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74–760 PDF 2001

BEST INTERESTS OF THE CHILD? A REEXAMINATION OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA’S CHILD

AND FAMILY SERVICES RELATIONSHIP

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

SEPTEMBER 20, 2000

Serial No. 106–266

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEPHEN HORN, California

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia

DAVID M. MCINTOSH, Indiana

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

MARSHALL ‘‘MARK’’ SANFORD, South

Carolina

BOB BARR, Georgia

DAN MILLER, Florida

ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas

LEE TERRY, Nebraska

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois

GREG WALDEN, Oregon

DOUG OSE, California

PAUL RYAN, Wisconsin

HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE, Idaho

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

ROBERT E. WISE, JR., West Virginia

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,

DC

CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

HAROLD E. FORD, JR., Tennessee

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director

JAMES C. WILSON, Chief Counsel

ROBERT A. BRIGGS, Clerk

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland

STEPHEN HORN, California

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,

DC

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

MELISSA WOJCIAK, Staff Director

HOWIE DENIS, Professional Staff Member

VICTORIA PROCTOR, Professional Staff Member

JENNY MAYER, Clerk

JON BOUKER, Minority Counsel

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on September 20, 2000 ..................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Graham, Carolyln, Deputy Mayor for Children, Youth and Families, District of Columbia; Grace Lopes, special counsel, receivership and institutional litigation; Linda Mouzon, executive director, Social Services

Administration, Maryland Department of Human Resources; and Ernestine F. Jones, general receiver, District of Columbia Child and Family Services ..................................................................................................... 20

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Davis, Hon. Thomas M., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Virginia, prepared statement of .............................................................. 5

DeLay, Hon. Tom, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 16

Graham, Carolyln, Deputy Mayor for Children, Youth and Families, District of Columbia, prepared statement of .................................................... 23

Jones, Ernestine F., general receiver, District of Columbia Child and

Family Services, prepared statement of ...................................................... 56

Lopes, Grace, special counsel, receivership and institutional litigation,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 36

Mouzon, Linda, executive director, Social Services Administration, Maryland Department of Human Resources, prepared statement of ................ 41

Norton, Hon. Eleanor Holmes, a Delegate in Congress from the District

of Columbia, prepared statement of ............................................................ 12

(1)

BEST INTERESTS OF THE CHILD? A REEXAMINATION OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA’S

CHILD AND FAMILY SERVICES RELATIONSHIP

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2000

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Thomas M. Davis

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Davis, Morella, Horn, Burton [ex officio], and Norton.

Also present: Representative DeLay.

Staff present: Howie Denis, Victoria Proctor, and Hana Brilliant,

professional staff members; David Marin, communications director/

counsel; Melissa Wojciak, staff director; Jenny Mayer, clerk; Jon

Bouker, minority counsel; and Jean Gosa, minority assistant clerk.

Mr. DAVIS. Good morning. Today we will once again examine the

receivership of the District of Columbia’s Child and Family Service

Agency [CFSA]. I wanted to begin this hearing today with the same

question I asked at the conclusion of our last hearing: Can Brianna

Blackmond’s death happen again?

Unfortunately, recent events at CFSA reveal their continued

operational breakdowns and have convinced this subcommittee that

such a tragedy could happen tomorrow or even today. Instead of

standing by and waiting for the next innocent child to be harmed

by abuse or negligence, we are demanding that the courts and the

parties to the LaShawn case put an emergency plan in place that

will immediately unite CFSA with the District Court Social Services Agency and other parties involved in child welfare cases in the

District of Columbia, including the Metropolitan Police Department, the D.C. Superior Court, and the D.C. Corporation Counsel.

This emergency plan also must return CFSA to the District of Columbia. This plan of action must be presented to Congress within

10 days of this hearing. On May 5, this subcommittee heard too

many promises of cooperation and has seen very little action to correct the situation. Working with my good friend, Tom DeLay, my

colleague, Ms. Norton, my colleague, Mrs. Morella, and the Mayor,

Tony Williams, we intend to end the period of slow and incremental reform. The children can’t wait any longer. Our Nation’s Capital

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needs a fully functioning child welfare agency to serve its neediest,

most vulnerable citizens.

The Child Family Services Agency has languished in receivership

for 5 years. There has never been a government agency in the entire Nation that has floundered under the supervision of a courtappointed monitor for this long a period of time that I’m aware of.

There have been five public agencies in other localities in the

United States that have been placed in receivership, yet each of

these receiverships were short-lived and quickly reformed and returned as a functioning agency to the government.

CFSA under the direction of its second court-appointed receiver,

Mrs. Ernestine Jones, has continued to demonstrate extreme deficiencies in the delivery of expected services. At our last hearing, we

heard from Mrs. Jones about CFSA’s reform efforts in such areas

as identifying at-risk children and families; ensuring appropriate

support services are available to children in need; developing outof-home care; meeting the Adoption and Safe Families requirements; meeting the needs of children with special physical and

emotional needs; improving the quality of social work practices;

supporting a stable and qualified work force; and proper compliance with and utilization of the interstate compact with Virginia

and Maryland for child welfare services. Each of these areas of reform are required by the receivership court order in order for the

agency to function efficiently and to return to the District of Columbia.

This subcommittee commissioned the GAO investigative report

on the current state of these reforms instituted by Mrs. Jones. The

initial report that we have received from GAO regarding CFSA’s

operation is quite simply appalling. The GAO briefed me on what

they found, and I believe it is a miracle every time this city makes

it 24 hours without the death of another child. For example, the

report revealed that CFSA is not governed by any form of formal

operational procedures to guide their 28 child welfare programs.

Written procedures on how to handle casework or how CFSA

should work in collaboration with other district agencies simply

doesn’t exist. The last time CFSA had any form of written directions was in 1994, before it was placed in receivership. This is not

in compliance with the modified final order. Mrs. Jones has taken

this lack of compliance so seriously that only 1 of over 210 receivership employees is tasked to develop this procedural manual.

Additionally, the agency is plagued by poor recordkeeping, with

only 52 percent of their child welfare cases inputted into their computer system. GAO found many of these records are inaccurate or

incomplete. I am convinced that the agency does not know where

children it placed are now, and if they are better off or worse off

than when they entered. Furthermore CFSA continues to operate

at below acceptable staffing levels with staff members overwhelmed

by their enormous caseloads. The agency is at 80 percent staffing

and is consistently losing a third of its employees. That is despite

assurances this subcommittee heard from witnesses that the situation would be corrected by the end of the summer. The staffing

shortages have led to children not receiving the special services

they need and social workers not able to monitor children at the

court-ordered time intervals. For instance, social workers must

3

visit a new foster care placement every 2 weeks for the first 2

months. GAO found social workers are able to visit a child every

3 months to 2 years after the original placement. If little Brianna

had been properly monitored and looked after by CFSA, she would

be with us here today.

This mishandling of children’s cases was again brought to the

public’s attention when D.C. Superior Court Judge Kaye Christian

demanded that CFSA be held accountable for their services in the

case of a 20-month-old neglected boy. The social worker assigned

to the case had failed to visit the boy or his family for 3 months

and did not appear for two scheduled court hearings, and neglected

to file a required court report updating the child’s situation. His supervisor also did not appear in court for two hearings, and courtappointed Receiver Ernestine Jones, who was subpoenaed to appear on July 26, also failed to appear. The court had to go so far

as to arrest Mrs. Jones when she refused to recognize the authority

of the District of Columbia court system. After this disgraceful series of events, the receiver sued D.C. Superior Court to make it

clear that she is accountable to no one. With an agency that has

lost the confidence of the public and the children at risk, the receiver determined it was more important to sue D.C. Superior

Court than to bring this agency into compliance with any single

piece of the MFO. When it was clear that the public could take no

more of this nonsense, the lawsuit was eventually withdrawn. It is

clear to this subcommittee that we all must be accountable for

CFSA and their inability to help and protect children.

It is this committee’s opinion that CFSA is functioning no better

than when it was removed from the District’s authority in 1995.

Five years ago, the District government was under a different administration, riddled by corrupt inefficiencies, and the government

of this city was deeply broken. Today, the District is under the

steady and capable leadership of Mayor Anthony Williams and

making a turnaround. Returning CFSA as a reunified agency to

the District, in my judgment, is the most effective means of immediately reforming CFSA.

The purpose of this hearing today is to call on all parties involved in this situation, CFSA, the plaintiffs, the court system, and

the District government to come together and create and implement an emergency plan to reform CFSA and end the receivership.

With our Nation’s Capital’s most vulnerable and underrepresented

voices in dire need of our assistance, this reunification needs to

occur as soon as possible. We owe it to Brianna Blackmond’s memory to take every step possible to improve outcomes for children potentially placed in similar predicaments. We must let them know

that help is on the way by working together to institute the best

course of action needed to correct CFSA’s systemic inadequacies.

We are joined today by the District’s Deputy Mayor, Carolyn

Graham, and special counsel, Grace Lopes, to learn about the District’s efforts to negotiate the return of CFSA and to support them

in their reform efforts. We are also joined by Linda Mouzon of the

Maryland Child Welfare Service Agency to discuss Maryland’s difficulties in aiding the District with their out-of-State foster home

placements, and by Mrs. Ernestine Jones, CFSA’s receiver, to learn

why this agency is still performing so poorly. I expect to hear from

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our witnesses today what will be done to reform CFSA and comply

with the receivership court order.

We are also fortunate to be joined by concerned Members of Congress. We are honored by the presence of Congressman Tom DeLay

whose personal interest and experience with child welfare systems

will be extremely beneficial to this hearing. Thank you very much

for joining us today. I will now yield to Delegate Norton for her

opening statement.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Thomas M. Davis follows:]

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Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank you for convening this oversight hearing and for the way you have handled

this very urgent problem.

This subcommittee, of course, held a hearing on the District of

Columbia Child and Family Services Receivership as part of a series of hearings on what were then three outstanding receiverships.

All were troubled. The subcommittee intervened to look at all the

receiverships after the death of baby Brianna Blackmond when no

specific vehicle for assessing responsibility or plan for bringing

changes emerged, and in the absence of jurisdiction by the District,

which lost control of the agency to a Federal court receiver in 1995.

My bill, the District of Columbia Receivership Accountability Act,

co-sponsored by Chairman Davis, speedily passed the House in

June, and I am pleased to report that the bill will be marked up

in the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee and may go to the

floor of the Senate as early as this week and that passage is virtually assured.

The last thing Chairman Davis and I thought would be necessary

after a tough hearing and GAO investigation, promises made, and

a receivership bill passed, is that we would be calling back any of

the receiverships for further hearings.

In calling this hearing today, we emphasize what we have

thought was clear before: that foster and abused children may have

lost a normal family life, but we do not intend to allow them to be

lost in government bureaucracies; that this subcommittee will

maintain its oversight until we are satisfied that improvements

that ensure the safety of these children have been made; and,

above all, that these children matter as much as any others to the

District and to the Congress.

We have not forgotten baby Brianna Blackmond, found dead

after being returned to a mother who had been adjudged neglectful

of all eight of her children by the courts. Today, we are unaware

of any policy or operational changes that would prevent a similar

loss of life or injuries to children. The indications point in the opposite direction—very critical findings by the GAO, the arrest of the

receiver for failing to appear before a city judge, and the reported

refusal of the State of Maryland to receive foster care children because of the indications that the receivership has no reliable way

to track children placed in Maryland. We will be particularly interested to learn how today’s witnesses view the actual state of the

agency.

The receivership may be outside of the jurisdiction of the District

of Columbia, but it is not beyond the jurisdiction of this subcommittee. Our receivership accountability bill, which we expect the President to sign soon, will require that receiverships must use best

practices, engage in an annual management and fiscal audit by an

independent auditor, ensure cost controls consistent with regional

and national standards, use procurement practices that foster full

and open competition, and meet a number of other standards that

should be routine for any entity charged with public responsibility

using public funds.

