Senate Standing Committee on Health and Human Services

Calling the Hawaii State Senate Committee on Health and Human Services. Present with me is my fellow Member, Senator Kurt Favella. We do have other Members who are right now at the NCSL meeting hearing, and they will be present soon. And also, I guess is House Chair here from Human Services.

So, first up, we have Department of Human Services. Okay. At this time, are you prepared to proceed? The first thing we want you to talk about to elucidate two Members and the community, is an overview from the time of complaint. These are for complaints that go to Department of Human Services.

At the very end, Members and community, we are going to talk about diversion. Okay. What the Members of Malama Ohana. I saw Laura Tichiki. Laura Tuchiki be present as far as Office of Wellness and Resiliency. We will talk about diversionary measures. Okay. But in the meantime, Director.

Thank you.

Our newly confirmed Director, Director Yamane for Department of Human Services. Talk. Talk us through what happens at a time when a complaint comes to the Department of Human Services. Go ahead.

So, thank you, Chair. Thank you, Vice Chair, Senator Favella, Chair Martin, for this opportunity for the Department.

And Vice Chair. Senator Aquino's office.

Yeah, I said yeah. Vice Chair Henry Aquino from Waipahu. Thank you, Director. Thank you, Chair. So. So, before I turn it over to Daisy to go through the process again, I wanted to thank you for the opportunity to explain. We will go over the process as it comes in.

Some of the things that we currently offer and some new developments that we have enhanced for the Department. Okay, so I will turn it over to Daisy.

Thank you, Director. Aloha Chair, Vice Chair and Members of the Committee. I'm Daisy Hartsfield. I'm the Social Services Division Administrator. If we could go to the next slide. Okay, so child safety, it's a shared responsibility, not just a function of Child Welfare Services. And April is Child Abuse Prevention Month. So this info briefing is actually very timely.

And this is a basic flowchart of the process from when Child Welfare Services receives a call from their hotline all the way through the permanency options. Eladin Olival, who's our Child Welfare Services Branch Administrator. She oversees all of the CWS offices statewide and is responsible for child welfare practice. And she's going to provide details for each section or process. And she'll start with intake. Next slide, please.

Aloha Chair, Vice Chair and Members of the Committee. Eladine Oliva, Child Welfare Services Branch Administrator. So the slide that we are looking at now is our intake. There's a front door that's our front door. All calls and reports of child abuse and neglect come through our intake hotline. It is 24 hours, seven days a week.

All calls that come in are anonymous that come through. When a report comes in, there are different responses that the Department is responsible for, which we will explain in the next slide. It's important to mention that when any report of abuse or neglect is called in that there is detailed information that is shared.

For example, the name of the family, the name of the children, the address and the type of harm. On average, our intake line gets about 2,000 calls a month. And from those calls, a risk and safety assessment is applied which helps to determine the intervention at that time. Next slide, please.

I wanted to clarify that when calls are made, the caller remains confidential. The caller can be anonymous as well. So I just wanted to make that distinction because I wanted to make sure.

That the was people are free to call in without knowing. Yeah, without identifying themselves. Go ahead.

Thank you, Daisy. For the initial assessment. After we get a report or it's an intake, it's assigned to a social worker to go out and make contact with the family. It's up to 48 hours, but our response is immediate. We have different responses of teams that can go out immediately for follow up.

When the worker does go out or workers go out, there's two things that they help to determine. The first is is the home safe with services? The second is, is the home not safe even with services? And that determines the next step of our intervention, whether children remain in the home or are taken out. Next slide, please.

When children are determined not to be safe in the family home, that's where foster care, foster custody is initiated. Children are removed. Right now, the pathway to removal is police protective custody. Once that occurs, children are placed into resource caregiver homes. Here in Hawaii, we do efforts. About 80% of our removals are placed within family homes.

After removal, we initiate court jurisdiction so that there is monitoring by our family court partners. And then services are provided to the family. And we've listed just a few Ohana conferencing. We do visits and these services are. There's timelines for the services that we provide. Next slide, please.

In the event that the parents are unable to satisfy the service plan, the case moves towards permanency. And we have four. We have options listed. It could be. So there's four permanency options. One is reunification vacation, where children can go home.

And that's if the parents are successful with their services and are able to demonstrate a change to provide a Safe home. If children cannot go home, the next option is adoption. The third option is guardianship. And then the last option is sometimes there's no other option but long term foster care.

Okay, thank you very much.

Wanted to clarify, those options are presented to in a court hearing and is determined by a judge on this going into those processes.

