at whether our forms meet technical federal requirements but are broad evaluations of whether states are actually protecting and meeting the needs of children.

Methods for the CPP 2002 Summer Assessment

The assessment methods chosen for the 2002 work were much less comprehensive than in 1996. The following report represents “a snapshot” of our court system. More assessment is needed to draw firm conclusions. This snapshot was done with 3 interns and 2 state staff. Ten counties were chosen, although one chosen rural county was later excluded by agreement due to a courthouse move. The counties were chosen using the same methods as the federal review last summer where all the Georgia counties were put into a spreadsheet and factors such as (1) population numbers of children, (2) the number of CPS and foster care cases, and (3) the rate of DFCS staff turnover were rated. Only the most representative counties, considering those three factors, were chosen from each category of urban, suburban and rural counties (i.e. the counties in middle of the bell curve representing those factors).

In each county, up to ten case files were reviewed and 5 to 10 court hearings observed. All the cases reviewed during the summer had opened during the months of January 2001 thru March 2001 to allow reviewers to look at cases that were 1 ½ years old. The court observations were done during the months of June thru August 2002. We also solicited input from judges and other's input on improving the system for children through interviews and surveys.

Areas of Focus for the Assessment

The characteristics of cases filed in 2001, demographics, and petition allegations

Timeliness of early court proceedings (days to petition, adjudication and disposition)

Specificity of court orders-including types of orders, and amount of detail in them

Timeliness of review and permanency hearings-days to completion of the first review hearing. Whether permanency hearings were taking place

Placement Information

Permanency Decisions-including the types and timing of these determinations

Case Outcomes-time and reasons for case closures

Whether parents and children were represented in during the hearings

Length and content of the hearings

Analysis

Instruments developed by the NCJFCJ and ABA were modified for Georgia and used for all case files, court observations, interviews and surveys. The information from those instruments was then put into a database and given to the staff at the NCJFCJ who did the analysis in appendix A.

Findings and Recommendations from Judicial Case File Reviews

General Findings and Recommendations from the Court Case Files

(1) Organization

The organization and attention paid to the case files appears to have improved substantially since the CPP’s 1996 review. Of the 79 case files reviewed in nine counties, most were organized by child's name. Most counties had an easy way of pulling files from certain time lines, for a few it was more difficult. In 2 counties, we had to pull early 2001 court calendars to find appropriate cases. Most of the other counties using the computer system “JCATS” were able to produce a helpful report listing all the children’s cases that opened in 2001 and by what month. Some counties have a system of cross-referencing for children’s cases and some of this information is just done by employee memory.

Most of the case files were easy to review, but there were differences county to county. Some courts color-coded their files with tabs for information. Others put all court actions on one side of the file and all other child information on the other. At least 3 files (in 2 separate counties) contained information that had been misfiled in the child’s court case file. Some sample files in one rural county had just 3 sheets of paper, which was not enough documentation to see what occurred in the case. In one urban county, the sample files were generally disorganized and difficult to read.

Recommendation: Support the Juvenile Court Clerks to continue to develop a statewide uniform definition of filing and cross-referencing system, particularly the urban courts that have the largest number of files.

(2) Key Information

-Dates

In 1996, the length of time in care and the length of time between court events could not be

determined for many of the files because one of the documents which would provide a necessary date (i.e. a shelter care order) was missing, or the date of a critical event was not recorded. In the 2002 review, it was much easier to calculate dates. Almost every file had adjudication orders (when appropriate), and subsequent review orders. However, the most common missing piece of key information was still the early orders such as the shelter care orders.

Recommendation: Support the Juvenile Court Judges and the Juvenile Court Clerks to have a uniform system for filing all court orders to make sure that all key dates for child deprivation cases are recorded, particularly for shelter care and 72 hour hearing orders.

-Placement Information

Most of the cases reviewed revealed 2 or fewer placements for a child until the first review, however any information about the placements for children was missing in 21 cases (out of 79).

