Strategies for Addressing Disproportionality in Contra Costa County

1. Strategies for Addressing Disproportionality in Contra Costa County Valerie Earley Director, Children and Family Services Ray Merritt Division Manager, Children and Family Services

2. Objectives • Briefly describe strategies used in Contra Costa county to begin addressing disproportionality of African American children in foster care.

3. Strategies Included • Cultural Competency Training • Training • Looking at individual bias, and institutional and societal racism in our child welfare system. (3 part Training) • Family Engagement • Collaboration

4. Background • Contra Costa County • Over 1,000,000 in population • 9th most populous county in state • We divide County into 3 geographic areas • Growing at approximately 1%/year – County-wide • Some areas in East County growing at over 12%/year

5. Child Population • Increase of approximately 10,000 between 1998 and 2007

6. Child Population and Ethnicity

7. Future Trends

8. Contra Costa CountyChildren and Family Services Bureau • 350+ Staff • 20,000+ calls a year to screening • Approximately 1500 children in out of home care

9. Visualizing Disproportionality

10. Precipitating Events2001 - 2002 • F & E Presentation at Stakeholders • Contra Costa County Stakeholder Summit 2001 • Redesign Plan Developed, Included Cultural Competency Training to be Developed • Family to Family Implementation • Opportunities for Partnership • System Of Care • Regional Training Academy

11. Phase I2002 • Implemented Cultural Competency Self-assessment and Survey • Analyzed Results • Indicated need for culturally specific training on our client population

12. Cultural Competency Survey – Initial (2002) • Survey administered to • Director and Managers (7) • Supervisors and line staff (218) • Community partners(154)

13. Survey Results 2002 • Case Planning and Assessment training which incorporate culturally specific material. • More culturally specific information on client populations. • More cultural information about Asian and Central American cultures.

14. Survey Results Con’t • More information on child rearing practices and family functioning from the cultural perspective of the families served. • More information on culturally specific parenting practices. • Training on cross cultural communication, professional development to examine employees’ own cultures.

15. 2003 - 2004 • Staff Development and Bay Area Academy • Developed 33 trainings • 1219 Participants attended • 137 community partners

16. Cultural Competency Survey - Nov. 2004 • Summary of findings compared to baseline results: • Staff were more aware that cultural awareness training was being offered, but had not integrated the training into their practice. • Community agencies had increased their awareness and integrated learning into practice.

17. Must have Management!!! • Director and Management team strongly participated in and supported initiative. • Wanted to incorporate awareness into practice. • Had noticed changes in practice that were not reflected in the survey.

18. Interesting Observations • Observed that the ethnicity being trained had the highest participant representation. • Except for “Exploring white Guilt and Privilege.” • Often the same staff attending

19. What About Families

20. Family Engagement Strategies - TDM • Implemented Family 2 Family (TDM) • System of Care Grant • CCC developed a process where all first entries into care in the target areas must have TDM. • Increase the population of TDMs for all African American children under the age of 1.

21. Established a Bureau-wide cultural competency oversight committee, chaired by Director, Danna Fabella and Division Manager, Ray Merritt. Lisa Molinar facilitated the committee. Representatives include social workers, supervisors, SOC supervisor, clerical and foster care benefits from all geographical areas. Cultural Competency Oversight Committee

22. Vision of Cultural Competency Committee • Improve the culturally competent communication in the Bureau by creating a culturally aware workforce that is knowledgeable of how their biases affect their work and the work environment.

23. Phase II On to the Next Level !! • Dr. Rita Cameron Wedding had participated in and presented at the California Social Work Education Center’s Fairness and Equity symposium. • Dr. Rita Cameron Wedding had trained “Negotiating Society, Agency and Self”.

24. Roll Out of “Strongly Encouraged Training” • Cultural Competency Oversight Committee determined they could not endorse a training they hadn’t “previewed” and had input into. • April 20th, 2005 special screening of “One Worker, One Solution at a time.”

25. Part IOne Worker, One Solution at a time • Tickets necessary for entry • Director served popcorn • Ended the training early to debrief and make changes to learning objectives and curriculum. • Buy-in from the committee to “recommend” the training to their peers. • Logistics for future trainings determined.

27. Learning Objectives • To discuss how societal factors such as colorblindness, racial ideologies and institutional racism operate in tandem to mask the effects of modern racism. • To discuss how personal and institutional biases and their consequences can function virtually undetected in a “colorblind” society.

