Recommendation 1: CSD should eliminate the current function of its child protective workers of determining guilt, focusing instead on assessing risk to the child and developing service plans to address that risk. (page 5)

Recommendation 2: CSD should establish a policy which makes the Family Unity Model the first and primary method of which caseworkers work with client families. (page 14)

Recommendation 3: CSD should establish a policy to ensure that more information is shared with client families, including formal notification of the family regarding the findings of CSD assessments of child abuse and neglect, immediate notification to the family that a repot of abuse and neglect has been made, and notification to the parents of where their children are living while in foster care. (page 15)

Recommendation 4: CSD should change its policy on interviews with and removals of children from school settings to limit such activities to situations which clearly represent emergencies.

Recommendation 5: The legislature should change the statute which gives CSD parental rights over children in its custody to limit the agency's power and provide parents with a stronger voice in the care of their children, until parental rights have been legally terminated.

Recommendation 6: CSD should eliminate permanency planning as an organizational unit and transform it into a philosophy which permeates the agency's work, with the specialized functions related to the legalities of termination of parental rights located within the adoption unit.

Recommendation 7: Community agencies, including mental health agencies, schools and day care centers, should assume the primary responsibility for early detection and intervention into family issues, leaving CSD to deal with situations which have escalated to abuse and/or neglect. This should be done through contracts with CSD, so that the focus of the efforts is clear and federal funding can be obtained through Titles IV-E and XIX.

Recommendation 8: Ensure the availability of a core set of prevention services, including both treatment and emergency services, to clients in all branches.

Recommendation 1: The State Legislature should reorganize ORS chapter 419 to make it follow the process of the juvenile justice system.

Recommendation 2: The legal criteria for emergency removal of the child should be written in conformity with Recommendation 1 above, or, in the event that recommendation is not implemented, with the current provisions of ORS 419.577(3)(b); furthermore, removals should not occur without a prior court order.

Recommendation 3: The State Legislature should ensure that all parents involved in juvenile court proceedings have access to competent representation.

Recommendation 1: The Legislature should provide sufficient funding and CSD should organize itself so that caseloads for child protective assessment teams do not exceed 15 investigations per worker per month and caseloads for all other workers dealing directly with clients do not exceed 25 children at any one time.

Recommendation 2: CSD should undertake a complete revision of the paperwork required of caseworkers, both to eliminate the duplication inherent in the current system of dual recording on paper and the computer and to merge the activities of caseworkers in serving their clients and complying with state and federal requirements. The entire system should be computerized.

Recommendation 1: The State's Personnel Department and CSD should work together to tighten the qualifications for casework positions, so that the test for those positions is a meaningful measure of a person's ability to perform the job, including the incorporation of previous training and experience into the rankings.

Recommendation 2: CSD should develop a more extensive training program for all caseworkers, requiring both adequate training immediately after hiring and on-going training in advanced skills on an annual basis.

Recommendation 3: The legislature should provide the funding and CSD should organize itself so that each supervisor is responsible for no more than six workers.

Recommendation 4: The Personnel Department and CSD should change the qualifications for the position of supervisor, so that previous casework experience in the field of child welfare, but not necessarily within CSD, is a requirement for that position.

Recommendation 5: CSD should hold supervisors accountable for performing three roles in relation to the caseworkers under their supervision: an administrative role focused primarily on accountability, a clinical role exercised in case specific decision-making, and an educational role which emphasizes the supervisor's responsibility for enhancing the skills of caseworkers.

Recommendation 6: CSD should enforce its policy requiring the review of in-home cases; these reviews should be documented and branch managers should be required to monitor supervisory practice in this area.

Recommendation 1: CSD should ensure that supervisors become active participants in the Citizen Review Board (CRB) process by assisting workers in preparing for the reviews, aiding in the necessary follow-up activities and, where feasible, participating in the reviews.

Recommendation 2: CSD should enter into a contract with the Judicial Department for the administrative reviews conducted by the CRBs, so that federal Title IV-E funds would be available to offset a substantial proportion of the CRB costs, including the costs of training CRB volunteers.

Recommendation 3: CSD and the Judicial Department should, as part of the contract recommended above, agree on what documents are to be submitted to the CRBs for each review, so that duplication of the paperwork can be eliminated, as well as agree on roles and mutual expectations, CSD follow-through on CRB recommendations and joint training of volunteers.