-Caseworker Turnover

Approximately half of the children’s cases reviewed appeared to have just one caseworker at the time of review. In the other cases, the range in the case sample found was two to five caseworkers. However this information was unclear or missing in 20% of the cases files.

-Contrary to the Welfare of the Child and Reasonable Efforts Findings

Both of these findings must be made by the court (with details) and recorded in order for the state to be reimbursed by the federal government for the child’s care. Of the 59 cases where a child came into custody, 36 cases had both of these findings, 15 cases did not and in 8 cases it was unclear to the reviewer. The reviewers learned that the CPP instruments need to be modified in order to capture regarding whether the “contrary” finding is in the first order of the case and whether details for those both findings exist in the court record.

-Deprivation Petition

In some of the sample cases, the child’s case never got as far as a deprivation petition, but for those cases that did, most of the case files reviewed showed specific findings supporting the petition. Also, most cases had a statement that it was in the best interest of the child for the proceeding to occur (4 cases were missing this information). Finally, most deprivation petitions (84%) recorded the child’s placement.

-Notice to the Parties

Most of the case files reviewed (67%) had documentation that notice was provided to the parties in the case. None of the cases reviewed provided any documentation that foster parents were getting notice for the review hearings.

Recommendation: Support the CJCJ in emphasizing the importance of recording the above information in the court files for all participants in the juvenile court process. Whether the court findings exist or not affects the funding sources for a child’s care. While notice appears to be occurring in every court (thru interviews), it is important for notice to be recorded in the case file. Also, while foster parents are not parties to a child’s case, they do have the right to notice and opportunity to be heard. Since it is not clear whose responsibility it is to make sure they have notice, it is important that this notice is recorded in the court file to make sure these rights are honored.

-Continuances

In the 1996 case file sample, continuances in deprived cases were common. Some judges allowed each side one continuance as a courtesy, but this does not appear to be the true in 2002. Better documentation in the files is still needed to determine whether continuances are a problem, but for the most part, the reviewers saw the court hearings occurring on the dates/times scheduled. Of the continuances that were recorded, they were usually rescheduled within 2 weeks and most common reason was a missing party from the case. Most importantly, judges and court staff communicated through the surveys and interviews the importance of allowing as few continuances as possible to make sure a child’s case moved through the system quickly.

Recommendation: Support the CJCJ in their continuing education efforts on courts allowing as few as possible continuances.

-Case Plans

In 1996, few case plans were found in the court files nor were they incorporated into the court orders. In the 2002 review, almost 60% of the court orders incorporated a case plan into the court order. Seventeen files had court orders with no reference to the case plan. Still only half the court files contained the case plan.

Recommendation: Support the CJCJ to getting all judges to use the model orders, which include review and inclusion of the case plan as part of the court record. The CPP should continue all efforts to get all courts to use the Case Plan Reporting System which keeps all case plans in a database on- line.

-Reviews

Of the 34 cases that had a review documented in the file, 79% (27) had their review within 6 months as required by law. Some children’s cases in the sample were reviewed every three months. The remaining seven cases with a review documented had a range from 200 to 487 days.

-Permanency Hearings

In 1996, permanency hearings were not required by law, thus this is a new measurement. Generally, this hearing was not well documented in the court file. There was documentation of review hearings, motion to extend hearings and court orders that appeared to address permanency issues for children in the sample, but the documentation was not always specific on whether the review hearing was also a permanency hearing. There was clear evidence of permanency hearings in the court orders in 17 out of the 57 case files where the child was in foster care for over one year.

Recommendation: Support the CJCJ to get all judges to use the model orders which specifically label and provide findings for permanency hearings.

