Comments to the following changes/sections to CPS Guidance:

 3.8.7   Initiating a response to a valid report—addition of a required, documented supervisory consult to meet the initial response time

Comment:  This is an unnecessary documentation reqirement for supervisors and workers.  Child welfare supervisors know which staff need this type of immediate consult, and which do not.  Instead, this guidance puts an unnecessary staffing and documentation requirement on all workers and supervisors.  It is also unclear if this gets to the root cause of initial response times not being met.  An analysis of which timeframes are not being met and the reasons why, in consultation with the CPS Policy Advisory Committee, would be a positive step to assess the reasons, and work to solutions with local input.  The clarification of an R3 response meaning 40 working hours is also a helpful change this year, but adding universal staffing and documentation requirements is burdensome, and does not provide a targeted response.

4.5.7    First meaningful contact in family assessments—clarifies the focus is contact with the family to assess safety of the child and

4.6.16  First meaningful contact in an investigation—clarifies the focus is contact with the family to assess safety of the child

Comment:  Continuing the need to designate a “First meaningful contact” is no longer necessary.  Workers are required to document a separate Safety Assessment and an I&I for the face-to-face visit. Continuing to also designate one specific visit as “first meaningful” is duplicative documentation that no longer serves a purpose. This guidance and the data system requirement should be eliminated.

4.7.2    Family assessment or investigation documentation

All documentation must be entered or updated in the child welfare information system within five business days.

Comment:  Recommend changing “must” to “should” out of concern that if documentation is not entered within five business days, it may be considered suspect or "less valid".  This could be used against a local agency in an appeal situation with claims that because the documentation was entered late, contrary to guidance, that it should not be considered accurate or reliable.  The intent of documentation timeliness guidance should be to set an expectation, something accomplished with "should," and does not cause a worker to be out of compliance with guidance if it is entered late.

3.5.2.4 Question 4: Does the LDSS have jurisdiction to conduct the family assessment or investigation?

Comment:  This was not changed in this year's guidance, but was recently changed to establish a VDSS preference that when jurisdiction is in question because a child lives in one jurisdiction but law enforcment jurisdiction is in another jurisdiction, that VDSS recommends that CPS jurisdiction match law enforcement jurisdiction.  There are reasons why this preference may or not be in the child and family's best interests.  For those agencies who create interagency cooperative agreements that are counter to this VDSS preference, it would be helpful to recognize those agreements as also valid in these situations.  Suggest adding a statement like the following to recognize those agreements:

Local departments may establish cooperative agreements (e.g. MOUs) that help determine agency of jurisdiction when more than one jurisdiction is involved.  When these agreements are established, they may establish jurisdiction for CPS referrals differently than current VDSS guidance as long as they do not violate Virginia Code or Administrative Code.

I have additional concerns about the change/removal of an attempted face-to-face contact with the alleged victim child(ren) as a valid initial response.  Draft guidance states that it now must be a completed contact with the alleged victim child(ren) in sections 3.8.7, 4.5.6.2, and 4.6.6.  I have been informed that this is a federal requirement and cannot be considered for modification.  As VDSS begins reporting statistics and compliance after this change, I would recommend that attempted contacts still be reported to local agencies to demonstrate the efforts and actions of workers to meet initial response timeframes.