Recommendation 4: The CRB should expand its orientation training to two full days and continue to require developmental training of at least four hours per year.

Recommendation 5: CRB leadership should continue to work actively to increase the cultural diversity of board members; administrators should work closely with neighborhood groups, churches and civic organizations that advocate for minority populations as well as former clients to serve.

Recommendation 6: The CRB administration should make system advocacy a higher priority for the next biennium, using data it already collects to identify salient issues.

Recommendation 1: The media, the public, and CSD all need to work to overcome the debilitating effects of an extraordinarily hostile public perception of the agency, so that CSD can focus more attention on doing its job and less on developing its public image.

Recommendation 2: CSD should identify a staff person or unit to serve in the role of "ombudsman". This individual or unit should coordinate the sensitive case review process, track and analyze sensitive case review issues and serve as a central focal point for other client and community concerns or grievances.

Recommendation 3: CSD should ensure that at least one caseworker representative participate on sensitive case review teams.

Recommendation 4: CSD should investigate ways to increase its ability to use the child fatality review process to identify patterns of abuse and/or public health concerns.

Recommendation 5: CSD should sponsor a follow-up conference on child fatality review for local team in the fall of 1992.

Recommendation 6: CSD should develop a policy to require staff to comply with legitimate requests for information from law enforcement, district attorneys, judges, parents' attorneys, and foster parents, with any request related to providing services or protecting the child being considered legitimate. If necessary, statutory changes in the confidentiality laws should be made.

Recommendation 1: CSD should, were local public and private providers are available to provide parent education and treatment services, rely upon those resources rather than on their own staff to provide supportive and therapeutic services for all its clients.

Recommendation 2: CSD should use federal Title IV-E funds as a mechanism for increasing the amount of funding available for protective and preventive/restorative programs, using the Missouri decision of the Grant Appeals Board as the basis for its action.

Recommendation 3: CSD should determine what requirements would need to be met to fund protective and preventive/restorative programs through Title XIX (Medicaid) targeted case management funds as it has recently done for foster care.

Recommendation 4: The Legislature should fund a large increase in CSD's contract monitoring staff, to be located in the regional offices, to ensure that these newly contracted services are held accountable for accomplishing the tasks they are designed to accomplish.

Recommendation 5: CSD should develop a joint agreement with the Department of Education, which should be replicated at the local level, specifying each other's roles, responsibilities and processes in abuse reporting and investigation.

Recommendation 1: CSD should maintain its regional offices as an essential communications and accountability link between central office and the branches.

Recommendation 2: CSD should institute a system of periodic program reviews focusing on client outcomes and quality casework practice for each of the major programs.

Recommendation 3: The Executive Branch should ensure, to the extent possible, that there is stability in the administrative ranks of the agency. In particular, no one should be forced to resign as a result of this report.

Recommendation 4: CSD should develop standardized statewide training in the law and legal process. Lawyers, judges, district attorneys and assistant attorneys general should assist in the developing and reviewing curriculum.

Recommendation 5: CSD should retain counsel to represent caseworkers in juvenile court for child welfare cases, other than in termination of parental rights cases, thereby eliminating the confusion of caseworkers regarding representation by district attorneys appointed to the juvenile court.

Recommendation 1: Either Mental Health or CSD should monitor residential programs which have been transferred to the Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities Services Division.

Recommendation 2: CSD should increase its monitoring of contract service providers so that it occurs more frequently than once per biennium.

Recommendation 3: CSD should use the client outcomes measures which it currently produces or will produce to monitor its own performance, to monitor contract providers.

Recommendation 4: CSD should, in conjunction with providers, consider a system of open competitive bidding for state-level contracts as a means of re-focusing services to address new issues and of discovering new technologies.

Recommendation 5: CSD should develop the computer capacity to measure its performance in relation to actual client outcomes.

Recommendation 6: CSD should improve its computer capacity to measure its performance in relation to changes in case status.

Recommendation 7: CSD should develop the computer capacity to measure its performance in relation to compliance with state and federal requirements.

Recommendation 8: CSD should develop the computer capacity to measure the extent to which it is targeting its service on those families in greatest need.

Recommendation 9: CSD should develop the computer capacity to measure its performance in relation to its efficiency in meetings its mandates.