On June 14, 2017, CCC testified before the City Council General Welfare Committee oversight hearing regarding five child welfare bills and a resolution in support of state passage of the home stability support program.

CCC’s testimony generally supported the goals and intent of all five bills, appreciating the need to legislate policies and procedures so a change in administration does not lead to the end of good practice.  The five bills were:  legislating requirements for ChildStat, requiring ACS to publicly report findings of the accountability review panel, requiring ACS to have certain training requirements for preventive service caseworkers, requiring ACS to survey families who have used preventive service in the prior 12 months, and requiring ACS to report on child protective workloads rather than merely caseloads.

CCC’s testimony urged the City Council to work with the administration to ensure final versions of the bills are not overly prescriptive to ACS, an agency that needs to be able to adapt its policies and procedures to changes over time. In addition, we suggested that the Council work with ACS to ensure there is an appropriate balance between the need for information and the time and cost of producing numerous reports and survey results.

In addition, CCC testified in support of the resolution in support of Home Stability Support, which would be a statewide rental assistance program.