H.R. 3995, of course, will not be applicable until passed by the

Senate and signed by the President. However, recent developments

in the agency leave us unconvinced that even the new legislation

11

will be sufficient to help turn around this deeply troubled agency

quickly enough. After Baby Brianna’s death, the city, to its credit,

did its own investigation and its D.C. Child Fatality Review Committee issued an objective and highly critical report of the role of

city agencies in the child’s death. I am convinced that if the Child

and Family Services Agency were under the direct jurisdiction of

Mayor Williams, by now we would have in place for this agency an

interagency task force, management plans with goals, and risk assessment plans of the kind that are now operational in all city

agencies. By now I believe we would be seeing at least the beginning of changes as are apparent in the agencies under the Mayor’s

direct control.

Representative Tom DeLay—himself a foster parent and nationally known advocate for children, who will testify before this subcommittee once again today—Chairman Davis, and I held a productive meeting with Mayor Williams last week. We agreed that the

most direct way to bring immediate and measurable results would

be to directly involve the Mayor and the city with the receiver in

the presentation of an emergency plan to be submitted to this subcommittee, to other parties, and to the Federal court. Such a plan

is consistent with the existing mandates of the court and should assist the receiver to meet court deadlines. The additional participation of the city will assure the integration of sister agencies necessarily involved but not now under the jurisdiction of the receiver.

An emergency plan developed with the oversight of the Mayor will

also assist in the transition of the Child and Family Services Agency back to the city.

As unacceptable as we find the state of the agency, we are well

beyond mere criticism today. I hope all will regard this hearing as

we do—as a way to help solve a problem of great urgency, immediacy, and priority.

I welcome Representative DeLay and today’s other witnesses and

look forward to an exchange that will begin the process of visible

and satisfactory change.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Ms. Norton.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Eleanor Holmes Norton follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS. I would now recognize our whip, Mr. DeLay. Tom,

thank you for being here today.

Mr. DELAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for all your

courtesies, for allowing me to be here today. I particularly thank

Ms. Norton and Mrs. Morella for their interest and leadership in

this, and I thank the witnesses for being here today.

Let me say a few things if I may Mr. Chairman. We are in the

middle of the last few weeks of our legislative session, and my responsibilities are many and my schedule is full right now as we try

to get our work done and adjourn sine die. But let me tell you unequivocally, that the remaining conference reports, whipping votes,

and meetings with the Senate leadership are a last priority for me

today. There is nothing more important, nothing, than the wellbeing of kids right here in our own backyard.

Right now and right here in the shadow of this Capitol, in the

shadow of the Capitol of the greatest country on Earth, we are failing to effectively intervene on behalf of suffering children. Shame

on us. Shame on us.

I am not here to assign blame but to call for accountability and

action. Miss Jones, I know there are problems left over from the

corrupt administrations, and I know that change takes time. But

I am just incredibly frustrated with excuses and the lack of sense

of urgency that I have witnessed in the last 10 months that I’ve

been involved in this situation. It has got to stop and it has got to

stop right now.

This is so much more than each of us here in this room. No one

wants to admit it, but under current circumstances, the best interests of the District’s children are not being served. Certainly no one

wants this to be the case, but it is time to face facts, face reality,

and make some changes.

This isn’t about permits and jurisdictions and bureaucracies and

offices and jealousies and those kinds of things. This is about comprehending the gravity of a situation and doing whatever is necessary to address it. This is about children.

What I have found in my work with abused children is that people do not want to face the reality of what adults are doing to their

children. These are children that, upon birth, within the first 18

months, their arms are broken, their legs are broken, their heads

are bashed in, they are put in scalding water, they are burned with

cigarettes and cigars. Children that are at the age of 6 are being

sexually raped by their family members. Girls that are being sold

into prostitution at the age of 6, 7, 8 years old, by their drug-addicted mothers. That is what we are talking about here. Those kind

of children.

And the worst part about it is this system is abusing them even

worse. That is in your Nation’s Capital. We have seen little or no

evidence of change since the May hearing. The GAO report reveals

that over 1,200 cases, that is 1,200 abused or neglected, children

weren’t even investigated. Those cases weren’t even investigated in

the mandatory 48-hour period, between the months of June and

July. These are children that either someone noticed were beaten

and abused or made an outcry of their own. And the system

wouldn’t even investigate it. And worse than that, 150 children had

no investigation within 30 days; 30 days.

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Now, you put yourself in the position of that child who finally

has had enough of what the adult is doing to them and makes an

outcry, and the system won’t even investigate it for 30 days. Maybe

we ought to take some of you and put you in that situation and

see how helpless you are or how you would feel if no one cared and

you’re trying to get some help.

I am convinced that the drastic changes and emphasis on accountability that this agency must adopt to begin functioning at a

minimum level of competence requires the full attention of Mayor

Williams and his administration. Let’s give him the opportunity to

take back this agency and address the systemic function within it.

The agency should be removed from receivership and placed under

the control of the city at the earliest possible date. Under these

atrocious circumstances, we not only have the duty to act, we have

a moral imperative to do so.

Let’s end this silly bifurcation that has led us to chaos and confusion. Let’s create a cohesive investigative team that includes police

and social workers. Let’s create a family court that focuses on the

needs of children. Let’s support and enable volunteer organizations

such as CASA, or court advocates here in Washington, DC, to help

overworked social workers put children first by giving judges the

most accurate and detailed reports possible.

I’ll do whatever it takes to bring accountability to this agency. I

am committed to seeing this process through. And, Mr. Chairman,

I hope to see a joint emergency action plan from the city and the

receiver within 10 days. Because please note, I am prepared to take

legislative action if I am not convinced that the necessary steps

have been taken. I am going to do it on behalf of the children.

Let’s commit here today to stop talking and meeting and start

doing something. I’ve told the Mayor that I will help him bring together a task force of the most qualified people in the country to

help the city restructure the agency. There are models all over this

country of success stories that we can draw from. My staff is at his

disposal and my door is open to him at any time, and I welcome

the interest of the Mayor. The Mayor is very interested in doing

something if he’d ever be given the chance to do it.

Finally, let’s just remember the point of this whole thing. It is

not us and how well we are or aren’t doing our jobs; the point is

that we see the lives of our most vulnerable children in jeopardy.

What are we going to do about it?

Thank you Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much Mr. DeLay.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Tom DeLay follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS. Mrs. Morella, our vice chairman of the committee.

Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your calling this very important hearing today, and I wanted to extend my

thanks to you and I certainly want to thank Mr. DeLay because he

demonstrates the leadership’s focus on this issue, and I applaud

that because it is for our children. I certainly thank Ms. Norton for

her work in this, too.

The outcome of today’s oversight hearing concerning the District

of Columbia’s Child and Family Services Receivership I think is

very critical to determine the independence of the District of Columbia in controlling its own agencies and the proper functioning

of interstate child services in the region. However, I want to also

underline the fact that really what we are talking about is the safety and welfare of the foster children of the District of Columbia.

I like the adage that when you touch a rock you touch the past,

and when you touch a flower you touch the present, but when you

touch a child you touch the future. That is what we have heard

over and over again, and that’s our deep belief. It is their fate that

hangs in the balance as we develop an emergency plan detailing

the reforms that will be enacted to conform to the court order in

an effort to return the Child and Family Services Receivership to

the District of Columbia’s jurisdiction.

As we are all well aware, the District’s Child and Family Services Agency has been under a Federal court order since 1991 and

has been under receivership since 1995. The District of Columbia

has the dubious distinction of being the only jurisdiction in the history of the United States with more than one agency in receivership at the same time. As was pointed out in the May hearing, the

District of Columbia’s three receiverships combined will cost the District taxpayer $352 million this year in court-controlled spending with the government of the District of Columbia unable to control the operations of these vital agencies.

In the wake of the shocking death of the 23-month-old Brianna

Blackmond, the D.C. Subcommittee held a hearing to discuss what

actions the Child and Family Services Receivership must take in

order to prevent such a terrible tragedy from ever happening again.

Some of those recommendations included additional training for social workers and requiring social workers to provide field reports

to judges 10 days before hearings on a child’s status.

Unfortunately, since the May hearing, the receivership has not

shown the necessary and sufficient improvements in its management and operations. We will hear from Miss Jones, but recently

she herself was arrested for failure to respond to a subpoena issued

by the D.C. Superior Court in the neglect case of a 20-month-old

boy. Miss Jones was only issued a subpoena after the child’s social

worker did not visit the child for 3 months, failed to appear in

court twice, and failed to file a required court report about the

child’s condition.

Most recently, Maryland’s Social Services Administration has

prevented any new D.C. foster children from being placed in the

State, a critical decision for the District of Columbia since nearly

half of the District’s 3,100 foster children live in Maryland. The

State of Maryland was unfortunately forced to make this decision

as they discovered that the Child and Family Services Receivership

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was not notifying the State before the foster children were placed

with Maryland families. Consequently, without the proper paperwork, criminal background checks and home inspections were not

being performed before a child’s placement, a fact that is simply

abhorrent.

So while I support the initial decision of the Maryland Social

Services Administration, this certainly says we have to work together to help to devise a plan to revitalize this failed agency and

return it to the jurisdiction of the District of Columbia where it belongs.

My hope is that the recommendations that we make will forever

prevent another Brianna from being hurt by the inadequacies of a

mismanaged government service. A foster child should feel the

same warmth and love as any other child, perhaps more. A foster

child should never feel that he or she is the burden of the government.

I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Mrs. Morella.

I now call our panel witnesses to testify. I think we are all here

now.

Carolyn Graham, the deputy director for Children, Youth and

Families; Miss Grace Lopes, who is the special counsel for receivership and institutional litigation. They will address areas of reform

that need to be enacted by the Child and Family Services Agency

in the efforts to return the agency to the District government. Miss

Linda Mouzon, who will address Maryland’s difficulties in working

with the District of Columbia on interstate compact issues; and

Mrs. Ernestine Jones, the general receiver of the District of Columbia Child and Family Services, who will address the current state

of affairs of the Child and Family Services Agency and the lack of

any substantial reforms in this agency over the course of the receivership.

As you know, it is the policy of this committee that all witnesses

be sworn before you testify. Would you please rise with me and

raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. DAVIS. Be seated. Thank you.

To afford sufficient time for questions I would ask each of you

to keep your oral testimony to 5 minutes, and that will give us

time for questions. We have read the prepared statements, so if you

highlight what you want to and if you want to add something to

it you can do that.

Let me start with Miss Graham, and then we will go to Grace

Lopes and then Ms. Mouzon, and you will be our cleanup hitter,

Ms. Jones.

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STATEMENTS OF CAROLYLN GRAHAM, DEPUTY MAYOR FOR

CHILDREN, YOUTH AND FAMILIES, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA;

GRACE LOPES, SPECIAL COUNSEL, RECEIVERSHIP AND INSTITUTIONAL LITIGATION; LINDA MOUZON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SOCIAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION, MARYLAND

DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN RESOURCES; AND ERNESTINE F.

JONES, GENERAL RECEIVER, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

CHILD AND FAMILY SERVICES

Ms. GRAHAM. Good morning, Congressman Davis, Congresswoman Norton and members of the congressional Subcommittee on

the District of Columbia, and you as well, Mr. DeLay. I am Carolyn

N. Graham, Deputy Mayor for Children, Youth and Families in the

District of Columbia; and on behalf of Mayor Anthony A. Williams

I welcome the opportunity to testify at this oversight hearing

today.

As we discussed at the May hearing, the quality of our child welfare system has been a longstanding concern for the city. As you

know, the city has been under a Federal court order since 1991;

and the Child and Family Services Agency has been in some form

of receivership since 1993.

Overall, our assessment is that, despite improvements in the infrastructure within CFSA, substantial improvements have not yet

been seen in terms of case practice and better permanency outcomes for children. Children in this city stay in foster care far too

long without either being returned home or adopted. Although

some progress has been made, where we are now remains untenable.