(3) Timeliness of Hearings

Better documentation in the court files is needed in order to assess whether appropriate time frames were being met, however it did appear the 72-hour hearing was mostly done within 72 hours. Time-frames from the 72-hour hearing to the adjudicatory hearing was very different county to county. However, reviewers would often see court actions seeking more information, mediation and other resolution in between the 72-hour hearing and the adjudicatory hearings, which were more difficult to measure. The reviewers also saw cases where the time frame between hearings was too long. Only 2 TPR cases were in the sample. Both cases had a TPR petition filed within 2 years of child’s removal date.

Recommendation: Education about the importance of meeting these time frames should continue as it appears that it has made more courts aware of the urgency of these proceedings. The CPP should improve the case file instrument to better collect the information on timeliness of hearings. The CPP should do more assessment of TPR cases to measure time frames.

(4) Representation of Children and Parents

In the 1996 case file sample, less than half of children and parents were documented to have representation, which matched the 1996 court observation data. In the 2002 case file sample, representation for children appears to have improved. An attorney for the child was present in about 64% of the cases and almost all the other cases had lay GAL or CASA representation. Eleven cases were missing this documentation in the file. Mothers, in the case file sample, were represented by attorneys 45% of the time at the adjudicatory hearing. Fathers (putative or legal) were represented 23% of the time at the adjudicatory hearing. Again, 11 cases had no documentation of this information.

Recommendation: While representation for children has improved, better representation of parents is still needed in deprivation cases. There is also the issue of whether a CASA is adequate representation in court. The Aspirational Guidelines written by juvenile court judges recommends an attorney and a CASA as the best model for representing a child in a deprivation case. Finally, Juvenile Court Clerks must be supported to have a uniform system for making sure documentation about representation of parents and children is a standard part of the file.

General Findings and Recommendations from the Court Observations

(1) Presentation of the Court

In 1996, many of the juvenile courts visited were scrambling for space. Some juvenile courts were in trailers behind the Superior Court buildings, which can send a message that these proceedings are less important than other legal matters. The courts visited in 2002 appeared to have regular, established courtrooms or were moving soon to such space. In several counties, substantial efforts have been made by county governments to improve their juvenile court’s physical space including providing child friendly rooms and rooms for mediation and/or meetings for parties and attorneys.

During the 1996 assessment, complaints were made by court participants about court hearings starting on time and about the “general call” (the NCJFC refers to this as cattle call) style calendar of deprivation court hearings. During the 2002 court observations, the “general call” style was still used in many courts. However some courts staggered the times during the general call. This variation of the general call calendar appears to be helpful to reduce waiting times for the parties. Other courts have gone to hourly, time certain schedules for court hearings. Almost all the court hearings observed started on time or close to the time when scheduled. When waiting time did occur, it was usually to get another party or to resolve a case related issue outside of court.

Recommendation: The CPP should improve the court observation instrument to better collect the information on what court calendaring is most optimal for courts and the parties to a child’s case. More information also needs to be collected on what issues are discussed in court.

(2) Children present at the hearing

Of the 64 court observations, only 11 showed children to be present for court hearings involving their case. While it may not be appropriate due to age, 42% of the children in the case file review sample were over the age of 12. At a recent meeting of foster youth who have aged out of Georgia’s child welfare system, there were many complaints expressed by the youth that they were not included in decisions about their lives. While their cases were usually over 10 years old, many of the youth stated that they had not met the judge making the decision in their case and had little to no contact with an attorney or GAL for their case.

Recommendation: The child should be included in the court hearing if age appropriate. The CPP should continue to gather more data to see if this is occurring.

(3) Representation for Children

In the 64 deprivation cases observed, the child either had an attorney, or a lay GAL/CASA.

(4) Representation for Parents

Of the 64 deprivation cases observed, the mother in the case was represented about 39% of the time and the father was represented about 24% of the time (out of 61 cases). The CPP also learned of some coding difficulties for this information.

