Risk and Safety Initiative

The Child Protective Services (CPS) Risk and Safety Initiative calls for improving the risk assessment instrument used by caseworkers and fully integrating the risk assessment philosophy into daily practice. CPS has used a formal risk assessment system for about 15 years, but staff have not consistently gathered and assessed appropriate information to make accurate and timely decisions. Risk assessment tools were updated to make them easier to understand and use.

Key Components of Reform

• Full integration of the risk assessment instrument and philosophy into practice at every stage of service, particularly investigations.
• Review and identify risk assessment best practices and national models.
• Refine and enhance the risk assessment process to be more user-friendly.
• Develop a streamlined process for assessing safety.
• Provide Child Safety Specialists in all geographical areas.
• Redesign the automated case management system so that data related to risk and safety can be entered.
• Integrate the risk assessment instrument into the structured narrative created by caseworkers to document cases.
• Retrain existing staff at all levels to use risk assessment.

Accomplishments

• Researched literature on risk assessment models.
• Identified process for improving risk and safety assessment.
• Refined and enhanced risk assessment instrument.
• Updated definitions of the risk items.
• Developed definitions for scales of concern.
• Placed updated definitions and scales of concern into the automated system in June 2005.
• Recommended process to streamline existing instrument.         
• Recommended changes to roles and responsibilities of the Child Safety Specialist staff in light of the requirements in Senate Bill 6 and the new administrative structure.
• Recommended changes to the structured narrative to be user-friendly, less redundant, and more reflective of the risk and safety philosophy being developed across all stages of service.
• Identified issues relevant to select policy considerations regarding risk and safety.
• Trained CPS supervisors and program director staff statewide on the risk and safety assessment principles.

Ongoing and Future Work

The Risk and Safety Assessment Initiative will be working jointly with the Investigations Initiative workgroup on the following:

• Test risk assessment instrument to ensure cultural neutrality.
• Develop procedure and policy for use of safety assessment instrument.
• Redesign the automated case management system to support entry of risk and safety data.
• Assign Safety Specialists to all geographic areas.
• Retrain existing staff at all levels on using the enhanced risk and safety assessment model.
• Integrate the risk assessment instrument into the structured narrative created by caseworkers to document cases.