We believe that it is time to transition the agency back to the

Mayor’s control. Receiverships are not intended as permanent solutions, and this administration has clearly demonstrated a commitment to improving the child welfare system in the city.

Turning the corner on this will require this administration’s

leadership not only to improve CFSA but also to improve the communication among all stakeholder agencies, end the so-called bifurcated system, improve the operations of the Superior Court and expand creative strategies to engage the community in supporting

birth, foster and adoptive families.

Before I describe the initiatives we have taken to prepare for the

transition, I want to address the issue of children placed in Maryland because I know this is a concern for all of us.

The interstate compact on the placement of children, or the

ICPC, governs such placement in out-of-State situations. I want to

first clarify for you that many of the cases that lack the ICPC

agreement are situations in which CFSA was ordered by the Superior Court to place a child with relatives prior to the child’s official

entry into foster care and, thus, prior to the initiation or completion of the ICPC.

Regardless, the cumbersome and frequently delayed process for

establishing ICPC agreements has been untenable, and the responsibilities for resolving this rests squarely with both our Department

of Human Services and CFSA. I am thus very pleased to report

today that a memorandum of understanding establishing clear

processes to expedite the execution of ICPC agreements was signed

yesterday, September 19, by the State of Maryland, the receiver

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and myself as the interim director of the District of Columbia’s Department of Human Services. The MOU establishes a corrective action plan to address the backlog of current cases that lack ICPCs

and establishes protocols to establish new ICPC agreements more

quickly.

Admittedly, it took too long to get this done. However, I am confident that we now have in place the basis for establishing a more

efficient system for processing ICPCs. This will help us to increase

the number of children who are adopted in a timely fashion and

improve compliance with the Federal Adoption and Safe Families

Act.

At this point, I would like to describe several of the actions and

initiatives that this administration has taken to improve the child

welfare system and to lay the groundwork for its return to the control of the Mayor.

We have established working processes for completing foster

home inspections and approval by the Fire Department and the Department of Health. As a result, there are no longer backlogs of foster care homes needing health department and fire inspections.

When the Williams administration assumed responsibility for

this government, we found in excess of 100 applications in both the

Department of Health and the Department of Fire where inspections were needed. We have eliminated all these backlogs.

To further help, we have also assisted social worker recruitment

and retention by issuing an order signed by this administration allowing temporary reciprocity for social workers licensed in other jurisdictions.

I recently instructed the director of the Department of Health to

go farther and issue an order allowing permanent reciprocity. The

current order allows social workers to be issued a temporary license for 1 year, during which time they have to pass the social

worker examination. The new order will allow social workers licensed in other jurisdictions to be licensed here without having to

take another test.

This administration is now developing group home regulations

for the city.

We are also working with SOS Children’s Villages and Boys

Town to develop other permanent placement options here in the

District of Columbia for children in foster care.

We are continuing to work with the CFSA on the Bring Our Children Home public outreach campaign to recruit foster and adoptive

parents. Since January 2000, CFSA has approved 94 new foster

homes—55 in the District, 38 in Maryland and 1 in Virginia.

We have developed and are awaiting congressional approval of a

plan to utilize $5 million for adoption support services and incentives.

This administration is now developing a Children’s Assessment

Center that will significantly improve the investigation and prosecution of child abuse and neglect cases. The CAC will locate and

integrate the work of all agencies involved in these cases. This

model has been successfully implemented in several other jurisdictions, including Texas, Alabama, New York and California. This

strategy was highlighted in a followup white paper issued by the

Mayor last month that describes the current fragmented system of

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investigation and prosecution of child abuse and neglect. The CAC

is scheduled to come on line in the District by the end of 2001.

In addition to initiatives directly related to the child welfare system, this administration is also taking a more proactive and preventive approach to improving outcomes for children as evidenced

by the following: The establishment of neighborhood-based parent

development centers. We have established six in this city over the

course of the summer. Implementation of nurse home visits for all

newborn children. This initiative goes on line in October. Significant expansion of after-school programs for children and youth in

the city. By the end of September we will have added 30 new outof-school-time programs. We have increased the affordability of

child care slots in the District of Columbia. We are also taking

every opportunity to ensure there is a seamless transition of CFSA

back to the Mayor’s control through the development of linkages

between the child welfare system and our health and human service agencies.

The receiver participates in twice-monthly meetings of the directors of all of our human service agencies. This provides an opportunity to identify and resolve cross-agency issues. CFSA actively

participates in a stakeholders group focusing on reform of the Superior Court related to the processing of child welfare cases.

CFSA serves as a resource for the Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Youth Safety and Juvenile Justice Reform.

CFSA’s director of policy and planning is a member of a 10-person interagency planning group that is developing wraparound

services in the District for children with mental health needs and

their families.

CFSA is also participating in the development of an interagency

children’s tracking system, a city-wide data system that will track

children receiving services from any city agency such as CFSA, Juvenile Justice, TANF, Food Stamps and Special Education.

In closing, let me say this administration looks forward to taking

responsibility for the full functions and day-to-day operations of the

child welfare system. We are committed to working with all stakeholders to improve outcomes for all children in the system. I thank

you very much for this opportunity to testify before the distinguished members of this committee and am happy to answer any

questions that you might have.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Graham follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS. Miss Lopes.

Ms. LOPES. Thank you very much.

Good morning, Chairman Davis, Ms. Norton, Mr. DeLay, Mr.

Horn, members of the committee. I am Grace Lopes. I am the Mayor’s special counsel for receivership and institutional litigation.

My testimony will address three matters.

First, I will explain my role in the LaShawn case, which is the

class action that governs the child welfare system. I will describe

the current posture of the case, the legal posture, as it is now, and

I will clarify our position in the litigation with respect to termination of the receivership.

With respect to my role as special counsel, this role was created

as part of Mayor Williams’ administration’s initiative to address

the proliferation of litigation against the District and the intervention of the courts in the operation of District agencies.

I began this role in February of this year, and my responsibilities

generally are two-fold. One, they extend to all litigation that implicates receiverships of government functions or public functions and,

second, all litigation where there is a potential for increased intervention in the operation of our agencies.

My responsibilities in LaShawn are multifaceted: First, I am responsible for developing the litigation strategies for terminating

the receivership and transitioning back to the District.

Second, I am responsible for developing and implementing the

strategies to resolve the underlying court orders. Because, in fact,

once the receivership is vacated, those orders remain unless and

until the District comes into compliance with those orders. So

vacating the receivership is a predicate to vacating the courts, but

compliance with those underlying orders unless they are modified

is a predicate to eliminating the court’s involvement in the operation of the agency.

Third, I am responsible for facilitating compliance with the

court’s orders and supporting the receiver as appropriate with respect to accelerating her compliance and accelerating ultimately

the termination of the orders in the case.

I am also responsible for intervening as necessary in cross-agency issues in order to support compliance with the court’s orders,

and I do that typically in coordination with Deputy Mayor Graham.

And, finally, I act as the Mayor’s liaison with all the stakeholders—the Federal court, the Court Monitor, plaintiffs’ counsel, etc.,

in this case.

When I came into this case or shortly thereafter, in February, I

initiated an assessment, my own assessment, of the receivership

and the receivership’s compliance with the orders. I used typical

audit methodology for a lawyer in this kind of situation—conducted

my own investigation, extensive interviews with all the stakeholders, review of the court record, review of the monitor’s reports, etc.

I found and I think the evidence is pretty clear that, in fact, if we

look at all of the traditional performance indicators, in most instances there has not been significant improvements under receivership.

I also want to clarify that this case has been or this agency has

been in receivership since 1994, initially with three limited receivers who came in, followed by two general receivers, one appointed

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in 1995 and the latter in 1997. But despite the succession of receiverships there has not been demonstrable and significant improvement with respect to those performance indicators, and that is

what my assessments show. On the basis of that, I concluded that

it would be prudent and very important for us to move forward as

expeditiously as possible to terminate the receivership; and the

strategy that I embarked upon was a negotiation strategy where

we could work with all of the stakeholders collaboratively to resolve

it as expeditiously as possible.

I initiated discussions over the summer with all of the stakeholders and, in an effort to accelerate the negotiation process, requested

the court’s intervention. I am happy to report that the court instructed the Court Monitor to convene the parties and to convene

them for the purpose of attempting to work together to resolve a

transition plan to be presented to the court. We have had one very

substantial and recent negotiation session with respect to that

plan. There are several more scheduled within the next month, and

we are—all parties—scheduled to meet with the court on October

18.

My plan, if we are unable to reach agreement on October 18 and

present the court with an agreement to transition out, is to request

that the court set a briefing schedule so that we can move forward

to litigate and move to vacate this receivership. I cannot predict

what the course of the negotiations will be. I can say that there are

many areas where there is significant agreement but many more

areas to address and resolve. These are complex negotiations, as I

am sure you can appreciate.

In conclusion, let me just say that the District is determined to

transition out of this receivership as expeditiously and responsibly

as possible. We want to lead this transition effort, and we want it

to be marked by creative thinking, careful planning and an expedited frame work. I thank you and look forward to responding to

any questions you may have.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Lopes follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS. Miss Mouzon, I am glad you got here through the

traffic. It was Maryland traffic, wasn’t it?

Ms. MOUZON. No. Believe it or not, I am from Washingotn, DC.

I thought I knew where I was going, went over to the Senate building where I did not belong, had to be redirected, thought I knew

the Green Line from the Red Line and took a wrong turn on the

Green Line. So I do apologize to the committee.

Mr. DAVIS. That is fine. I’m glad you’re here.

Ms. MOUZON. Good morning, Chairman Davis, members of the

committee.

My name is Linda Mouzon. I am the executive director of the Social Services Administration and the Department of Human Resources for the State of Maryland. I do thank you for this opportunity to allow me to speak to this committee today to talk about

the common interest that Maryland has with the District of Columbia for the safe placement of children into the State of Maryland.

Prior to 1989, Maryland and D.C.—I’m sorry, the District of Columbia shared reciprocity when it came to placement of children

into—between the two. This allowed the District and Maryland to

place children without having to go through the interstate compact

process.

As of 1989, the District of Columbia signed the interstate compact and, therefore, Maryland and the District were expected to

conform to the requirements that were in the compact whenever a

child had to be placed.

Maryland is committed to the safety of all children that reside

within our borders; and because we are a border State, sharing our

border also with Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Delaware, we do insist that children go through the interstate compact

process so that we will know which children are in our State,

where they are placed. That way we will have a mechanism in

place in case we later receive a complaint from the community or

from a resident indicating that there is further neglect or abuse,

which Maryland would be charged to go out and investigate.

As a result of our discussions with the District of Columbia, from

1989 until yesterday we did not have a formal agreement although

we were all part of the interstate compact process whereby we

could review the numbers of the vast volume of children who are

now placed in Maryland.

One of the issues for Maryland is we firmly believe that children

should reside in their community. Therefore, we have instituted

throughout our State the family to family process which allows us

to maintain a child within their community with resource families

as much as possible so that the mother or the father or the guardian who has come to our attention can work with the foster family

as part of a team. It causes the least disruption to the child, allowing the child to maintain community supports as well as allowing

the community to rally around the family and allow some continuity when it comes to the education of the child.

I would also like to point out that Maryland did not ban the District of Columbia from placing children into Maryland. All we ask

is that the District comply with the requirements of the compact

whenever a child is placed. We do not have a mechanism in place

that will Maryland allow the District to approve foster homes withVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:26 Oct 15, 2001 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00043 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\74760.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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in Maryland, nor do we allow them to license group care placements within Maryland.

However, Maryland does license facilities for the District to utilize.