Okay. So Members, the reason I wanted them to do the overview is that way when we start talking about where there are failures, we can hopefully figure out where in the chain the failures are occurring.

This of course assumes that it is during the period from phone call to permanency, because beyond permanency, we have the Attorney General letting us know what would occur beyond that. So are you ready to proceed with your next. Okay, please proceed.

Thank you. So families touched by Child Welfare Services, they're often in crisis and experiencing trauma. So we need to make sure that the child welfare workers that work with them are skilled and knowledgeable. And we do that by providing training. Next slide, please.

Training is important so that workers can engage in best practice and so that the best outcomes can occur. The Staff Development Office, which is supervised by Keith Spencer, is responsible for providing in home in house training as well as external training for all CWS staff. Each new hire at Child Welfare Services must participate in new hire training.

And this slide highlights what's involved with that training. It occurs over a period of at least six weeks and includes various types of training. Next slide, please. Which is listed on this slide.

Yeah, I want you to summarize it because we do have at least six legislators here and I suspect we're all going to have questions.

Sure, sure. So that's the new hire training. Training to current staff is also offered. And that's on the next slide. And we've summarized that by highlighting some of the training that's available. And then we also have improvements that the Staff Development office have implemented. That's on the next slide.

And our Staff Development office continues to make efforts to expand the type of training that is available to staff. Next slide, please. And they've also collaborated with our Attorney General's Office. And additional trainings that we have now added include drafting of contracts, legal fundamentals. There's additional topics that are also listed on this slide.

Okay, I'm gonna stop you there for a little bit. Okay. Okay. This is a update. This info briefing is an update from the prior one. And what I'd like to know is whether or not additional training has occurred since or plans for additional training since the last info briefing, especially light of the Malama. Ohana you know, recommendations.

So has that occurred? Yes, that has occurred.

So we actually worked with the Attorney General's Office. We started training of staffs that began in January of this year. We worked out a curriculum that began and all staffs in child welfare will be going through that additional training. Additional training.

We also still working on trainings to do add more robust things like cultural sensitivity, knowledge of the host culture. We also develop HD for trauma informed care as well as we're looking at other ways to bring in additional experts to address enhancements for our staffs.

So Members, one of the requirements or recommendations of Malama Ohana working group was the trauma informed care for social workers and basically set more sensitivity towards the parents having to undergo through this.

And at the very end of our agenda, we do have Office of Wellness and Resiliency who will be available to discuss the kind of trauma informed care that will. Hopefully that will occur or will be occurring.

But one of the requirements, remember this is a follow up from the last time was the audit has shown and at that time you were not confirmed yet, Director Yamane. So I want to see it that there was a 39%, 39% vacancy of Department of Human Services.

And so we do have a slide we can move forward to talk about. Yeah, regarding that. Okay, so it's. But. But we can.

Because she talked about new hire. So I thought you ended up skipping through it.

No, no, go ahead. Okay, so if you want to scroll through, I think it would be on slide 19. So these are just services, the wrap services that we do and some updates statuses of the negotiations on the memorandum of understandings that we're doing.

qsqWe may end up having to go back to. Okay, so I'm sorry.sssqqs

So this slide will show that this was as of December 12024. We put down what the vacancies were and what our focus on successful filling positions were. So we have been filling positions, for example, like 23, you know, we've increase our hiring. We have been participating in job fairs. We're actually going one this weekend.

We've been also promoting differentials for new hires as well as we're currently negotiating with D. Herd on performance differentials that we feel would enhance our retention. The performance differences in the next slide. Okay, just let you know those performance differentials. What we're going to do is work with existing staff.

So if they meet certain performance measures which include stuff like report rate their reporting, their face to face contacts as well as their participation in the trainings that they would be able to apply for a performance differential.

Okay, so it looked like you had reduced the vacancy by 20% in just three months. Three, four months.

Well, we did have addition, you know, so during December we have people retiring and whatever, but we just wanted to give you the counts of the filled, what we filled. So we are making progress. I do not have the exact percentage, but we actually have been filling more than we've been losing.

Okay, so you do have a plan to continue on. I mean, that's a pretty fast clip.

Our HR has been working very hard to fill our positions. So just let you know, like on Saturday, myself and Daisy will be presenting, you know, to potential new hires on, you know, recruiting. We are supporting the governor's higher Hawaii operation to also try to attract new employees.

And we feel with the new hire differentials as well as the performance differentials in combination, we would not only enhance our workforce and increase retention, but also try to fill the vacancies. We are still working. We also have Hick wic, which is a partnership with University of Hawaii to bring in University students.

