| Action | Conform to Federal and State Law |
| Stage | Proposed |
| Comment Period | Ended on 10/8/2004 |
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9 comments
The Virginia Assocaition for Home Care is opposed to the regualtions. Written comments detailing our oppostion have been send to Sue Murdock. We have instructed our membership to send letters of opposition to the Department. They have not been instructed to post comments on this forum.
Marcia Tetterton, Executive Director
22 VAC 40-771-50, Permanency Providers: Adoption
B.5. Training.
· Please omit: Local departments will provide a minimum of 12 hours annual in-service training to each provider as long as the provider remains approved for the placement of children. Placement of a child should not be held up or removed because the provider has not completed in-service hours.
C.4.a. If the provider or any other adult transports children, the provider and any other adult shall have a valid driver’s license and automobile liability insurance.
· Please omit: or any other adult. The local departments cannot possibly monitor all adults that might transport the child.
C.4.c. Providers and any other adults who transport children must use child restraint devices in accordance with requirements of
· Please omit: and any other adults. The local departments cannot possible monitor all adults that might transport the child.
VAC 40-771-50, Permanency Providers: Adoption
B.2.b. Convictions of crimes listed in 63.2-1719, Code of VA, will preclude approval of applications to become adoptive parents.
· There should be an allowable variance for particular crimes that would not affect children directly. If ASFA does not allow a variance, then the State should. Some of these crimes were committed 20-30 years ago and are not relevant today.
B.4.b. The provider shall provide at least two references from persons who have knowledge of the provider’s ability, skill, or experience in the provision of services and who shall not be related to the provider. The local department may request more than two references.
· The provider shall provide at least three references. The local department may request more that three references.
B.4.d.(3). The local department will use the interviews, references, and employment history to assess that the: (3). provider is capable of handling emergencies with dependability and good judgment; and
· provider is capable of working in a collaborative way as a member of a team.
22 VAC 40-771-50, Permanency Providers: Adoption
D.2.e. Possession of any weapons, including firearms, in the home must be in compliance with federal and state laws and local ordinances. The provider shall store any firearms and ammunition and other weapons in a locked cabinet with safety mechanisms activated. The key or combination to the cabinet shall be maintained out of the reach of all children in the home. The cabinet shall not be accessible to the children in care. Any glass cabinets used to store any weapons, including firearms, shall be shatter-proof.
· Please add: Ammunition shall be stored in a separate locked location than the firearms.
K. Right to grieve and appeal. The provider, and applicant to become a provider, shall have the right to grieve the actions of the local department to the local board on issues related to the application of state policy.
· Please add: The provider, and applicant to become a provider, shall have the right to grieve the actions of the local department or designee to the local board on issues related to the application of state policy.
22 VAC 40-771-60. Permanency Providers: Foster Care.
B.4.b. The provider shall provide a least two references from persons who have knowledge of the provider’s ability, skill, or experience in the provision of services and who shall not be related to the provider. The local department may request more than two references.
· Please change
B.4.d. The local department will use the interviews, references, and employment history to assess that the:
· Please add: (3). provider is capable of handling emergencies with dependability and good judgment, and provider is capable of working in a collaborative way as a member of a team.
· Please add: (5). provider demonstrates a capacity to love and nurture a child born to someone else;
· Please add: (6). provider can accept the child for his own sake without expecting him to resolve family problems or fulfill family ambitions;
· Please add: (7). married foster parents show marital stability and mutual satisfaction with each other.
C.1.i. Children of the opposite sex shall not share a bed or a bedroom.
· Please add: Children of the opposite sex, age five and older, shall not share a bed or a bedroom. (In the interest of space issues, it is felt that children of the opposite sex under five years of age are safe and appropriate to share a bedroom.)
G.4. Prior to placement of a child with an unapproved provider, a criminal background check and child abuse and neglect central registry search has been conducted on all adults in the home of where the child is to be placed pursuant to 63.2-901.1 of the Code of Virginia. Crimes listed in 63.2-1719 of the Code of Virginia willp reclude placement of the child.
· Please add: A home visit will also be conducted prior to the placement of a child with an unapproved provider.
I suggest that the standards for foster and adoptive homes be united into one standard. We know that approximately 2/3 of children in foster care are adopted by their current foster parents, and it would save a great deal of time and money if all families were dually approved at the end of their training.
My comments are directed specifically to the portion of the proposed Local Department Approved Provider Standards that address foster, resource, and adoptive home providers. For the last several months, I have been actively recruiting and preparing for training. Our training program is twenty-seven hours in length, and although we recognize the commitment is substantial, the responsibility that we are giving foster, resource, and adoptive families is significant. Our local CASA agency requires 40 hours of pre-service training. Our local women’s shelter requires 40 hours of pre-service training. The volunteers at these two agencies are not expected to give full time care to those they serve. On the other hand, our program is asking families to care for a child twenty-four hours a day, so asking them to complete 27 hours of training is not too much to ask. During my recruitment efforts, the number of hours for training has not been brought up as an issue by a single family. The families will appreciate being prepared for the experience of fostering or adopting a child. DSS agencies would appreciate consistency amongst local agencies around the state regarding the mandated 27 hours of pre-service training.
CPR and First Aid certification should be mandated for foster, resource, and adoptive parents. If they are mandated for daycare providers and their care is part-time, then full-time foster, resource, and adoptive parents should be certified in CPR and First Aid also. Driving records should be mandated as part of the initial paperwork prior to approval of foster, resource, and adoptive families.