We also, through the agreement that we entered into yesterday,

will have someone in place who will be able to provide us with the

home studies required in Maryland, the criminal background

checks, the health inspections, the fire inspections, as well as the

medical inspections that we require of all of our families that we

have as foster placements. This will also be done for relatives who

come to the fore and are able to take care of relative children.

I want to emphasize that Maryland is more than willing to work

with the District to move children as quickly as possible into placement, and we do want to do that. We do realize there is some competition, particularly with Prince George’s county when it comes to

resource homes, because indeed we in Maryland are committed to

keeping our children in our borders, and therefore, when we’re entering into agreements, we have to be aware that we are competing

for the same resource families. That is why I look forward to collaborating with the District of Columbia when it comes to the foster homes as well as adoptive homes.

I would also like to say that Maryland has been very pleased

with the process that we have engaged in as of late. We are very

pleased to be a part of the agreement that we have now. We feel

it addresses all the children who are already residing in Maryland

that we did not know about, as well as children who will be placed

in Maryland in the future. It is our hope and our expectation that

we will continue to follow the agreement as it was drawn up yesterday, and we look forward to working with the District of Columbia in ensuring that all children placed within Maryland’s borders

are kept safe.

I will be more than happy to answer any questions.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Mouzon follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS. Ms. Jones.

Ms. JONES. Good morning, Chairperson Tom Davis and members

of the subcommittee of the District of Columbia. I would hope you

would indulge me for a few minutes more than 5 minutes so that

I might respond.

OK. Thank you for the opportunity to again present information

on the status of the reforms that are being made to bring the Child

and Family Services Agency into compliance with the requirements

of the Modified Final Order. My name is Ernestine F. Jones, and

I am the court-appointed general receiver for the Child and Family

Services Agency.

I am pleased to take this opportunity to share with you information about the work that has continued since we came before this

committee in May of this year. I will highlight for you information

on the most critical areas.

I’ve also attached to this presentation a copy of a recent release

that outlines the major accomplishments of this administration. If

there is interest in further detail, I will be glad to make additional

information available to you.

I do not want to mislead you and suggest that all of the problems

that have plagued the child welfare system for the last 15 years

are fixed. They are not. But we have made significant strides, and

I hope that you and the general public will be able to put our accomplishments in perspective. I’m confident that we can achieve

the goals that will permit us to bring this agency into compliance

and assure the protection of children and the preservation of families.

Once again, let me provide you with a brief profile of the clients

that we serve in this agency. These statistics are for the period

ending August 31st.

The average number of neglect and abuse complaints called into

the Hotline each month is 350. Of this number, 40 percent are reports of abuse, and 60 percent are reports of neglect. There are

2,500 calls per month for general information that are not related

to child welfare. To make it easier for the public to report instances

of suspected abuse and neglect and to provide accountability that

all reports are recorded and properly investigated, we have put into

place a single Hotline reporting number: 671-SAFE.

Let me pause here to clarify that in addressing the 1,200 children that was reported in the GAO report, while I can’t give you

all the specifics on it because I have not been privy to the report,

I can assure you that the investigations have been initiated on

those cases. When we report on the number of investigations completed, our definition of what a completed investigation is goes beyond the initial visit. So that in almost all instances our worker is

out there within a 24-hour period. In some cases, if there is a large

surge, it may take 48 hours, but completing the investigation as reported in the system does not take place until you have done all

of the ancillary work.

The Hotline is the essential front door of any child protective

service system, and I am pleased to report that we have shown

major improvements in our intake division since May. We have a

new administrator and are now fully staffed. As of the end of August we have been able to reduce the number of cases that failed

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to meet the 30-day deadline for completion—and once again, I reiterate, completion means that we have done all ancillary work—of

the investigations to 72 neglect and 74 abuse, and that number is

even lower in September.

This is the first time that we have been able to accurately track

what happens with abuse cases which are investigated and followed up on by the police, and it is the lowest number of overdue

investigations we have had since the imposition of the LaShawn

decree. That number has at times been in excess of 500. This has

allowed us to be very close to compliance with the MFO in this

area. It also will make it possible for us to increase the number of

situations where our social workers can do joint visits with the police in abuse investigations in an effort to further reduce the number of instances in which children have to be removed from their

own homes.

There were 3,271 children in out-of-home care at the end of August. Of the children in out-of-home care, 484 children are in group

care and 152 are in residential placements. Of the children in outof-home care, 1,903 are placed with relatives.

There are 427 children in the adoptions program; 250 were

adopted in 1999, and 247 have been finalized through August 2000.

I might add, that number as of last week is 283.

With the support and cooperation of the Superior Court, we expect to finalize over 300 adoptions this fiscal year, an all-time

record for this program. In this program, we are currently three

staff short of the required number to come into compliance with the

MFO, and I might add that we have identified those three replacement workers. We have implemented the Post Adoption Services

Initiative that is intended to prevent adoption disruption. Through

this service any adoptive parent may contact the agency to get additional help or services, if appropriate, whenever there is a need.

There are 835 families with 2,014 children under agency supervision receiving services through our Kinship Care program and

530 families with 1,882 children receiving Family Services. In the

Family Services Division, we are in compliance with the MFO for

staffing. We have also served 102 families with 350 children thus

far this year in the Intensive Services program. Thirty-nine percent

of these families have remained together as a family unit.

Since May, we have expanded our Intensive Family Services program through two additional private agency contracts. Adding

these two contracts brought this program into compliance with the

MFO. There is a continuing need to expand this service further

which we plan to do certainly, subject to available funding, in fiscal

year 2001. This program allows us to work on an intensive basis

with a family while allowing the children to remain safely in the

home. This service is offered 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.

Staff are sent into the home to work in a very concentrated way

with families who have serious problems through intensive use of

support services such as home management, prevental teaching,

day care, close supervision with increased visitation, and counseling.

Through the preventive services that we continue to make available to at-risk children and families through the Healthy Families/

Thriving Communities Collaboratives we are continuing to make

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progress in keeping children in their own homes. The

Collaboratives have provided services to 956 families and 2,912

children thus far during this fiscal year, up from 1,800 served

throughout the entire last year. This represents a 37 percent increase thus far over the past fiscal year.

These services are also a requirement of the MFO and enable us

to meet the Federal expectation to make reasonable efforts to prevent the placement of children and to support reunification when

appropriate.

The ASFA legislation has been implemented, and we’re working

with the members of the judiciary to meet the requirements as defined. The process that we are using has a three-track approach.

The first is a process implemented to review all of the cases that

were in the system prior to February 2000, when the law was enacted that needed to have the permanency plan established and approved.

The second process is designed to ensure that all new cases coming into the system have a plan put into place in accordance with

the requirements.

The third process is designed to fast track the cases where adoption or relative care is the immediate or preferred plan for permanency for the child, such as with an abandoned child.

Our struggle to come into compliance in this area and our recent

difficulties in meeting the expectations of the Superior Court results primarily from the shortfall of social workers in the Foster

Care and Kinship Care programs. Overall, we have increased the

number of social workers on board in the last few months, but our

turnover has continued to be high in these two programs. Our most

recent job fair resulted in eight social workers that will be assigned

to fill vacancies in these two programs.

To address the continuing shortfall, we have hired four bachelor

level social workers that have been assigned to the foster care unit

to perform casework. A second group of bachelor level social workers will begin this month to perform similar work in the Kinship

Care program. Finally, we have recently contracted with licensed

social workers that only want to work on a temporary basis. This

staff will be used to augment vacancies, especially where the new

worker is still in training or to provide temporary coverage when

a social worker leaves.

We continue to experience problems in addressing the needs of

this group of children, our special physical and emotionally handicapped children. The most difficult group is older adolescents who

have special needs such as mental retardation and mental illness.

These children are particularly difficult to place in foster home

care. To address this problem, we have released a request for proposals for additional therapeutic foster homes with a special emphasis on children with dual diagnosis, and we are continuing our

efforts to recruit proctor home parents. Proctor homes are specially

recruited, two-parent homes to care for a particular child and the

caretaker is paid a stipend so that one parent remains at home.

With the assistance of a grant from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a special review by the Chapin Hall Center out of Chicago has

given us a clearer picture of the available resources in the Washington, DC, area to serve these children. While the raw capacity is

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there, their ability to meet the additional need will require this

agency to expand their contracts to allow for increased support

services for the most difficult to place children.

We are currently working with the Mental Health receiver to develop more resources for mental health services for children. In

general, this is a resource that is very limited in the District. We

expect to release request for proposals for additional mental health

services within the next 2 weeks. Our ability to develop these additional services is tied to additional funding that has been requested

for fiscal year 2001 and is included in the Mayor’s fiscal year 2001

budget.

We have developed a Memorandum of Understanding with the

Addiction, Prevention and Recovery Administration to enable us to

expand the available pool of resources to treat substance abuse

among our young adults and for our own parents that want their

children returned. At this time, there are virtually no treatment

programs for adolescents beyond detoxification. We are working

with APRA to simulate the effort of new services targeted to this

population.

You have heard a lot in the press recently about our problems

with the interstate compact. There are minimal interstate compact

issues with those children who are placed in programs located in

the State of Virginia. Placement of District children in Virginia is

handled through Lutheran Social Services which is licensed in Virginia to complete the compact process for us. There are now 96

children currently in placement in Virginia foster homes or group

facilities.

The interstate compact issue with the State of Maryland is more

problematic because of the number of placements, especially placements with relatives, and implementing the changes in the requirements under the Adoption and Safe Families Act for the many foster homes that were already in use. The interstate compact agreement was not designed to reflect a situation where so many children are placed across State boundaries.

For many years, the District has assumed all responsibility for

the approval of the homes, monitoring of the homes and all payments for services required by the children placed in them. We

have a total of 218 foster homes in Maryland; and, in addition, we

contract with private agencies that have 536 foster homes in Maryland. These homes represent about 60 percent of our available

homes that we have for placement of children and currently provide care for more than half of the children in out-of-home care.

This issue is not that we do not know where these homes are—

where these homes and children are, nor that we are not supervising these placements. And I might add, all of these homes have,

indeed, met the approval process for the District, which has been

even more stringent than the approval process that had previously

been used in Maryland. We are now, however, all in sync with the

same process because we all are required to meet the Adoption and

Safe Families Act. So that I want to assure the committee that

none of these homes lacked proper fire, police, or physical inspections, nor was there any lack of assessment of the homes. All clearances were done. The problem was that we were not submitting the

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paperwork through Maryland prior to the placement of the children.

This issue was a compliance issue with the agreement that requires prior approval by a State when the child from a different

State is placed in that jurisdiction. We have entered, as was previously stated, into a formal agreement now with Maryland that is

intended to have us work together to not only resolve the current

situation but also to put in place a longer term agreement that will

prevent such problems in the future.

I am most pleased to report to you that, in contrast to last year,

we have made great progress in the management and operation of

the budget for this agency during this past year. Among the accomplishments has been increasing of foster care and day care rates.

All of our continuing foster care day care and vendor payments

have been brought up to date, and most vendors are being paid

well within the District’s payment schedule of 45 days.

I’m also pleased to advise that, based upon the most recent review, we expect to end this year without a shortfall in this budget.

To respond to the most critical areas of concern, I’ve put in place

two emergency procedures. I’ve authorized—for the issue of expansion of resources. I’ve authorized that modification be made to contracts of existing District of Columbia vendors who have an immediate capacity to accept additional children for placement within

the District. This will give us some additional slots while we complete the necessary paperwork for interstate placements where appropriate.

To handle the additional contracting workload, we have hired

two additional contract specialists to assist with the necessary paperwork. We expect to have a minimum of 20 additional placements in the District within 2 weeks and another 30 available

within 4 weeks.

In addition, we are continuing to work aggressively to reorient

our foster and adoptive home recruitment to keep more children in

the District and in neighborhoods close to their homes. In June, we

launched the Family to Family Project, funded in part by the Annie

E. Casey Foundation. This is a neighborhood-based foster care—

foster home recruitment project that is aimed at assisting is us in

keeping children not only in the District but in their own neighborhoods.