Recommendation: While representation for children has improved, better representation of parents is still needed in deprivation cases. There is also the issue of whether a CASA representing a child is adequate legal representation for court. The Aspirational Guidelines written by 20 juvenile court judges recommends an attorney and CASA as the best model for representing a child in a deprivation case. The CPP needs to improve the court observation instrument to make sure the most accurate information is captured.

Findings and Recommendations from Qualitative Interviews and Surveys

Surveys of the court clerks for the sample counties revealed that a few clerks felt their county could improve in the timeliness of appointing counsel for children and parents, but 50% felt their courts were doing a good job. Most reported that contested adjudicatory hearings took 40 minutes to over an hour. Approximately 50% reported that the standard practice in their court was to set the date and time of the next hearing at end of every hearing. Approximately half reported a court calendaring system of morning and afternoon general call and the other half reported a staggered or time-certain calendar call. All reported that the calendaring system used in their county was effective. Thirty-seven percent of the clerks reported that their court has a stated continuance policy. Most reported that continuances are granted 25% of the time or less often on any given day within their court and the most common reason for a continuance would be the absence of a key party. One clerk reported that system delay of children’s cases toward permanency is a significant problem in their jurisdiction. This is in contrast to the question in 1996, where most respondents felt the system itself took too long to get children to permanency.

Surveys and interviews of the judges in the sample revealed that most judges have more resources than they did in 1996. Part of this is due to a substantial investment made by the state of Georgia in 2000 to provide a standard level of state funding for judicial salaries. This funding contributed to more than 15 new juvenile court judge appointments since 2000. Every judge interviewed and survey reported that they felt their caseload was manageable which was not true in 1996. While most judges reported satisfaction with their calendaring system and effective use of bench time, several reported that improvement is needed. All judges reported that they are generally meeting ASFA time frames. All but one judge reported taking work home in the evenings and on weekends to make sure work was completed including legal material review and administrative tasks. Few of the judges reported having an adequate computer system to meet their caseload demand.

All judges reported granting very few continuances and if a continuance is granted, absence of a key party would be the primary reason. Making sure children got to permanency with little delay was reported to be a problem in their county by a few judges. Several judges mentioned the “stakeholder meetings” sponsored by the CPP as helpful. Using the Interstate Compact for Placing Children was also reported as a problem causing delays for children’s cases. All judges reported they wanted information for their counties in the number or proportion of children who are subject to additional allegations of abuse or neglect while under their court supervision, reunification rates, and adoption disruption rates. No judge is receiving that information currently and that information is sent by DFCS to the federal government in a quarterly report broken down by county.

Recommendation: Continue these surveys and interviews to get beyond the 10 sample counties to achieve better representation for the state. The CPP should obtain the quarterly ASFA reports for the juvenile court judges so they can see the indicators for their counties in the above question.

Questions To Be Answered for the Federal Review

(1) Safety:

Are children safely maintained in their homes whenever possible and appropriate?

This question is difficult to answer just from court data. However, reasonable efforts findings were found in the majority of sample of case files, but the data collection instruments need to be modified to make sure that the details of those findings are also recorded. One type of case that appeared in the sample data for several jurisdictions is noteworthy. Some courts would issue an Order of Consent in Lieu of 72-hour hearing or a Deprivation finding. In this type of case, the court would not remove a child but would order compliance with a case plan and would closely monitor progress. If the parent did not comply, then the case would proceed toward a trial and a new permanency goal. This type of case appeared to be a way for “one last chance” for the parents to keep their children in the home and from the case file sample appeared to be successful at the goal. There is some discussion among judges that this type of management of a deprivation case goes further than our current law allows. However other judges have pointed out that several states have lowered the bar on court involvement allowing “CHINS” cases; “a child in need of services” case.

Recommendation: The CPP should work with the DHR and the NCJFCJ to answer the above question. More information should be collected on the “consents” in lieu of court actions and states that have adopted a “CHINS” model for judicial and public discussion, also recommended in the Governor’s Action Group Report 2003.