So all these options we are looking at to try to continue and be more robust and. But as you know, we might be facing various funding challenges with our federal partners. So we. But we are continuing to try to hire.

Okay. In particular, so we're going to have questions later on, but I suspect one of the questions are going to be failure to respond to complaints. Right. Upon. Right.

So in your vacancies list, there is there a substantial vacancies portion that we need to focus on to ensure that when somebody calls and sees a traumatic incident that there would be rapid response or do the vacancies hamper that there.

Should be no impact to the calls that are coming in. We do have different, again, different types of responses. We have our crt, which is a crisis response team that can respond within two hours. There should be no impact to calls that are coming in.

Okay. The question is making sure that there are calls coming in there. Yes. Yeah. Okay, continue. I'm sorry, no.

And then onto the last part of what some of the enhancements has since the last info brief would be the development and starting of a new program within child welfare which would be the Kako'o program. And that would be on the next slide. That is a program basically. Kako'o means you know, to support and uphold.

So what we are have already started is to support our foster kids in the foster homes as well as the resource caregivers that support, you know, house them.

So we are sending out teams to just do wellness visits to our foster kids, as well as offer supports to our foster parents on checking in on them, seeing any additional supports we can provide them.

And so Kako, is that, just let you know, the last slide for the, for the data highlights is that in two weekends we were able to see 43 families, which is about 45 kids that were home. And we put eyes on them and talk with both the child as well as the caregiver.

And the goal would be to continue this program just as a supportive measure for our children.

Okay, so I, I'm sorry, we, we bypass some of your slides so you can go back.

No, that's fine.

So I, I, I, I just thought. You skipped it because you start talking about new hires.

Yes, that's fine. Chair. So we, you know, if you want to, we can go into Q and A. It's up to you.

No, I want to talk about what, what you have done. Okay. In response to the concerns. And then we're going to go into, and I know you cannot talk about actual cases, but since then there have been some cases and we'll talk about that. I mean, generally.

Okay, what, what DHS can and cannot do, but one of the things you, that's in your slide was expanded family wrapped services. Okay, it sounds like that was in response to the Malama Ohana recommendations. zero, you want to talk about more about that?

If we can go back. Yes, please.

How does it start with on page 12

Yeah, let's start on page 12. It's, it's our contracted family support. Yes. So our child welfare program, we've got them. They're responsible for policies and procedures, which includes contracts for services. And we have our, Oops, sorry. We have our administrators here, Keisha Raby and Stacy Pasquale, and our.

You want to bring them up, you.

Can, or they can stand if they're.

Not too shy while they're standing. I also want to introduce more Members. We have Senate Vice President Michelle, Senator Kidani present, as well as Senator Torah Hashimoto. So we have the full complement, plus the Senate Vice President of our Committee here. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair. Also from our staff support office, we have Corey Pablo, who's temporarily assigned to oversee that office. And they assist with monitoring as well as payments for contracts.

And so what we did was we enhanced, we supplemented a lot of the contracts so that they would get more money and hopefully meet the need of our resource caregivers, our children as well as the families that we serve.

And then so we've listed some of the services that we've enhanced Quite frankly, rollout has been challenging because these are voluntary services right now. And unless a child is in foster care, we can't really force people not under the jurisdiction of child welfare to participate in services.

But we are doing our best to share that these types of services are available. And one of those services, next page, is the WRAP service. It started out for families who have children in foster care for an extended period. And we're facing challenges with reunification. So that was the actual intent of wraparound.

But we extended it so that even families who are new to being involved with child welfare, if the worker has identified additional needs that may be needed, then they're referred for this wraparound service and then they can receive that additional care. And then that's what we've listed on the next slide, which is the expanded family WRAP services.

So at the last briefing, there were questions as to whether or not. There. Was enough NGOs or contracted workers who were willing to bid on these RFP for these services. Are you still having problems with entities willing to provide these services?

I believe the challenge is for these NGOs to find the appropriate staff so that they can have capacity to provide the services. Right now, we do have contracts, but we are currently in the process of renewing many of those contracts because they'll be ending at the end of the fiscal year.

So what we've done is try to get feedback as to what can be done. And we've worked closer with the Attorney General's Office to make sure that the scope is clear so that the expectations are clear between the Department and the providers.

I am aware that there have been some NGOs that are facing staffing issues, so they're shifting their focus on what they provide. And my understanding is that There are other NGOs that may be able to fill whatever void might be created for those that decide to focus their services on something other than child welfare.