To address the additional staff needs in the Foster Care and Kinship Care programs, we expect to hire 22 additional social workers

to fill the remaining vacant positions. Based upon the response

that we received at the most recent job fair, we expect to meet our

original goal of having commitments to fill the remaining vacancies

by the end of this fiscal year. Further, I plan to hire 10 additional

staff during October to ensure our capacity to offset ongoing turnover and maintain compliance with the MFO.

Finally, we continue to work to improve practice at the frontline

by providing clear expectations for staff, consistent supervision,

and enforcement of performance expectations. These changes will

not occur overnight, but I’m clear that they must occur.

In conclusion, we have begun discussions with representatives of

the Mayor’s office, the plaintiffs and the Monitor to begin the process of preparing a transition strategy. It is my opinion that the

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agency will be in a position to initiate the remaining work required

under the MFO during this coming fiscal year if the funding requested is made available. The processes have now been put in

place to begin to develop the additional resources needed to meet

the service needs of our clients subject, of course, to available funding.

Thank you for the opportunity to address this committee. I ask

only for your continued support in our efforts to achieve compliance

with the requirements of the MFO allowing the return of the agency to the District government. I thank you.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Jones follows:]

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Mr. DAVIS. I’m going to start the questioning over on my left

with Mr. Horn.

Mr. HORN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Child and Family Services is failing to comply with the court

order that social workers investigate reports of neglected children

within 48 hours. Is that true?

Ms. JONES. As I was attempting to clarify in my testimony, the

way the process works is the call comes in and we have, according

to District law, 48 hours to initiate the investigation. The modified

final order requires us to initiate the investigation in 24 hours.

We initiate the investigations in almost all instances within the

time period. But when a report is generated off the system, it reflects when we have completed the entire process, and we are expected to complete that process within 30 days. And the numbers

that I reported earlier reflect how we have brought the numbers

down in getting those completed within that 30-day period.

Mr. HORN. Is it correct that the agency’s Hotline receives at least

350 neglect reports each month?

Ms. JONES. We receive at least 350. That goes up depending on

the time of year. We receive a lot more calls, but when you break

down the calls, it translates to approximately 350 a month.

Mr. HORN. Now, I gather the GAO study did not address whether

the delays had caused injuries to any children, and it’s known that

failure to thoroughly investigate reports in the past has led to child

deaths. Doesn’t that concern you?

Ms. JONES. Certainly that concerns me, and that’s one of the reasons why we insist on meeting the initial requirement of initiating

a contact on each of the complaints within the time period. Absent

having in my presence the GAO report, I was not clear as to what

the context was in which they reported that.

If they simply took the raw numbers and interpreted that to

mean that we had not initiated contact, then that would be incorrect because we have initiated contact. That is to go out and attempt to see the complainent investigate the complaint to ensure

that children are protected.

Now, that’s two different entities. We go out on the neglect. The

police go out on the abuse.

Mr. HORN. I understand that 18 children younger than 6 years

of age have been placed in group homes, some for as long as 2

years. Is that correct?

Ms. JONES. I’m not aware. I would have to see what that report

is. We do place some children under age 6 in group homes. I would

prefer not to do that, but, unfortunately, not having a sufficient

number of foster homes at any given time who can take them, we

do end up with children under 6 in a group home which we do not

want.

What we have put in place, however—and that’s primarily in two

facilities that we have licensed as emergency placement resources

for children under age 6. What we have put in place, though, is a

process that allows us to get those children out of that group facility and into homes within a shortened period of time and now we

pretty much are holding to less than 30 days.

Mr. HORN. Now 45 children have been placed in unlicensed foster

homes in the District, and you also have noted that there have

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been, I would guess, licensed homes in Maryland to which a number of the children are put. Is that correct?

Ms. JONES. Well, let me clarify two things. We do not place any

child in a home that has not been licensed. But licenses must be

renewed for all homes annually—biannually. What happens is— and I have the most current figures on that. We have 10 homes

now where there are children as of this point, where there are children in a home without a current license. These homes were licensed. When they came up for the renewal they have to repeat

certain processes. One of the ones they repeat is the parent has to

get an updated medical.

One of the problems we have encountered, and we are attempting to develop a plan to deal with this, is many of our parents are

part of HMOs. When they attempt to get a medical, routine medical, many times they aren’t able to get an appointment immediately to get that done. So that for that time period that it takes

them to get their current medical, that home technically is unlicensed. They have met all the requirements. There is not a problem in terms of home and all of that. What we’re attempting to do

is to get another resource that they could go to to get that medical

when they aren’t able to get it done through their own licensed

health care provider.

Mr. HORN. You mentioned in your testimony the need for staff.

And I gather we have about 3,000 open foster care cases in the District, and you, I think, believe that 80 percent of the social worker

positions are filled resulting in high caseloads. Now, a lot of the

universities in Virginia, in Maryland that would have an MSW, a

master of social work degree, is there a possibility that you and

others could talk to the deans of those schools and say isn’t it about

time you get some reality in these programs and let’s have some

internships to see what the world is really like? And has that been

done and thought about?

Ms. JONES. We work with all—in fact, the majority of my recruits

come from local area universities. That has not been a problem.

And, in fact, this past spring to now, we have been very successful

in recruiting social workers with a master’s level. We have also put

in place a much more efficient system of helping them get licensed

so that they can in fact practice. And we also instituted, at the request of Delegate Norton, bringing in bachelor level staff; and we’re

bringing them in and we’re using them effectively.

So that the issue is not that we are not now having success at

recruiting and getting them in. But in the two program areas that

I identified, Foster Care and Kinship Care, we continue to experience a heavy turnover in those areas. I don’t need to go through

all the reasons why they leave, but that area is one where we have

experienced—continue to experience higher turnover.

In our other areas we’re just about at full staff—in intake, in

Family Services, and right now in adoption. So the two areas that

remain are Foster Care and Kinship Care.

Mr. HORN. I’ve got two questions. Then I’ll be done. But I think

40 percent of the District’s foster children require special services

such as various therapies and education. To what degree are they

making those specialists to be able to handle some of these young

people?

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Ms. JONES. That’s one of the reasons why we have engaged in

the process with mental health and with the substance abuse programs. While we know that many of the children need the help, the

resource pool of services for children—now you have resources for

the adults—has historically been limited in the District.

You have got two ways you can get that. You can try and get the

child where the resource is, which means you’re looking at out-ofDistrict placements, or you can try and stimulate development of

those services here. Working with the Mental Health receiver, it’s

his belief that we can develop those resources here in the District.

But to do that, he has to be able to stimulate the development, and

that usually requires funds.

Mr. HORN. Do we have some sort of nonprofit groups, such as

100 Black men or whatever, that would be sort of a mentor to some

of these children?

Ms. JONES. We have a lot of mentoring programs. That is one

service that we do not have a shortage of in terms of being able

to find them—and a lot of the mentoring services are not even services where we have to pay for them. This is where groups voluntarily do this. We have not experienced difficulty in getting mentoring services, and tutoring service has been very effective.

Now, where we experience difficulty is when you have a child

that has what I call dual diagnosis, where you have multiple problems. Then that usually requires us to make a special arrangement

for that child. And we try to do that, but unfortunately, the numbers of children with those kind of dual problems is high here in

the District. And trying to buildup a resource pool sufficient to address that need has been difficult.

Mr. HORN. My last question is, the Federal court has mandated

a policy manual, and apparently they’re simply sending newspapers around. What do you think about that?

Ms. JONES. First of all, we have policies and procedures for each

of our program areas. What we have been working on is pulling all

of that together and synchronizing that with the automated system

that we have. What we are trying to make sure of now is that in

each program the procedures outlined in the policy track against

the steps that a worker goes through in the system. We have been

doing that, using workers, using supervisors, because it is important that the practitioners understand and help with how that

process works.

We have not finished all of them, but we are well—I believe at

this point two of the programs remain to be reviewed and correlated with that. Once that happens, the manual then will be able

to be on line to all workers. But as it stands right now we have

policies and procedures in each of the program areas. They are on

paper. They’re in paper format because we don’t want to put them

on line until we’re sure that all the steps in the policy are synchronized with the steps that a worker goes through as they navigate through the system. And that requires sitting down with each

one, going through it one by one, and we have been doing that. I

would expect, and I can’t give you an exact time line, but we are

very close to being able to put the policy manual on line. But I

don’t want you to assume we don’t have policies and procedures.

We do.

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Mr. HORN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Horn.

I recognize Ms. Norton for 10 minutes.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Let me say I appreciate the testimony of all four of the witnesses. I think the testimony has been enlightening and has at

least caused me to think about some ways that might be totally

outside of the box.

We recognize that you are dealing with a problem that, throughout the country, has yielded unsatisfactory results. Our frustration

comes because, although that is the case, we’ve got to deal with

this case. And I think part of the problem may be that we are dealing with these cases as we have traditionally dealt with them, as

if things hadn’t changed, as if children weren’t coming into foster

care in huge numbers, as if there weren’t a drug crisis out there,

as if there weren’t the breakdown of family life in the way that it

was not when I was growing up as a child in this town.

Let me first try to get a couple or three of the red flag issues that

led Chairman Davis and I to know that something must be wrong,

because we simply read them in the newspaper and the GAO report was not out.

First, the State of Maryland. I want to say to Ms. Mouzon how

much I appreciate her being here in particular. When we talk

about D.C.’s children and family unification, there are no borders.

So many of our folks have fled to Maryland. Perhaps that is the

wrong word. ‘‘Moved’’ to Maryland. That everybody’s grandmother

and aunt and cousins are either here or there, and the cooperation

that we’ve received from the State of Maryland is particularly important to us.

Even if that were not the case, the District is a city. Every other

foster care system at least has a whole State that it can look to

rely upon because everybody wants to keep the children as close to

home as possible, but at least you don’t have to deal with somebody

in another jurisdiction. So our problem is it is not only more difficult for us, it is more difficult for you. With a diminishing population, even though I hear what Ms. Jones is saying about more

parents in the District of Columbia, one really begins to wonder

whether we could ever be anything but inordinately dependent on

the State of Maryland.

Now, let me ask this straight out, Ms. Mouzon. As of yesterday,

if a child needs to be placed in the State of Maryland, will that

child be—from the District of Columbia, will that child be accepted

and how long will it take for that child to be placed in the State

of Maryland?

Ms. MOUZON. The agreement that we entered into yesterday

deals with two populations. One, those are the children who are already in Maryland from the District. The big issue for Maryland

is that we need to know that the clearances that are conducted include Maryland Child Protective Service clearance. There is no

mechanism in place for the District to enter into our system and

determine whether or not a parent or a relative who comes forward

as a potential foster parent, has been a perpetrator of abuse in the

State of Maryland, and that’s why we are insisting on the ICPC

process being utilized.

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Under the system we put in place yesterday, we do allow for

emergency placements. So what would happen is certain homes

would be designated by the District of Columbia as emergency

homes, and those children could enter those homes immediately.

We also have asked in the terms of Kinship Care that certain requirements be met, including that they contact the State of Maryland so that we can check our automated system to ensure that

what do not get what we call a hit, in other words, that person is

not known to us through our Child Protective Service System. And

once we know that those paperwork pieces are in place, we would

allow that child to be placed.

So we’re not talking about a delay. We are talking about a system that will allow those children to enter into Maryland and then

for us to finish with the requirements of the ICPC system after the

placement is made.

In addition, we would also have a group that is licensed by the

State of Maryland provide us with the home studies due to the volume, because we do realize that it would be a resource issue for

the State of Maryland. As you pointed out, we do realize that many

people have left the District and are now living within our borders.

Therefore, we don’t want to prohibit those placements because we

do want to help the District move those children as expeditiously

as possible.

