Michigan Department of Health and Human Services touts extensive child welfare improvements Accomplishments include new services for children and families

Dec. 1, 2010

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SAGINAW - The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and its partners made significant progress over the past two years in reforming the state's child welfare system, including increasing the number of children adopted from foster care and providing in-home services and supports to children with serious emotional needs who are in the foster care system, department leaders said today.

 

"MDHHS, along with our partners in private agencies and the courts, have made significant strides over the past two years to ensure we're doing our part to help children find safe, loving and stable homes," MDHHS Children's Services Administration Director Kathryne O'Grady said. "Our goal is that the children who come to us can exit the foster care system better off than when they entered."

 

O'Grady specifically commended the work of the Saginaw MDHHS office and local partners as a best practice model. For example, the local office does not have a backlog for children awaiting adoption longer than 12 months and it was one of the original counties to pilot the serious emotional disturbances (SED) waiver program.

 

The SED waiver - a program that provides in-home services and supports to families with children who have serious emotional disturbances - was established by the Michigan Department of Community Health in 2005 as a way to use federal Medicaid funds to help children. In 2009, DHS worked with DCH to apply the waiver to 200 children in the child welfare system in five counties including Saginaw.

 

The project has since expanded to serve as many as 266 children in eight counties: Saginaw, Kalamazoo, Macomb, Oakland, Kent, Wayne, Ingham and Genesee. Services are used to keep children in a home in their local communities with intensive wraparound and community-based mental health services.

 

MDHHS dedicated less than $2 million of state money that turned into almost $6 million of service.

 

"The waiver has reversed a trend of institutionalizing children with serious emotional disturbances, and is one example of innovation and partnership between DHS and DCH to serve the state's vulnerable children and families," O'Grady said.

 

This partnership is key to the program's success, said Sheri Falvay, director of the Michigan Department of Community Health's Division of Mental Health Services for Children and Families.

 

"Through this partnership, the departments of community health and human services have been able to pool resources and use the waiver to provide intensive mental health services and supports to children in the child welfare system," Falvay said. "This helps them achieve stability and permanency with a family."

 

The collaboration has meant partners can better serve children and families, said Linda Schneider, the Saginaw County Community Mental Health Authority director of clinical services.

 

"We are able to return children to Saginaw who had previously been placed in residential facilities," she said. "By working together with families and providing the intensive services the waiver supports, we are able to help children achieve permanency and hopefully a happy and healthy life."

Other MDHHS child welfare accomplishments include:

• Reducing the number of children in foster care from 16,545 in June 2009 to 15,023 in October 2010.
• In 2008, MDHHS and private agencies completed 2,638 adoptions and received $875,000 in federal funds for the accomplishment. In 2009, MDHHS and private agencies completed 3,030 adoptions - more than ever before - and were awarded a $3.5 million federal adoption incentive award for the accomplishment.
• In 2010, with 30 counties participating and 150 adoptions finalized, Michigan Adoption Day 2010 was the nation's largest Adoption Day event for the eighth year in a row.
• In 2008, there were 6,315 foster children residing with unlicensed relatives. The agreement required Michigan to move the children to licensed settings or relative homes approved for a waiver. As of October 2010, the state is in 99 percent compliance.
• In September 2008, there were 5,178 children awaiting reunification for more than 12 months. This group was called the "permanency backlog cohort." As of September 2010, MDHHS had closed more than 78 percent of the cases.
• MIn September 2008, there were 4,396 children awaiting adoption longer than 12 months. As of September 2010, DHHS had closed more than 63 percent of those cases.

 

 

Saginaw County MDHHS Program Manager Rita Truss agreed that the department has indeed made great progress.

 

"We continue our strong commitment to make the system better so we can improve the lives of children in Michigan's foster care system," she said.

 

or more information about MDHHS, please visit www.michigan.gov/mdhhs. Follow MDHHS on Twitter @MichiganDHS or become a fan at www.facebook.com/MichiganDHS.F