So you are able to find entities who could provide these services? Because the last briefing was there was the issue of whether or not they were getting insurance. That's selling issue.

So that continues to be an issue. The uncertainty of some of the nonprofits regard that do take other federal monies for different programs is also out there. And so those are still challenges that the non profits face and probably are enhanced during this time.

So, you know, we have engaged in some discussions regarding the opportunities that if there are gaps in services that we do have funds for or to enhance, that we would be open to.

Unfortunately, you know, the concern will be is how far that goes into the next fiscal year, depending if it's, you know, federally matched or if there's federal impacts. But labor force is an ongoing issue. Private non profits attainment of their insurances and then at their rates being increased exponentially.

You know, I know the chair, Senator Keokolole is aware of that and been working on that. But that is an issue that plagues the nonprofit's ability, you know, to, to be able to maintain open doors. So those. Continue.

Okay, continue. Yeah, yeah.

So. Okay, so those are just some of the services that are available. Next slide. Also for our prospective caregivers, guardians and parents, we now have a library of pre recorded training resources that are available for them.

We have a warm line, we have an app on a phone that they can use to connect to other resources, nurse caregivers. And then we also offer support so that they can navigate through the system through the Ohana Navigator program.

And are all of these services still available to parents after permanency?

So that'll be the next slide. And those are available, but those are voluntary services. So those we cannot mandate for them to participate in, but we do have it available for them.

Let me provide you a quick update. We are considering and are very close to announcing that pre adoptive services, counseling and those would be mandated rather than currently, which is voluntary. And that is in direct response to not only recent development with cases, but internal review of our processing.

Okay, good to hear.

Yeah. And then on the next page, as you're aware, we need really good resource caregivers. We did create a portable some a few years back, rcg.hawaii.gov but in addition to that, we need to increase our pool of very specialized resource caregivers, especially for our children with high medical needs, very fragile children.

So we're in the process of creating a contract to try and recruit those types of resource caregivers. And right now it's. We just turned it over to the AGS for their review and hopefully we can get that procurement started for this specific contract.

Okay.

And then.

Okay, and I see the next slide's memorandum understanding. But before that I just want to. Resource caregivers Committee Members is another term for foster parents. So one of the audit came up with the certification, the LACA certification of the foster parents.

So in the process of you folks doing the recruitment, how are you folks progressing as far as getting these resource caregivers or foster parents certified?

So we took a look at our practice and from that we determined what we could do more so that the timeliness of their certification could occur. And so the branch primarily has made changes to it. And I'll have Administrator Olival share some of those changes.

Okay, so we met, we did a short term, long term plan. We went January, February, March, April. We identified the baseline of how many homes were out of compliance. And each month we met, we, we've been meeting monthly with our Catholic Charities management team.

We streamlined the tracking process so we would meet with the management team of CCH Catholic Charities. And every month we are meeting with each of the different sections, the different islands. We're using the tracker, we're identifying exactly which homes we need to put more attention on there.

And we've been able to move successfully the homes that were outstanding. And we've got some, some data around that that we can share. We've also been able to identify what are the barriers that prevent a home from being successfully licensed.

And we've shared those with our program office so that we can make the necessary rules changes to that. So lots of communication, we're watching our tracking and we're meeting monthly to identify the barriers.

And then to add to that, if there is no progress in terms of being certified, then we've made the decision that we will remove the children from the home.

And the special licensed caregiver is provided a letter saying you have not met the requirements to continue being special licensed and therefore you are no longer authorized to provide a home and care for a child. And so that's something that we're doing differently as well.

Okay. So hopefully the next audit would be better. Thank you. Okay, please proceed.

And then for me, the final slide, it has to do with the Memorandum of Understanding. And as we all know, we recognize we can't do this alone, that we need to partner. And so to do that we have some formalized Memorandum of Understanding.

And Deputy Director Trista Spear, who is also here, she, she has been assigned to help move these MOUs, as we call them forward. We've executed one with the DOE already and it has to do with data sharing for children in foster care. And there are currently more MOUs in progress, primarily the educational stability support with the DOE.

We have MOU that's just about finalized with Lili Okolani Trust. We also have one with the judiciary, which is, you know, we continue to, to work on, but there are some federal requirements that we need to figure out. This has to do with 4e reimbursements for legal representation of parents as well as children in CWS cases.

And then finally the Memorandum of Understanding with the army. And there, there was a biill that went through this legislative session, but that wasn't a direct result of this. But it kind of goes hand in hand with that. So just wanted to highlight those MOUs with you. Thank you.