Ms. NORTON. You are perfectly justified, it seems to me, in making sure that your own standards are met. But, as I hear you, at

the very least a child would be put in an emergency home, and

there would be no delay in order to matriculate through the requirements.

Ms. MOUZON. That’s right.

Ms. NORTON. This is very important to us. The GAO says 70 to

90 percent of District children requiring home placements are

placed outside of the District of Columbia, usually in Virginia or

Maryland. We have no hope without you.

Let me ask a question of Ms. Jones. Ms. Jones, part of what

brought this to our attention was whatever happened with the Superior Court. I’d like to know if your initial refusal to appear was

on advice of counsel or was a decision that you yourself made and

whether or not the decision to appeal was on advice of counsel or

something that you requested?

Ms. JONES. Ms. Norton, you know that this issue is still pending

before Judge Christian; and I think that it would be better if I did

not go into detail on it. But I will say that I meant no disrespect

to the Judge and feel strongly that our agency must cooperatively

work with Judge Christian, and all of the judges because we have

a common goal. It is my hope that we will get this resolved quickly

and that we can, in fact, move forward with the work that we were

doing before this incident. I regret that this happened and have assured the Judge that—the court that this kind of an incident will

not occur again as far as I’m concerned.

Ms. NORTON. Ms. Jones, I was under the impression that the appeal had been withdrawn and, therefore, that the matter involving

you personally would not any longer be before the Superior Court.

What is pending before the Superior Court with respect to you personally?

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Ms. JONES. The entire thing is still pending at this point.

Ms. NORTON. The contempt citation?

Ms. JONES. The entire thing is still pending.

Ms. NORTON. I certainly wouldn’t ask you to incriminate yourself.

There was a report, a very troubling report—again, we can only

go by what we hear in the newspapers on this—that there were

children once again being housed in office buildings in the absence

of homes for these children or foster parents to take them.

Is that occurring now at all? Is there a single child that overnight has to be put up in a city office building or anything other

than a group home or a foster home?

Ms. JONES. There—let me be clear in saying that there have

been instances in which a child has had to remain overnight in

our—what we call reception center. Now it was I think mislabeled

respite center and sent the wrong message to many people.

What we have found—we have analyzed what has recently occurred that caused all of this to begin to happen. What we found

was that a number of our providers felt that they could not maintain a given child in their facility, and so the child was being

brought back to us. And when we get children in that kind of a situation, we have to then find another placement; and, generally

speaking, we’re not going to be able to find a placement the same

day that the child comes in. Most of the times we do, but there are

situations where that doesn’t—does occur.

One of the changes that I have instituted is that we are in the

process of establishing a contract with a vendor where—with a

group facility where we can, in fact, place a child on an emergency

basis if, in fact, we get a situation where we cannot immediately

find a placement for a child. But there have been some instances

in which that’s occurred. We tried to keep it at minimum but, unfortunately—we always have new children coming in. The police

bring them to us immediately, and that can happen any point in

time. If we get them earlier in the day, we usually are able to find

places——

Ms. NORTON. Ms. Jones, that is something that is perfectly understandable. You can’t know when somebody will say, I can’t take

this child, you go ahead and take it back. I don’t have any legal

responsibility for this child.

At the same time, that is perfectly predictable. See, what is bothersome to us is that something that is absolutely predictable, it

must happen, that you are now seeking a vendor.

Ms. JONES. We’ve had—we’ve had vendors. The unfortunate

thing is that a number of these children are coming back from a

vendor.

Ms. NORTON. The point is that there is not in place now a vendor

who can take these children overnight so the children have had to

be placed in an office building, and that is the kind of thing that

was predictable, and it is the kind of criticism that the agency is

going to continue to get if it is not proactive in dealing with predictable problems like that.

There were reports, big complaints about foster parents not receiving their checks. Now as hard as it is to get foster—people to

be foster parents, that problem only would deter people from coming on board, I’m sure you would agree.

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Ms. JONES. That is—I’m pleased to report that is no longer a

problem. We have got—our fiscal system is in very good shape now

in terms of paying our vendors. I think if you asked any of our

larger vendors as well as the foster parents, we are paying our vendors now on time. It’s invoiced now, rather than the way it used

to be. We generate an invoice, and they submit their invoice. We

clear it. Because we can now track the children in the system, and

we authorize—send the paperwork on to the District. But we are

paying, and we’ve instituted the grant increases.

In fact, I would say to you that I think the foster parents are

now very satisfied—for the most—I’m not going to tell you that

there is not a case where something might happen, but for the

most part our foster parents are very pleased with the progress we

are making in addressing their concerns. We haven’t addressed

them all, but they—now work with us and have said to me personally that they feel that we are responding to their needs.

Ms. NORTON. I see that my 10 minutes is up.

I must say that I have heard improvements in this system, that

it is not as bad as we thought it was. But it is still, in my judgment, in crisis.

In my next go-round I would like to pursue alternatives, because

I believe that in a real sense you are on a track that is not going

to ultimately lead to the kind of solution you want or, for that matter, Ms. Lopes, that the city will do much better given the way— given the matrix somewhere out in the 1930’s that we are using

as a way to deal with foster children.

Mr. Chairman, do you want—what does the chairman want me

to do now that the bell has rung?

Mrs. MORELLA [presiding]. The gentlewoman’s time has expired,

and I will precede with the questions before we go to vote.

The chairman of the full committee had joined us, but he did not

have a statement to make at this time.

I want to thank you all for being here, and I think you have

heard over and over from us how important this issue is. And I

want to thank you, Mrs. Mouzon, for coming here from the State

of Maryland to comment on what the concerns are and maybe how

we can solve them.

So the questions I will ask will probably be directed to you with

regard—also, Ms. Jones responding, if anybody else wants to respond.

I note in your testimony you indicated that one of the major barriers is this two-pronged agency bit where you—two separate offices that you have, the District interstate compact office and the

District receiverships share the responsibility for placing the children outside the District, but they have different departments and

different offices. And with this separation it makes it very difficult

and adds a barrier. And I’m just wondering, you indicate the State

of Maryland is willing to work with the District to complete the

interstate compact. What is that situation right now? I mean, is

the District cooperating? Where are you? How fast are you traveling in that? Do you see remedy?

Ms. MOUZON. We feel that we are getting cooperation now.

The issue for us—as I indicated earlier, is that Maryland is a

border State. With our other States we are only dealing with one

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agency. With the District of Columbia, the interstate compact office

lies in the Department of Human Services, whereas the responsibility for the foster children lies in the Child and Family Service

Agency.

So when we enter into negotiations with the District of Columbia, we are bringing several groups of people to the table. One

group is responsible for tracking the children and telling us where

they are; another group is responsible for keeping track of the

interstate compact issues.

We also know from some of the discussions with our private providers there is a small minority of children that are placed particularly with relatives, directly into some of our neighboring counties

and particularly by the court. As a result of that, we don’t have a

mechanism in place where we can talk to just one person and determine exactly which children are within our State. And that’s the

barrier that we are talking about.

We are willing to work with all of those agencies, but certainly

it is much easier when we can get that one signature that we get

from the other States and then we are able to enter into the interstate compact and not have to go any further in dealing with other

agencies.

Mrs. MORELLA. Are you hoping that will be one of the recommendations from this subcommittee, that this be worked out to

facilitate it? I mean, where do we go from here?

Ms. MOUZON. We are hoping that would happen. That would be

most advantageous I feel not only for the District in terms of some

of the issues that I have heard discussed this morning but also for

our partners in Virginia as well as to any of the other States that

enter into compact agreement. Because of the way adoption is

under the Safe and Stable Families Act, we now put all our children on Internet across the Nation, and for any State it would be

the same issue if we tried to place children, not only from Maryland but also the District, because you would to be able to deal

with one entity.

Mrs. MORELLA. Let me ask another question. In Maryland, if a

child is ordered out of a home and placed in the care of a relative,

does the State inspect the home to ensure that it meets the needs

of the child?

Ms. MOUZON. Yes, we do. We require the same inspections for

our Kinship Care providers—that’s what we call a relative—as we

do for our Foster Care providers; and, therefore, we have the same

medical requirements, we have the same fire inspection, the same

health inspection. We also have training that we require of all of

our foster parents or relative parents in advance.

In addition, we have support groups throughout the State for our

relative providers because we know it’s difficult.

Mrs. MORELLA. Is a social worker also a part of that team and

followup with visits?

Ms. MOUZON. Yes, they are; and they have to see the relative

provider on a regular basis.

Mrs. MORELLA. How long do you think it’s going to take to identify and inspect all of the homes where children have been placed

in violation of the interstate compact?

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Ms. MOUZON. According to the agreement that we reached yesterday, it is expected that all of the family foster homes—which

does not mean Kinship Care providers—that those reports would

be finished by the end of October. And we expect to finish all the

relative providers by the end of December of this year. So, therefore, we would enter into—well, the District will enter into an

agreement with the provider who can complete all of those home

studies.

Mrs. MORELLA. Is the District of Columbia working with you to

inspect and monitor these homes?

Ms. JONES. Yes. First of all, the traditional foster homes have already met all of the requirements. We have to complete that and

work it through so that Maryland has the record of that, so that’s

why that group will not take as long.

With the relatives—and in my testimony I reference the fact that

the change that was brought on with the Adoption and Safe Families Act is that, we, too, require the exact same requirements of relatives as is required of traditional foster homes. The problem that

we encountered is we had a large group that were already doing

this that previously were not subject to the same requirements. So

now we have to go through a process of getting all of those homes

into the system.

But now, even relative homes, we do the clearances. They are required to meet the same requirements. They are required to go

through training. And we in the District also require all of our foster parents and relatives now to have in-service training. So it is

not just training you get before you become a foster parent. It is

required on a biannual basis that a certain number of additional

training hours must be continued after they become foster parents.

So, we are not asking not to have the same requirements. What

we are saying is that there is going to be a period of time for us

to get all of the ones that were in the system already in compliance

and for them to be registered through the interstate compact.

That’s why it will take us a little bit longer on those.

Mrs. MORELLA. Final question is, it has been reported that Maryland waited over 18 months for a report from CFSA on the number

of children placed in homes in Maryland that were in violation of

the interstate compact and that when CFSA finally provided the

numbers to the State they were wrong. Is that an accurate assessment? And is that because of the lack of—if that is accurate, is that

because of the lack of coordination between the agencies?

Ms. MOUZON. The list that we received we were not able to track

because we needed things like date of birth. We also needed the

exact addresses. When we did receive that list we were told that

it was not accurate. The next list we received did not have the addresses of the homes.

I don’t want to speculate on why it could not come from the District. I just know that we were not able to then take that list and

match it against our interstate compact list to determine which

children had actually gone through the compact. And it was a little

lengthy time there before we were able to get a list, and we do expect to get that list by the end of this month.

Mrs. MORELLA. If I were to just very briefly ask one final question and then rush off to vote. Ms. Mouzon, do you want to ask

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Mrs. Jones anything? Is there anything that you want the record

to show?

Ms. MOUZON. We met for an extremely long period of time yesterday, and I was very pleased with the agreement that we came

to at the end. So if the District honors everything that is in the

agreement, we should not have any issues from here on out as it

pertains to children being moved from the District into Maryland

in an expedient manner.

Mrs. MORELLA. Anyone else want to make any statement? Mrs.

Graham. Ms. Lopes.

Well, I know that Ms. Norton probably has a few more questions

she wants to ask. I don’t know what the procedure is on this committee, but as far as I’m concerned it is a bipartisan committee,

and I would—as I go to vote, I would be willing to let her have the

gavel and ask questions.

Ms. NORTON [presiding]. This is a temporary leave of the gavel.

Mrs. MORELLA. Don’t complain.

Ms. NORTON. I won’t. Thank you.

In light of what Ms. Mouzon testified, that with other States, because there are other States who also have children in Maryland,

the State of Maryland deals with one agency and with D.C. there

are several agencies at the table. And, you know, there is the ICPC

effort, and the ICPC office has to obviously deal with the receiver.

