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The county’s only facility that houses abused and neglected children was awarded a license by the state for the first time in January. The state licensed Child Haven to care for 96 children, ensuring the facility meets state-mandated requirements for safety.
Child Haven was the only facility of its kind in the state that was not licensed. The state will now take frequent looks at the facility’s programs, recordkeeping and safety standards. The licensure marks the first time an outside agency has been given such oversight authority over Child Haven.
“This signifies another important hurdle that Family Services has cleared,” Commission Chairman Rory Reid said. “This step, along with the other changes, shows we are headed in the right direction and while there is still work to do, I am certain there will be more positive changes to come.”
County Manager Virginia Valentine agreed: “We welcome this extra layer of accountability. The county’s committed to doing all that we can to protect this community’s abused and neglected children and to maintain the highest standards of safety and care at Child Haven.”
The population at Child Haven is another area that has seen improvement. Today, facility’s population has been reduced by six to seven times what it was in June 2006.
“Overcrowding at Child Haven and the practice of placing children in an unlicensed facility were two major areas of concern that we needed to address,’’ Tom Morton, director of Family Services said. “I believe we have successfully confronted those issues and hope that our progress shows our commitment to assuring the community that we are dedicated to making this the safest environment possible for children who are in our care during a very difficult time.”
The number of children entering the shelter care facility began to decline steadily this summer after Family Services stepped up recruitment of new foster homes and added a program that performed background checks on eligible family members 24 hours a day, seven days a week. A receiving team was also added to expedite alternative placements in homes within the community.
The changes are part of an overall system reform put in place by Morton and county management and satisfy an agreement that Clark County entered into with the Youth Law Center, a coalition for child protection reform.
“We are very encouraged with the county's progress in reducing the population of Child Haven,” said Carole Shauffer, executive director of the Youth Law Center. “I am confident that with new procedures, improved services and increased foster parent recruitment, the county will be able to entirely eliminate the use of Child Haven as a residential shelter facility and to use the buildings and staff in a way that supports families. This change will support our goals of reducing the number of times children's lives are disrupted and ensuring that every child is part of a loving family.”
Improvements in Clark County’s foster care system resulted in the following changes:
§ Additional foster home recruitment, licensing and training staff have helped increase our capacity in regular foster homes by about 200 children;
§ Emergency Response Team staff have helped reduce police removals from 39 percent to about 21 percent;
§ The median length of time between removal and adoption fell from 30 months in 2006 to 23 months in 2007.
§ The percent of adoptions finalized in less than 24 months from removal increased from 32 percent in 2006 to 53 percent in 2007.
§ The percent of children reunified within one year of removal in 2006 was 89.3 percent, above the federal standard of 76.2 percent.
§ So far in 2007, the percent of children who re-entered foster care within twelve months of a prior episode fell from 8.9 percent in 2005, to 7.1 percent in 2006. The year-to-date rate in 2007 is 4.6 percent.
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