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July 2010
Child Advocates celebrated 54 adoptions in FY10, a record number for our agency! Since FY07, the proportion of adoptions has steadily increased, from 9% to nearly 25% of cases closed in FY10. We are looking both at system and agency changes to understand this wonderful accomplishment.
November 2009
Following our Board of Directors' 2007 strategic plan, Child Advocates has succeeded in right-sizing social workers’ caseloads from 80 to just under 65 children at any one time, to create better outcomes for these children in crisis.
Reduced caseloads allow social workers to focus on child-centered practices and approach each case from a “whole-child representation” model, advocating for clients in educational, health and behavioral health matters, as well as permanency and victimization issues.
Additionally, Child Advocates staff has worked to reduce case duration from an average of 3 to 2 years, allowing Child Advocateteams to ultimately serve more clients with reduced caseloads. Our ideal caseload will eventually be 55 children per staff social worker to continue improving our kids’ outcomes.
March 2009
In FY08, Child Advocates served 762 clients and closed 199 cases. Through the hard work of our Child Advocate Teams, we were able to reduce the dependency of closed cases to just two years. Ten years ago, our cases were open an average of three years. Reducing the time our children spend in foster care and other placements is a high priority for Child Advocates, and the hard work is paying off!
Just as gratifying is the fact that in 90% of the cases closed in FY08, Child Advocates was able to ensure clients a permanent home or placement; 80% of clients had top tier permanent outcomes such as Adoption and Permanent Legal Custody. Even better, 30% of clients never left their families and received services in their homes.
The data we collect highlights those clients who may require fresh advocacy strategies, and we continue to test them. For instance, our ability to address the special needs that affect 70% of our kids directly impacts their success at home and school. We also target older teens, many of whom come to us with behavioral health issues and represent half of cases closed without a permanent placement. Our work never stops.
| Dr. Kenty is Child Advocates' Director of Research and Evaluation. As part of the Administrative Team, she structures and maintains client and programmatic data systems and program evaluations to inform best practices and to meet funders' data requirements. Chris is a key staffer to the National Children's Law Network, coordinating with national partners to design the multi-site outcomes database. |
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