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What is important is reflected in what we measure.
*What is transparent and measured can be identified and improved. What is not transparent and measured remains unknown and can fester.
In business, Cost Benefit Analysis focuses on ROI (return on investment). ROI is based on “assets”, “net income” & “profitability”. That’s what business is about (money). Corporations have extremely detailed and accurate methods of measuring their “money”.
In Child Protective Services, that’s not what we are shooting for. We need to know if our people and systems are delivering to our community children that are able to graduate from high school and grow into healthy citizens.
Return On Investment for the Guardian ad Litem program (and Social Services along with other people serving institutions) need to deliver people (outcomes) with the ability to function in with the community. Can we achieve 100% success? No, but transparency and high aspirations could never find a better home for this thought.
As a longtime volunteer CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate for children) in Child Protective Services, I’m keenly aware of how our institutional practices are impacting our community by measuring the wrong things. In fact, by many measures, they are delivering exactly what they were designed to stop.
Because we are measuring workforce performance and not the products of this performance, we are making work look good while it’s achievements are minimal.
Institutional policy often often strives for efficiency at the cost of effectiveness).
Example; Guardian ad Litem worker #1 may have worked 160 hours, made 240 calls, charged $130.00 in expenses, filed reports on time 90% of the time and spent a total of 7 hours with 21 abused and neglected kids in their caseload of 160 children.
Our worker did what was required; put in the time, made the calls, filed the reports, and didn’t over charge the County for expenses.
That’s how it’s done now. This kind of information gives us no idea of outcome for the children involved.
What’s measured can be improved,
what is not measured can fester.
Institutions are not often transparent while they measure efficiency and not outcomes.
What has become of the thousands of five to fifteen year old State Ward children required to take Prozac like medications while in State Care? Where are they now? How many have gone on to lead productive lives, become addicted, involved in crime or teen moms?
If we valued fostered children graduating from high school (not GEDs), not committing crimes, gaining the skills to manage their traumas and behaviors, we would find a way to measure how our programs are working. We could more wisely consider options for improving the numbers.
Let’s stop here for a moment and consider the societal and financial costs of carjackings, violent crime and school failures we are living with today. Most violent and serious crime is committed by juveniles.
If you believe MN Supreme Court Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz statement that “90% of the youth in Juvenile Justice have passed through Child Protective Services”, you will want to know the results of the work you have done instead of the hours, calls and dollars in the doing of this work.
To drive home the financial and human misanthropy of our current cost benefit analysis, know that (nationally) 9 year prison recidivism rates are approaching 90% and directly related to school failures and life failure of at risk children. School failure and high teacher, social worker and Guardian ad Litem turnover are trending up significantly. Assaults on service providers to at risk children and classroom violence are growing issues. Skill building and trauma healing among the growing numbers of abused and neglected children passing through CPS would have a big impact here.
- There is and always has been a lack of transparency of Child Protection system results like classroom violence, graduation rates, criminal activity, addiction/poverty & homelessness of State Ward children during and after their involvement in the program. This makes most fiscal arguments (like current cost benefit analysis) tenuous at best. The financial argument being made by program management today undervalues child outcomes, community involvement, volunteer time and resources and public awareness.
- The cost to our community of under-serving these children can be seen in the violence reported in our media, school underperformance and persistent racial disparity.
In Hennepin County most recently;
24% of Black third graders are reading at grade level and
10% are performing at grade level in math.
These statistics indicate the growing problem
of our institutions measuring the wrong things and
resulting racial disparities, school failure (and more)
from inattention to the right things
needing attention in our State.
Employee burnout in the GAL (paid guardian) staff is currently a national problem. Minnesota’s shrinking workforce is impacting the State GAL program today. What happens in the next budget crunch? Caseloads now at 30 families mean 120-150 children per paid staff person. Where will the new employees come from? How much higher can caseloads go? (40/50 families, 200 + children to keep safe every month per staff person? What level of performance are we seeing today? What are the actual child wellbeing outcomes?
This former CASA volunteer wants the program to measure
the “right” things in its Cost Benefit Analysis for the next biennial budget request.
*HIPPA laws are a red herring – we need data not names
For a deeper dive into this topic and solutions
(click here)
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