Children's plan partly ready

• Published July 23, 2008

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The Children's Administration has completed one of four improvement plans ordered by the courts, and has another in the final stages. A Whatcom County Superior Court judge gave the agency just 30 days to come up with the plans in June.

The issue came up this morning at a GMAP meeting – notably at the prompting of Cindy Zehnder, Gov. Chris Gregoire’s chief of staff. Although the Children's Administration gave its updates on child safety measures (whoa, now I’m speaking GMAP-ese. Make that, "reported its progress in areas like reducing social worker case loads"), monthly visits with foster kids was not one of those measures.

So Zehnder asked about them, which lead to an update on the court decision. It demanded a concrete plan to drop caseloads, ensure visits between siblings separated in foster care, give routine mental health screens, and ensure monthly visits from social workers.

"We are in the midst of that right now," DSHS Secretary Robin Arnold-Williams said. She noted the agency got a transcript of the judge’s spoken decision on Thursday.

I asked Children’s Administration Director Cheryl Stephani about the status later, and she said a plan for monthly visits has already been submitted to the panel overseeing the court case. A second plan, for sibling visits, is ready to go, she added. The due date for all four is next Wednesday.

The work is in the details, Stephani noted, like how social worker case loads will be measured, or how sibling visits can be tracked when that information is not regularly reported now.

In a move sure to interest my fellow GMAP aficionados, Zehnder asked for the new plans to be incorporated into the GMAP reports, ensuring the department’s progress will be tracked in the future.