Then there are the court services agencies and others that obviously need some interfacing here. Which raises questions, really,

for Deputy Mayor Graham and is related to the finding of the GAO

that there was no policy or protocol for the relationship—for the

working relationship between the District agencies that are often

central to the problem, and the GAO even says that there is reliance on verbal or oral communication.

I’d like to know, Deputy Mayor Graham, what is your role in assuring that the agencies of the District of Columbia are part of solution and not part of the problem? And why is it that there cannot

be one person sitting toe to toe with Ms. Mouzon and her folks, just

as there is when she deals with people from West Virginia or Virginia?

Ms. GRAHAM. Ms. Norton, when the Williams’ administration assumed responsibility for the District government, one of the first

things that the Mayor wanted to do was to understand how this

child welfare system functioned, because he wanted to make a real

commitment to the work associated with foster care and adoption;

and he asked me to do an assessment or a study of that system.

We did. We released a paper last year on the dysfunctionality between the receiver and the other District government agencies

which impacted the receiver’s ability to affect good outcomes for

children in the system. One had to do with the licensing process

of Foster Care homes, one had to do with fire inspections, and so

forth and so on. The interstate compact office should have actually

gone with the receivership when this agency went into receivership. Instead, it stayed in the Human Services Department without

little direction or oversight from the administrators of that department.

Ms. NORTON. Why didn’t you all just ask for it to go in there?

If that was a coordination problem and you couldn’t deal with it,

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why didn’t you say to the court why don’t you take this so they

could coordinate this?

Ms. GRAHAM. We weren’t here at the time.

Ms. NORTON. Well, you are here now. You have been here over

a year now. Bring this up in the middle of this—because it does

seem to me, when you have a problem, you have got to find a solution. You should have been there. OK, court, you took it. We can’t

do anything with it over here. You take that, and let’s get it done.

Why not do that then?

Ms. GRAHAM. Well, instead of doing that, what we did was to

begin to work very aggressively with that office and the receiver

trying to overcome many of the issues.

Ms. NORTON. Ms. Lopes, as we listen to—Ms. Lopes, I’m sorry,

and Ms. Graham, you know, I just point this out as a case example.

Instead of working your buns off to do what you think is basically

impossible or getting a half-baked solution, we need structural

thinking here. The court—if you say to the court, I can’t do the job

very easily with it bifurcated this way unless I spend a whole lot

of time trying to build arteries and veins between these things,

then if you think structurally and put the—what’s it called?

Ms. GRAHAM. ICPC.

Ms. NORTON. ICPC with that, then that just might allow you to

work on the real problems, rather than coordination problems, and

Ms. Mouzon tells me that the other agencies don’t even have in the

first place. I just point it out.

One of the things we want to have come out of this hearing is

thinking totally outside the box. We are tired of hearing about how

we are trying to get everybody together and we work 30 hours a

day trying to get them all together. We believe that part of what

you are doing is impossible to do because you are accepting the

present configuration and it does not fit. So that if you find that,

you know—and I picked this up only because you said it—that it

will put more work on you because something is placed someplace,

then place it someplace else. Go ahead, I’m sorry.

Ms. GRAHAM. I fully agree with your assessment, Ms. Norton.

What we’ve been trying to do, though, in working with the receiver

is to overcome some of the structural issues, to put in place some

of the things that needed to be put in place, to ensure a smooth

transition back to the District.

We make no excuses for the dysfunctionality that exists, recognize it and are seeking to work to overcome it so that the agency

can achieve its goals and can, in fact, be returned to the District’s

governance structure.

Ms. NORTON. Let me be more direct. Could you, by working

with—recognizing that you’re trying to get the agency back, which

would make this easier—could you on the District side get the District agencies together so that working with the receiver you could

not create more work for Ms. Mouzon but put one person there—

maybe you, Deputy Mayor Graham—who would say, I now speak

for the District of Columbia and all its agencies and the interstate

compact, and this is what we propose. Could that happen?

Ms. GRAHAM. I am that person. I’m one of the signators on that

ICPC.

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Ms. NORTON. She says there are several agencies that she has

to deal with.

Ms. GRAHAM. She has to deal with the Department of Human

Services. As the interim director of that agency—and the ICPC is

in the Department of Human Services, so I’m responsible for that

ICPC. That’s why I’ve signed the Memorandum of Understanding.

We are working together now. I am at the table now.

Ms. NORTON. Let me make sure that Ms. Mouzon and you have

the same understanding. Ms. Mouzon, is it your understanding

that you only have to deal with Deputy Mayor Graham now in the

placement of children in the State of Maryland?

Ms. MOUZON. Not exactly. I thought I also had to deal with the

receiver. And I do know, in further discussions that we had yesterday—I don’t know if your representative got back to you—there are

also some issues in terms of your interfacing with us for the courts.

I think there are two people at least, maybe three. Because I know

in Maryland the judiciary is separate from the executive branch. I

think that might be a little bit true in the District, so we may have

to have some further discussions, but I’m not clear.

Ms. NORTON. Let me tell you what I’m asking you to do, Deputy

Mayor Graham. I believe that if the issues were brought up in advance with the receiver—and with the courts, for that matter, separate branch though it be—that our goal should be to face Maryland

with exactly what she faces from the other States that place children in Maryland.

And I think that our goal should be that even more than the

other States, because I would venture to say that we probably have

a disproportionate number of children, certainly, per capita and

that as long as she has to deal with a more complicated system,

that unravels down to the child itself and delays somehow for that

child itself, relative to a child from West Virginia or Maryland or

some other State.

So what I’m asking you now is, are you prepared to create a system where there would be one person to interface with Ms. Mouzon

and with Virginia?

Ms. GRAHAM. I am prepared to do that, but I think the point that

Ms. Mouzon was making is that as long as this agency is in receivership, she deals with me and she deals with the receiver.

Ms. NORTON. I do not accept that, and that is just the kind of

in-the-box thinking that I am trying to press you out of. I believe

that working with the receiver—— Ms. GRAHAM. Absolutely.

Ms. NORTON [continuing]. You would not have to regard her as

some kind of separate box so long as you and the receiver agree

upon what Ms. Mouzon was to be told with respect to the receiver’s

duties. So I don’t accept the notion that the receiver has to be

there. I don’t accept the box notion of how this is. That is part of

the problem and your answers illustrate that to me.

I ask again because West Virginia—every one of these systems

are messed up. All of them or most of them have some kind of

court stuff in them. So you’re no different from the rest of them in

that respect, and yet she does not have to deal with two or three

entities. But again, are you prepared to work out an understanding

with the receiver and the courts as they may be involved, so that

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Ms. Mouzon is dealing with one person and one person only so as

to facilitate rapid placement of these children in the State of Maryland and, for that matter, other States as well?

Ms. LOPES. Ms. Norton, if I could interject for a moment. This

is—in order to do that, and there is a lot of out-of-the-box thinking

going on—in order to do that, we clearly need the approval of the

Federal court.

Ms. NORTON. You see that. Everybody stop and listen to this. As

if the court would be the problem. You know what courts need?

Particularly when we are talking about courts who sit only to hear

from people who come and tell them what it is you want the court

to do? So, Ms. Lopes, don’t you get to be part of the problem.

Ms. LOPES. I don’t think I am.

Ms. NORTON. You do not have to tell me, who is also a practicing

attorney with a bar license in the District of Columbia, that in

order to do what I am saying to do, if there is someone the court

hasn’t spoken to, that you may need to go to the court and say does

the receiver have the permission to negotiate with the Deputy

Mayor. That is the kind of structural response we have consistently

gotten from the foster care system.

I am trying to kick that out of your brain; to say if there is an

impediment, so that you immediately move to the next level of

thinking and say well, what’s the answer to that impediment? OK,

ask the court: Court, do you have any problem with my dealing

with the receiver, dealing with a Deputy Mayor? Because the District, unlike every other State, has several different entities before

a child can be placed in Maryland, and if we have your permission

to work this out we are prepared to put one person before them.

I don’t want to hear about the court unless you’re going to tell

me that you are prepared to ask the court to do what I can say,

without fear of contradiction, that I believe a court might well do.

Ms. LOPES. Ms. Norton, if I could finish.

Ms. NORTON. I hope you will finish more than telling me you got

to ask the court, because you try my patience when I hear that

kind of response.

Ms. LOPES. Unfortunately, we do harbor under court orders and

we are subject to the court’s jurisdiction in this case. Now, with respect to that issue, there are many creative and out-of-the-box discussions going on in these negotiations. Many of them include a

shift in paradigm, a shift in thinking that is very consistent with

what you are recommending that the parties explore.

Ms. JONES. May I make a comment?

Ms. NORTON. You see what I mean? I asked a very specific question; I get a very general answer about paradigms. All I am saying,

I asked you a very specific question, and I think Ms. Graham has

said that she is willing to act as the person and to enter into negotiations. Ms. Lopes intervened to tell me what I think even the average layman knows, that if there is an impediment that means

you got to ask permission of the court. You have to do it, granted.

All I want to establish here with Ms. Mouzon sitting at the table

is that the District is prepared to give her the kind of system she

deals with in the other States. I don’t think it is fair to say to the

State of Maryland, you got to deal with us in some special fashion

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because we can’t get our act together to straighten it out, because

you have to understand we got courts and we got receivers.

Anybody who is looking at what the GAO has done with respect

to foster care systems around the country has absolutely no sympathy with your notion that other States somehow have it easier.

They have the same kind of problems, the same kind of court orders, and yet Ms. Mouzon deals with one person.

This plan that the chairman has asked for in 10 days better not

come back with notions ‘‘if the court says,’’ or whatever. It ought

to come back with, for example, if a court order is necessary or presenting the matter to the court for permission is necessary, with

the notion that we are prepared to ask the court for permission to

do this within a time certain.

Thank you Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Ms. Norton. For the record, I am also a

licensed attorney in D.C. I thought I would point that out. And

clearly we just need everybody working together. If we get everybody working together, can we get a plan in 10 days? Is everyone

willing to commit to get a plan in 10 days.

Ms. JONES. Yes.

Ms. GRAHAM. Yes.

Mr. DAVIS. That’s all we want to see. We just want to get this

focused on a plan and implement the plan. That’s really what this

hearing is about. We can go back, and there is plenty of culpability

to go around for everybody on this.

I want to just ask a few questions if I can. Ms. Jones, you talked

about maintaining the appropriate staff and your recruiting and so

on, but one of big problems seems to be retention. And I want to

ask you: Are you doing exit interviews to pinpoint the reasons employees leave the agency in droves. Or are you just so overwhelmed

trying to keep it set?

Ms. JONES. No, we do exit interviews with everyone that leaves.

The turnover has shifted some. We’re still losing some staff, but

I’ve been conducting an analysis of the turnover since May and our

turnover rate has dropped dramatically. We’ve been averaging now

about six employees a month, whereas before we were averaging—

last year, of course, we lost 40 in 1 month. But our turnover has

come down dramatically.

The primary area where we are losing staff now is in Foster

Care, that is workers that work in Foster Care and Kinship Care.

And I think there are some variables that are influencing that, not

the least of which is the amount of attention that has been given—

public attention that has been given to it.

The staff have developed their own committee that works on

making recommendations about things we can do to help encourage

employees to remain in the agency. And I act on just about every

recommendation they present. Now, I certainly don’t do anything

that is outside the bounds of what is responsible management. But

I believe that if we can get a period in which there is less public

attention on the intricacies—and I know that you know that may

not happen—I think that will slow down the reason why many

workers leave. These young workers are at the beginning of their

career and they, too, have to weigh whether or not they want to

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continue to work in an agency where this will potentially influence

their ability to get jobs elsewhere. So they leave.

But I think we’ve slowed that down a lot. I don’t think we’re over

the hump, but I think we’re in a much better position now than

back in the spring.

