Acting Child Advocate Ronald K. Chen
Statement on Period VI Monitoring Report for Charlie and Nadine H. v. Corzine,
Federal court monitor's report on child welfare settlement
Jan. 7, 2010
It is encouraging to see that New Jersey continues to make strong progress toward protecting children and keeping families safely together. Many people, from frontline caseworkers to managers and others involved in the child welfare system, should be commended for their hard work and dedication in achieving these gains.
Progress has been made in many areas, including significant gains in keeping siblings together after they are removed from their homes, further lowering workers' caseloads, hiring nurses to coordinate medical care for children in foster care, increasing the number of licensed resource family homes, particularly kinship homes, and increasing the number of adoptions.
This report also documents, however, that many challenges lie ahead. We share the monitor's concerns in several areas.
We know from both the monitor's investigations and our own research that New Jersey can vastly improve the way it facilitates visits between children and parents when children are placed in foster care. Consistent, quality visitation is a critical factor in determining whether children will safely return to their families.
We are also concerned over the lack of data in some areas that are critical to child well-being, including the number of children with suspected mental health needs who actually receive an assessment, the provision of timely follow-up medical and mental health care and the frequency with which children experience multiple placements.
There also remains much work to be done in instituting a meaningful way for the Division of Youth and Family Services to examine its handling of cases, improving the speed with which cases move toward adoption once the child's case goal changes, ensuring that case plans are developed in a timely manner to address a family's needs and instituting new case practices that build on family strengths and more closely involving families in decision making.
The Office of the Child Advocate continues to monitor child welfare reforms and stands ready to assist Gov.-elect Chris Christie and his administration in building on progress made thus far and ensuring that positive changes are sustained for years to come, with the goal of keeping every New Jersey child safe from abuse and neglect.
