Welfare Watch - October 21, 2009 - Transformative Leadership in First Provider G-Force Meeting

The providers of the 30 largest foster care and group home agencies in Georgia met with the leadership of DHS to initiate the beginning of the G-Force Meeting process.  This process brings community supported organizations to the same table with the State.  These 30 providers care for over 40% of the children in privatized care.  Georgia's licensed private agencies provide for about half the care of all foster children under the age of 17. 

These G-Meetings will represent the first time that the private sector has formally worked with the State around achieving common goals and objectives identified as important to both.  The imperative for this mandate is the Child and Family Service Reviews. 

The CFSR safety measures are of paramount concern for all who are involved in Georgia's child welfare system.  All children should be safe, whether in the care of their parents or in foster care. 

The next CFSR objective is permanency.  Foster care placements should be used to meet safety and well-being objectives and facilitate moving the child to a permanent home. Working toward the goal of having a permanent home and adults committed to that child should begin as soon the child comes into care. 

The third objective is well-being.  Every foster child should have their needs met.  These needs include physical, educational and emotional needs.   

These outcomes can be measured.  Strategies can be developed to achieved these outcomes.  Best practices that achieve these outcomes can be duplicated and shared.

This is the basis for what is now known as the Provider G-Meeting.  Data is shared in a open fashion.  This data is refined to accurately reflect what is going on in an agency.  Policy and practice decisions are made based on this data.  Hypotheses and assumptions are made and tested against the data.  People and agencies are held accountable for outcomes achieved or not achieved. 

Handouts to the first two provider G-Meeting are linked to the GAHSC Provider Environment page:

These handouts provide a wealth of information about Georgia's child welfare system, the characteristics of the children in the system and how close Georgia's child welfare stakeholders are to the outcomes identified by the Child and Family Service Reviews. 

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Welfare Watch, an email newsletter of the
Georgia Association of Homes
and Services for Children
as a public service.
http://www.gahsc.org
                            Normer Adams, Editor
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