Service Quality

The Legislative Analysis, Research and Planning office consists of the following units: Policy, Planning and Research, Child Welfare Agency Licensing, Professional Development and Quality Assurance. The office is responsible for policy, training and professional development, comprehensive short-term and long-term planning initiatives for the delivery of child welfare services, Child Welfare Agency Licensing, COA Accreditation coordination and quality assurance. The office also plays a critical role in analyzing and implementing proposed legislation, which impacts the Division. Lawrence Graves is the Assistant Director and can be contacted at 501-682-8544.

The Child Welfare Agency Licensing Unit in DCFS is charged with the enforcement of the Child Welfare Agency Licensing Act 1041 of 1997.   The Unit inspects and monitors Residential, Emergency, Psychiatric, Sexual Offenders programs and Placement agencies, in accordance with the Minimum Licensing Standards for Child Welfare Agencies.  For more information contact Debbie Roark at 501- 683-2045  and or go to this page, click here.  

The Division of Children and Family Services (DCFS) received statewide accreditation approval from the Council on Accreditation for Children and Family Services, Inc., in August 2004. DCFS was placed on a four-year cycle, which means that the division will be seeking re-accreditation approval by 2008.

DCFS was accredited under COA’s 7th Edition Standards for Public Agencies. Now COA has devised a new strategy for strengthening, measuring, and validating an organization’s effectiveness. COA refers to this new strategy as “Contextual Accreditation”. At the core of Contextual Accreditation are the new 8th Edition Standards (which are now the standards applicable to DCFS for re-accreditation). They set forth a range of appropriate best practices and retain COA’s unwavering commitment to client rights and essential life and safety practices.

The 8th Edition Standards use concise, clear, and non-regulatory language. They are streamlined—redundancies have been eliminated and service planning and delivery standards have been integrated into each service section—and they are designed to be user-friendly.

You may access the new 8th Edition Standards at www.COAstandards.org. When you click onto this site, you will have immediate access to:

• All of the 8th Edition Standards for private and public organizations

•  “Real-time” updates to all of the standards

•  The capacity to easily print out PDF versions of each set of standards in case you need a mobile version

•  Easy access to glossary terms, related standards, and research notes referenced within the standards
  
  
  For more information, contact Calvin Wilbon at 501-683-2648

The Planning Unit’s mission is to engage in comprehensive, broad-based program planning with a goal of improvement of child and family services in the Division.  Program planning includes two phases.  Pre-implementation planning includes program assessment, design and development refers to all activities undertaken prior to the initiation of actual service program.  It lays the foundation and groundwork for implementation of the plan.  Operational planning refers to those planning efforts conducted once a service or program is implemented and includes collecting information for monitoring and evaluation purposes.  For more information, contact Mona Davis at 501-683-2044

The Policy Unit has the responsibility for developing, revising, promulgating and distributing division policies, procedures, publications, and forms.  Various Federal and State Laws govern DCFS, and this unit is responsible for monitoring, updating and developing policy rules and regulations to maintain compliance with these laws.  For more information contact Cindy Young at 501-682-8750 

The purpose of the Professional Development Unit is to coordinate and monitor the title IV-E training contracts with the University Partnership and the MSW Educational Leave / Child Welfare Stipend programs. The unit also provides title IV-E fiscal support for DCFS staff attending training events. For more information, call 501-683-2041 

The purpose of the Quality Assurance Unit is to maintain a system of quality assurance, through the use of both qualitative and quantitative measures, which will facilitate the organizational commitment to continuous quality improvement through review and evaluation of the quality of child welfare practice on the part of both DCFS direct services staff and contracted service providers.

45 CFR Part 1355 title IV-E Foster Care Eligibility Reviews and Child and Family Services State Plan Reviews; Final Rule requires that the state operate an identifiable quality assurance system to monitor and ensure implementation of standards which ensure that children in foster care placements are provided quality services that protect their safety and health. Section 1355.34 (c)(3) requires that there must be an identifiable quality assurance system that is in place in the jurisdictions within the State where services are provided, is able to evaluate the adequacy and quality of services provided, is able to identify the strengths and needs of the service delivery system it evaluates, provide reports to agency administrators on the quality of services evaluated and needs for improvement and evaluates measures implemented to address identified problems.  For information, you can contact Marilyn Counts at 501-683-4322.