These regulations directly affect me, as I am the staff person in my agency in charge of Resource Home Provider training and approval. This is a new program in the agency and consists of starting and conducting a pre-service Resource Home training program, working with a five DSS agency partnership, approving all prospective families for the five localities, putting all date into OASIS for all PRIDE trained families, recruiting families within all five localities. Our situation is unique because the resources are not available for each local agency in the
Though the standards are welcome, DSS agencies cannot be expected to accept responsibility for funding the implementation of this regulation without state assistance. During the PRIDE pre-service training, I personally will be working 20 hours with each family in their home (nights and weekends), train for 27 hours of pre-service training, and spend on average a minimum of 15 hours writing each family’s home study. During a PRIDE pre-service training, I will be spending a minimum of 377 hours in meetings with the families, training, and completing the home studies. If we offer three training series’ per year, that will be equivalent to a minimum of 1,131 hours for the assessment of only 30 families.
This does not include my time for the following additional responsibilities:
The state has an incredible opportunity to implement mandate foster parent training of 27 hours, but the state should keep in mind how many hours are necessary to make this happen.
My comments are directed specifically to the portion of the proposed Local Department Approved Provider Standards that address foster, resource, and adoptive home providers. These regulations directly affect me, as I the staff person in my agency in charge of Resource Home Provider training and approval for five DSS agencies.
The resources that are necessary to appropriately provide pre-service training are vast. Office space is a problem at most DSS agencies, and as a recruiter and trainer, I can personally testify that the space needed to accommodate such things as all training supplies, mailings, giveaways, computer, desk, and multiple filing cabinets requires more than a cubicle or standard office. Additional office and storage space are essential for staff persons in charge of training, which would be a cost for the state. Each trainer and assessor should be provided with a cellular phone for travel during the evenings and weekends. These specifics might seem insignificant to some, but I currently have seven boxes piled high of training supplies in my small cubicle because there is no storage space. The office space and cellular phone situations do directly impact the fiscal impact of the proposed regulations. Localities are not in a position to pay for regulations imposed by the state. There must be no new regulatory mandates that are not fully funded by the state.
There is a benefit to collaboration between smaller localities for the purpose of recruitment and training; however, that means that the travel time for some families to attend training is significant. One of our families must drive over one hour each way to participate in training, which ends at
We will soon be offering as many pre-service and in-service training hours as several child-placing agencies. With equal training, how/why are our resource families being paid significantly less money than child-placing agency families? DSS agencies would benefit from carefully defined differences between therapeutic, specialized, and local foster homes. There should be consistency between child-placing agencies’ and DSS agencies’ approved families and in rates paid for care.
Since agencies are reimbursed through Title IV-E only for training and not for recruiting, the local agencies cannot sufficiently and effectively recruit in their locality without funding from the state. Please consider taking responsibility for funding staff positions within agencies for recruitment purposes. I have spent over eight hours at four PTA meetings in an attempt to educate the community on our program and to recruit. These hours are spent after I have worked a full day. I have also had numerous other opportunities to speak at other community events. Unfortunately, continuing the after-hours time commitment is now unrealistic as we prepare to begin our pre-service training. My position is necessary, valuable, and virtually costless for the state due to the grant, but there are not enough grant funds available to staff training programs in the entire state. If the state cannot provide the resources to fund permanent positions like mine, the agencies will fail miserably at implementing the regulations. Localities are not in a position to pay for regulations imposed by the state. There must be no new regulatory mandates that are not fully funded by the state.
Kinship care families should not be expected to complete the same curriculum for pre-service training as non-relative families, but the state should provide standard, consistent guidelines for training, approving, and assessing such families. Will there be some type of waiver for these families within the regulations for pre-service training? Their situations are so different, and I believe that we would not be serving children well if we were to expect kinship families to complete 27 hours of training. I expect that we would lose placements for our children, for whom we are all working.
As I understand it, current foster families will not be required to complete the new training. DSS agencies would benefit from clear, consistent guidelines on how to incorporate current foster families into the regulations. If families are able to work with more than one locality as approved providers, the training requirements and assessments must be consistent across the state. Under our grant, we are recommending that our current foster families to be fully trained through the PRIDE curriculum also. Until now, our local foster parents were given little training before they were approved through the five New River Valley DSS agencies. This has huge implications because if they grandfathered in through the state’s regulations, they will never have the level of expertise we would like for them to have. It is recommended by the curriculum we use that they not attend the same pre-service training as new families, so their training presents another staffing problem. In our program we will not be able to offer current families any in-service training opportunities for several months because I am the only trainer for all five agencies, and we are soon starting pre-service training which will last for nine weeks. If the state created additional positions for trainers, it will be possible to offer in-service trainings for our NRV families on an ongoing basis.
In-service mandates are necessary, and I support the proposed 12-hour requirement. I strongly support consistent guidelines on what qualifies. For example, if some agencies are allowing community meetings to qualify and other agencies are only allowing DSS trainings/functions to qualify as in-service, there will be a problem. A question is what will happen if a family has not met the requirement for in-service? Will the child be removed from the home? The state must develop standards for such situations because policy states that children cannot be in unapproved homes. Another example follows: if a child has been with a family for over a year and is removed from the home because the family did not attend the last two hours of the twelve hours required, are we considering the best interest of the child? If the state does not develop specific guidelines for this, many placements may be terminated, lost, illegitimately used, or penalized through federal audit.
Localities are not in a position to pay for regulations imposed by the state. There must be no new regulatory mandates that are not fully funded by the state.