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Child-Placing Agencies | |
Department of Children and Families | |
October 2013 | |
Report Highlights | |
The Department of Children and Families (DCF) is responsible for overseeing child-placing agencies, which are child welfare agencies licensed by DCF to place and monitor children in foster homes. The primary responsibilities of child-placing agencies are to recruit foster parents to care for children who have been, or are at risk of becoming, abused or neglected and to ensure the health and safety of children placed in foster homes. In December 2012, there were 24 licensed child-placing agencies located throughout the state. In recent years, DCF has sought to revoke the licenses of several child-placing agencies based on misuse of state and federal funds, such as payments for excess salaries, personal expenses, and undocumented expenditures. At the request of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, we evaluated DCF’s oversight of child-placing agencies and conducted an independent assessment of the financial and administrative practices of several of the agencies. In conducting our evaluation, we reviewed:
Funding Services
In December 2012, 6,209 children were in out-of-home care. DCF’s administrative rules establish several levels of care to be provided by foster homes. Children with greater needs are placed in what have historically been called treatment foster homes. Other out-of-home care settings include a relative’s home, residential care center, and group home. Counties and DCF’s Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare (BMCW) generally contract with child-placing agencies to place and monitor children in treatment foster homes. Services are funded from a combination of federal, state, and county sources.
For each child placed in a treatment
foster home, the
2009 Wisconsin Act 28, the
As a result of the DCF rate-setting
process, the
DCF seeks federal reimbursement
for a portion of the treatment foster
care costs incurred in serving eligible
children. However, we found
that DCF has not sought federal
reimbursement for Wraparound
Milwaukee, a program administered
by Milwaukee County. Had DCF
sought federal reimbursement for
eligible expenditures in 2012, it
could have received an estimated
Oversight of child-placing
Agencies
Statutes require all prospective child-placing agencies to obtain a license, and DCF policies require it to visit each child-placing agency at least twice each year to assess compliance with licensure requirements. We found that in 2012, DCF had visited 23 of the 24 child-placing agencies at least twice, including one that was visited ten times. The remaining child-placing agency was visited only once in that year. The number of monitoring visits conducted by DCF increased from 78 in 2010 to 100 in 2012, and the number of licensure violations DCF identified increased from 182 to 224 during this period. Violations were largely related to a failure to maintain adequate records.
In 2011, DCF increased its efforts
to conduct financial reviews of
child-placing agencies and other
organizations. As of
We reviewed the financial
information submitted by all
Review of Financial and
Management Practices
We independently reviewed a
selection of
Of the
The accounting practices of Benevolence First, Inc., and Thrive Treatment Services, LLC did not allow us to determine whether public funds were used to pay for costs that are not allowable under state policies and federal rules.
Other examples of costs we
questioned for insufficient
documentation among the agencies
we reviewed include We also identified other issues related to the administrative policies and practices of child-placing agencies and made recommendations to address them.
Recommendations
Our report includes recommendations for the Department of Children and Families to:
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