Mr. DAVIS. Let me take it another step further. I know in one

case in press accounts, you called a social worker, one of the ones

that needed to go, and kind of were blaming the social worker. So

I don’t know the specifics of that problem; but in your judgment,

do social workers have confidence in the agency and do social workers trust leadership right now under this court receivership? GAO

told us that social workers feared that they’ll be blamed for problems that are not of their making. All of that sort of has a morale

problem in the agency.

Ms. JONES. Sure, that affects morale. One thing I am comfortable

about is that we’ve not structured a process in the agency that lays

the blame on the workers. That’s not to say that—I do not believe

that social workers should not be held accountable for the work

they do. And while I recognize that in many instances a worker

may have more cases than what they should have, that does not

mean that when they are working on a case they should not do the

best quality of work that they can. And the overwhelming majority—let me put it in perspective. The overwhelming majority of our

workers are doing a good job. Just looking at the issue of court involvement, we have roughly 10,000 cases a year that go into court.

Now, we only have a population of roughly about 3,000 children in

of-out-home care. But we are in court on about 10,000 hearings a

year. Of that, we’re talking about 200 that generally fall into the

category of where we are failing to meet the requirement. And

more often than not, those cases are associated with a caseload

where we’ve had turnover.

What we’re trying to grapple with is to get the stability there.

If we get it there, then I think we will deal not only with retention

but we will be able to zero in on the quality.

Now, when you’ve got a work force where more than half of the

staff are relatively new, you’re dealing with inexperience, you’re

dealing with workers that have to be nurtured and supported,

you’re dealing with workers that need to have legal representation

when they go into court because they are afraid to stand on their

own.

Mr. DAVIS. Now, you mentioned in discussing the Foster Care

and the Kinship Care programs, that the CFSA is going to contract

temporary social workers, I guess, as kind of a stop gap. Let’s think

aloud on that. Is that wise? Is this an improvement or is this just

because you’re so overwhelmed and you want to get somebody up

there that you’re willing to do this short term with temporary

workers? What kind of continuity of care do you foresee these children getting if their social workers are constantly changing?

Ms. JONES. I don’t see that as the solution to the problem. For

example, what I am trying to buffer against is if you’ve got a worker who notifies you that they are leaving, you know, in 2 weeks

this is one of the things that you have to plan for. And that is the

reason why I want to be able to hire more workers than what I

need. What you have to plan for, then, is what’s the window of time

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it’s going to take before you get another full-time licensed worker

on that caseload and how do you help that supervisor at least do

some of the staff work, the legwork on a case, to go out and do visits, to write up the reports that need to be done?

Mr. DAVIS. Let me ask this. With the addition of the new fulltime social workers to your staff, how many children is each social

worker responsible for?

Ms. JONES. It varies according to programs. In Foster Care it is

supposed to be 1 to 20. For family services, Kinship Care, you’re

dealing with families, it’s 1 to 17. In adoptions it’s 1 to 12—I get

them mixed up sometimes. I can give you the exact count later.

Mr. DAVIS. Let me ask Ms. Mouzon what about the numbers in

Maryland, do you know?

Ms. MOUZON. Maryland is undergoing accreditation and therefore we have had some graciousness from our general assembly,

which allows us to move the Child Welfare League of America

Standards, so therefore we are in a court decree in Baltimore City

which allows us 1 to 20 in Foster Care, 1 to 30 for Kinship Care.

But under the Child Welfare League of America Standards, that

lowers our caseloads. And we will be following those standards beginning next year, which in our—CPS, it’s 1 to 13. Thank you. I

was going to say 12. And Foster Care will be 1 to 15. The same

in Kinship Care. And then we are also running some pilots where

we have one worker assigned to eight families.

Mr. DAVIS. Let me make an observation and see if this is right,

because I think we all recognize this is not stable, this is not where

we want it to be. I think we all acknowledge that, for various reasons, today we don’t. We would want to meet those standards in

the city and it could be argued that in the city you’re more likely

to get a tougher type of case then you do, on average, out in northern Virginia or out in Maryland in some of these cases.

Ms. MOUZON. We also have Baltimore City, and Baltimore

City——

Mr. DAVIS. I am not trying to compare, but city cases are tougher

than suburban cases on average.

Ms. MOUZON. I will say this. We have had some issues in Maryland particularly that dealt with turnover. We had a bill that was

passed 2 years ago called House Bill 1133, which allowed us to increase the salary that we pay our workers, also allowed us to provide our workers with more training and to decrease our caseloads.

We also dealt with the issues of retention of our staff and have instituted some programs that allow staff recognition. We also pay

hiring bonuses. These things have brought a lot of stability to the

staff within the State of Maryland.

Mr. DAVIS. This is a good economy and people who are talented

and trained have a lot of options. And that doesn’t mean working

for the court receiver and doing some of the toughest cases in the

country with an overworked caseload, and that is the bottom line.

What we want you to do in this 10-day plan we want you to come

up with, let’s meet these standards. Let’s not go to the waive standards, or 1 to 20; come to the 1 to 15 if that’s what it takes, if these

are the standards. Let’s talk about what it takes to get there. Let’s

talk about what it takes to stay there.

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And, look, I think all issues are on the table. This is a very critical issue for the city, because we can see these kids further down

the road in another venue if we don’t take care of them here. We

would like you to do that. It is not unlimited money, but that’s a

part of the problem. But a lot of it is just management and getting

the caseload management and a little extra money sometimes. A

little extra management care can help you retain people.

We’ve got to get this thing back. It’s not where we want it to be.

And the difficulty now is the accountability. People who are reporting to each other aren’t accountable to the same people. And it is

just not working. So put the finger pointing aside. If we can have

you all sit down and come up with a program where we can be in

a very short period of time, the resources it’s going to take, and

what the accountability will be, I think we’ll come away from this

hearing having accomplished something. And we can come back

and review this in January in terms of seeing how it’s implemented. And if it’s a resource issue, we need to know that. The sky

is not the limit.

But I’ll tell you, what we have now, you can pour millions more

into it, and under this, the way we are looking at it, the way it is

operated right now, that’s not going to solve it. You got to work it

smarter. We have to have the programs and the protocols and everything up. And it’s just not there. And one of reasons, in fairness,

Ms. Jones, to you and everyone else, is when you’re so overwhelmed, you don’t have much time to be proactive. You’re just trying to cover cases. You’re just trying to get visits. I know what it’s

like. So we need to get this stable, and we need everybody working

in the same area.

I feel really pretty good about the fact that they have told us

here that they will come back in 10 days and they think they can

all work together. And we need to bring the plaintiffs in, too. They

are obviously a piece of this. We’ve had problems in the city before

where you have the suits and the plaintiffs don’t want to agree,

and it just holds up progress. But we need to get everybody going

in the same direction.

Let me just recognize the chairman of our full committee is here,

Mr. Burton, and he did not want to say anything before but I know

he has an interest in this. And, Dan, if you would like to say anything before we conclude, we’d be happy to.

Mr. BURTON. The only thing I would like to say is, first of all,

I appreciate you and Ms. Norton holding this hearing today. I,

when I was a boy, went through the kind of situations that a lot

of these children are going through and I am very, very interested

in it. And anything that I can assist Mr. Davis and Ms. Norton in

doing to help solve this problem in Washington, DC, I want to do.

And whatever it takes, I’ll be supportive. The situation, as I understand it, now is an intolerable one and it has to be corrected very

quickly, and so you have my full cooperation, Chairman Davis.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much, Chairman Burton. I think Ms.

Norton wants to say a couple comments. And I think we can sum

up and let you go. Let me just say on behalf of the committee, we

appreciate everybody being here, and if we can solve this problem

we will have accomplished what we are trying to do.

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Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a couple of questions.

Ms. Mouzon spoke about hiring bonuses. We know people are

doing that for teachers. I wonder—and apparently they are doing

it also for social workers in Maryland—are we doing anything like

that in the District of Columbia?

Ms. JONES. We did step increases for social workers who had outstanding records in school. We have not done the bonuses, although

we have submitted that as one of our requests in this fiscal year’s

budget. Yes, we do have it on the table.

Ms. NORTON. I think looking at the best practices in the region,

I think that is something that is worth looking at.

Finally, I think we ought to ask Ms. Lopes about the transition

work in which she’s been involved. Ms. Lopes, you will have to forgive me for my impatience. I believe that you and the other three

witnesses, including Ms. Mouzon, are dealing in an impossible system, and to the extent that you accept the premises of the system,

it does seem to me that we are going to be in difficulty. I know that

in—I think it was Ms. Jones’ testimony—there were discussions of

the children’s villages. Is it your testimony?

Ms. GRAHAM. It is in my testimony.

Ms. NORTON. Deputy Mayor Graham. I know we have some Boys

Towns coming in the District of Columbia. Mr. DeLay, who knows

this problem thoroughly, indicated to me that those kinds of solutions are the kind of breakthrough solutions that he is seeing

around the country; that if we keep dealing with these one on one,

foster homes, many of which are not equipped to accept children,

you know, which comes out of the thirties when people would take

in another child when they already had children in the home and

things worked out all right—if we keep dealing within that system,

we will leave most of these children right where we have them.

That’s why I want to encourage us to think straight outside of

the box, to understand that in a real sense you could help redesign

another way to deal with foster care. And the one-on-one Foster

Care way has worked nowhere in the United States, and I don’t expect D.C. to leap forward and somehow find the magic solution operating within the premises of the present system.

Therefore, Ms. Lopes, you have to understand I am a lawyer who

has spent her entire career trying to think as little like a lawyer

as possible and more like an innovator. I chaired the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, where if I had kept thinking

like they were thinking, which was you had to resolve every case

by taking it 2 years, we would continue to have the backlog which

I got rid of. So I understand what you are up against, and I want

to compliment you on having apparently arranged to get the Mental Health Agency back, as I understand it, as of April 2001—is

that when it’s due to come back?

Ms. LOPES. That’s correct.

Ms. NORTON. We know that on its own—because it did such an

extraordinary job because public housing is back. I know that you

are beginning discussions to get this agency back. You said that

these are very complex discussions, but you gave us no idea of

what those complexities were.

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So I would like to give you the opportunity to let us know some

of what you’re up against. Are you trying, for example, to somehow

meet the requirements that the court laid out which would be, obviously, almost impossible; or are you trying to do a transition plan

that would leave the District with the responsibility for meeting

what the receiver was unable to meet on her own, in part because

she didn’t even have jurisdiction over many of the agencies involved? If you could lay out some of the complexities for us, it

would give us a greater appreciation for what you and the city are

up against.

Ms. LOPES. Certainly. We are in discussions that really address

the latter issue; and that is, what are the conditions upon which

the transfer of day-to-day operations will revert to the Mayor, not

modification of the MFO which is a subsequent issue and an issue

that the District is very interested in tackling. But initially, the

threshold issue and the issue that we want to resolve as quickly

as possible is under what conditions can we get the agency back,

and it is that agreement that I am trying to broker.

Ms. NORTON. Do you have any notion of—have you set for yourself a deadline by which the city would want to have this agency

back under the jurisdiction of the District of Columbia, recognizing

that you obviously have to get the court and everyone involved to

agree to that?

Ms. LOPES. By the end of the year. If we don’t have an agreement by October 18, we will be prepared to litigate.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you very much. I would like to thank again

our witnesses for participating in this hearing. I want to thank

Tom DeLay for his assistance and his ongoing leadership, as well

as Chairman Burton. I want to thank Ms. Norton, Mrs. Morella,

and Mr. Horn for participating.

I look forward to receiving an emergency plan from all the parties involved in this situation. It’s a goal that we can bring this

issue to a close without requiring further congressional intervention. If that’s not the case, my colleagues and I will consider all options available to us to bring the receivership to a close.

There is no further business before the subcommittee today. This

hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 12:17 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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