(2) Permanency

Are children getting to permanency within one year?

Of the 79 cases in the sample file, only 20 were coded as being closed. The rest were still open cases. All of the cases pulled were at least 15 months old. This sample is too small to draw firm conclusions, but it appears that permanency within a one-year time frame may not be occurring. In addition, there are workers and judges who verbalized that the one-year frame may be too difficult for families, especially when substance abuse is an issue. A troubling note in the case file sample was the number of cases (approximately 10) that were older cases, but had just be “re-filed” in order to meet the ASFA guidelines. In those cases, most children had been in care for quite a while.

Recommendation: The CPP should continue to review samples of case files to see if permanency is occurring for children within one year. The CJCJ should continue its education efforts around permanency hearings. Also permanency hearings need to be better identified in the case file in order to measure compliance with this question.

(3) Are court delays impacting length of time to permanency (particularly with goal of adoption)?

More information should be collected to answer this question, but it appears that some court delay is impacting the time to permanency from judicial interviews as well the case files sample. The biggest delay witnessed in the case file sample was the time from the 72-hour hearing to adjudicatory hearing, 26 cases took 80 days from 72 hour hearing until the adjudicatory hearing. However, there was often quite a bit of court action (such as family conferencing, relative searching, allowing waivers to collect more information, etc) during that time that would not necessarily mean a delay for permanency.

(4) Do more frequent reviews lead to faster permanency?

Information to answer this question was not collected adequately during this assessment to answer that question. However, at least half the courts were observed to have more reviews as often as every 90 days for selected cases. For those selected cases, more frequent reviews did not appear to effect the time until permanency.

Recommendation: The CPP should work to gather more information in order to answer the questions.

Are children experiencing placement disruption?

The case file sample data did not show much placement disruption, however that information was often missing from the court case file. One outlier case in the data sample had a child who had been in state custody since 1993 with 40 placements. Her case was re-filed in early 2000, which is why she was in our sample. This child had been in many treatment centers across the state.

Recommendation: Better documentation is needed in the court case files to document this information. The CPP should work with DFCS to gather their information about placement disruptions and to compare it samples collected in the court files.

Are children visiting their parents?

Are children visiting their siblings?

The case file sample did not adequately collect this information within the instrument.

Recommendation: The CPP should modify the data collection instrument to obtain this information if it exists within the court file. The CPP should continue all efforts to get all courts to use the Case Plan Reporting System, which documents information on both of the above questions as well as many others.

Summary

The State of Georgia and the federal government through the CPP have made a significant investment over the past six years in improving the process of civil child abuse and neglect cases. The return on that investment appears to be a more supported judiciary, which in turn has improved the processing of children’s cases. Timeliness and frequency of hearings and representation for children and parents have improved. There remains room for much more improvement, most importantly the need to standardize the deprivation court orders and case file organization. Standardizing these procedures will ensure that all the proper information is being collected and written about an abused and/or neglected child. It will also help us measure our courts as a whole in order to continue to justify the taxpayers’ expenses for these issues.

Child welfare is one area where the executive branch and the judicial branch must work closely together for long periods of time for the protection of children. In recognizing this, the Office of the Child Advocate (OCA) is currently doing a similar study comparing the cases pulled during the CPP assessment from the court to the DFCS files. The data from our records will be compared to the DFCS file. The OCA will interview and survey caseworkers in those counties as well and a report will be forthcoming. The OCA will report the current median length of time for children in care since that figure is easier to calculate from executive branch data. The federal government has refunded the CPP to continue its work for three more years. The CPP will work with the OCA and the NCJFC to improve its data collection process in order to provide a statewide picture of the progress of system reform.

For copies of this report, contact

Michelle Barclay, Attorney and Project Director

Administrative Office of the Courts

244 Washington St.

Atlanta, GA 30334

(404) 657-9219

barclaym@aoc.courts.state.ga.us