28. Learning Objectives • To utilize a transfer of learning tool which explores, conditions, behaviors and attitudes that can perpetuate bias. • To help participants recognize and ultimately modify conditions, behaviors and attitudes that can promote bias in their social work practice.

29. Rita in Action!

30. Staff Attendance

31. Participant questions for Rita • African American people don’t need to come to this training, because it is all about how to get along with African American people and we already know that. So why are we here?

32. Question for Rita • We don’t talk about culture in case conferences, because it doesn’t matter in our decision making process. How can any bias exist if we don’t even know the ethnicity?

33. Social workers, sups and managers Course content 4.57 Trainer 4.77 Clerical and Benefits staff Course content 4.0 Trainer 4.52 Level 1 Evaluations

34. Pre- Post Test • Yes, there was knowledge gained from the trainings. • Most questions showed a significant increase in the percentage of correct answers at post test. • But, there was an increase in “wrong answers” post test for some questions.

35. Post-test Results • Clerical and Social Work Staff • “African Americans having a higher percentage of substantiated child abuse and neglect referrals explains racial disproportionality.” (correct answer is false) • Clerical Staff Only • “Racial disproportionality often goes undetected because the overrepresentation of African Americans is related to their need.” (correct answer is false) • “Most mandated reporters, supervisors, social workers, and staff are obviously prejudiced.” (correct answer is false) • “African Americans have more family-parenting crises than other groups.” (correct answer is false) • “We are living in a colorblind society; race doesn’t matter.” (correct answer is false)

36. Part IIInfusing Fairness and Equity into Supervision and Management Learning Objectives • Understand how unconscious or implicit biases can distort service decisions. • Recognize institutional racism in agency policies and procedures.

37. Supervision and Management Con’t • Identify incremental and seemingly harmless “business as usual” actions that can produce and preserve bias along the continuum of decision-making points. • Understand the role of supervisor/manager as a coach who can develop and implement strategies and tools for intervention. • Assess the agency infra-structure for cultural competency.

38. Part IIIOff-site Retreats • Have addressed the individual, institution and agency. Now we need to make an agency and geographically specific PLAN. • Need to institutionalize Fairness and Equity into our divisions.

39. Vision • Improve the culturally competent communication in each Division. • By creating a culturally aware workforce that is aware of how their biases affect their work and the work environment.

40. Objectives and Desired Outcome • Talk about biases and how we are going to bring attention to each other's biases in a safe environment. • Each retreat will develop ideas for next steps related to Fairness and Equity in their work site and for the larger agency.

41. So, How Do We Really Effect Practice Change??? • Assess Systemic Agency Factors • Reviewed all documents/assessment and processes • Looked at decision points within the system design • Looked at Personal Bias • Continued training, Retreats, and Brown Bag Lunches • Developed “ Words Means Things” Training • This training was designed to continue the conversation regarding how words do mean thing and mean different things to different people.

42. How Do You Effect Practice Change??? • “ Words Means Things” Training • This training was designed to continue the conversation regarding how words do mean thing and mean different things to different people.

43. Words Means Things“ Objectives” As a result of the training, you will be able to: • Identify how language influences belief about self and others • Evaluate language and the impact that it has on families • Learn how to use strength-based language in your speech and written work

44. Training Quote “We have a choice about how we wish to view the people with whom we work……..” “We can either view them as manifestations of pathology and deficit ….” “….or we can view them as representing a degree of competence and skill….” “We cannot do both…..”

45. “Further, if we choose to view them in terms of pathology, ….” “… then the focus on problems that this perspective requires makes it much more difficult for us to recognize their strengths and resources ….” “…..if we choose to view them as competent and resourceful, then our focus on strengths is more likely to obscure their deficits from our view.” Michael Durant, 1993

46. So….? • Has this positively impacted children and families along with other strategies we have implemented??? ?YES!!!?

47. Child Welfare Participation • Comparing Calendar Years 2002 and 2007 • Decreased rate of children with referrals • 40.5/1000 to 40.3/1000 (136 fewer children) • Increased rate of substantiated referrals • 8.7/1000 to 8.8/1000 (9 more children) • Decreased rate of first entries to care • 2.4/1000 to 2.1/1000 (61 fewer children) • Children in Care on July 1, 2002 & 2007 • 8.4/1000 to 6.0/1000 (625 fewer children)

48. Changes in Disparity? Arrow indicates approximate start of programs to decrease disparity

49. Removals From Home – Not Using Incidence Rates for Comparison

50. Net Change in Foster Care Population • Comparing the cases open on 1 Jan to those open on 31 Dec, thefollowing net changes occurred in calendar year 2004 and 2007