Have we gone through your slump? Yes. Okay, so okay, Members questions right now as to this whole overview before we go talk about permanency planning. Go ahead. Thank you, Chair.

My question is those foster children, are they allowed to be homeschooled? And if they are, whose eyes are on them?

We have a policy that any child under the in foster care or that the Department has responsibility for that they are not allowed to be homeschooled.

Okay, Senator Fabella, okay, since we're on that line.

A person that was a child that was under you guys care had signs of abuse under reported by the DOE principal, school, everybody had a charge. If you look at her school pictures, she had bruises on her face.

When they knew that there was going to be investigated and there was under radi CPS, they pulled the child from the school. Principal never notified the worker, the worker wasn't notified, Nobody knew. Child starved to death, died.

So I understand you guys have all of these policies but I just never hear who actually do the intake and interviews for these so called caregivers, foster parents, because this is where the problem is.

So if Catholic Charities is doing it, you guys need to do a better job in figuring out because it is falling through the cracks and there's only one case. You guys just talk about the home, what about the beaches, what about the safe environment of the drug infested, violent condition.

And a child is still there, childs are still there. Report to HPD who's no help. Kid was getting beat up on a person called his child is again on the CPS but they're still living on the beach. I know houseless is not a reason to remove but that place is a high crime, high drug infested area.

Yes, anybody in the community will let you know. So that's the questions that I have a lot more but I would just ask the question is because we're talking about all the stuff that you guys are saying. It really sounds good on your slide and on paper but in reality going forward it's not happening.

If you call anonymously, the chances of you guys following up and it just could be truthful following up. If I call anonymously, if I don't give a name or contact because you know HIPPA law and all that, you guys kind of give me details when you guys are going to go out.

If somebody call anonymously, not all the time is in a timely matter being done. Then you guys said earlier within two hours you guys have a response team. I would like to see the data on that.

So I think Senator Fevella has a valid point. If every. If someone calls in anonymously, do you have a procedure for which the anonymous caller can then ensure that there was follow up? Or is that something you guys need to look through your rules as something to do later on?

Or what do you have a procedure now for an anonymous caller to do a follow up?

So is your question how do we get back to the anonymous reporter?

So the anonymous caller. Sometimes, you know, I'm just going to talk about tech problem. When I call Dell, they give me a ticket. So when I call, when I talk to somebody completely new, I can say what my ticket number is and they can tell me what the status is.

Is there a similar procedure for an anonymous caller that they can ensure that there was followup? I would need to go look more into it.

Let me, let me go check into that. I know that everyone that does call in and this one is anonymous, though that's specific about. I would need to go check.

Okay. Did. Did I summarize your question or do you need 110%?

Because the same thing with Crime Stoppers, right?

Yeah.

You know, you call anonymous, but you can find out certain things. Not. Not infringing on the hippo law, but you can find out certain things is actually something has been documented, even like without doubt services. Same thing. Thank you Chair.

Thank you so much. Yeah. This is before permanency, while they still have jurisdiction. Any questions they sent, I mean. Representative Martin, thank you.

So I have a question. This barring foster kids from homeschooling, is that new? No, no, no, that's not new. No. So when we see them pulled out for homeschooling, it's always they're in permanency already. Yes, that's correct. Either adoption or guardianship. Yes. So what.

What is in the MOU that's in progress on the education stability support that can help address those in permanency.

We're going to address that later on. Okay. Because we have Attorney General and Heidi Armstrong or DOE later on. But right now, before we get there, any questions prior to permanency and during the period of when dhs, I mean, you can ask later on when questions come in. But before going to the permanency issues.

Yeah. Could I just clarify and just add to Senator Fevella's question? CWS involvement, it varies. So there's involvement in. We get a call with a family when we might not be involved. So some families get confused.

They think that because CWS received a call and we went out to do an investigation, that we're involved, we are involved, but not to the extent we are with families who actually are monitored by the court. So in those cases where children are removed, that's when we have to petition the court so that foster custody can continue.

And it's, it's those cases where we have a say as to whether or not a child can be homeschooled or not. So unless there's that type of court involvement, it's hard for child welfare to intervene and tell a parent you can or cannot do that.

So I just wanted to make that distinction because oftentimes when people say CWS is involved, it might not mean that is involved with court oversight, that CWS is there providing maybe prevention services. And there is a distinction as to what we can mandate with, with that.

With those types of families versus actual court involvement is what we're talking. But I think, I think Senator Fevella just want to talk about the initial. They want to ensure that there was at least some investigation that something went up there. Right.

Not the parents. Okay. You guys talking about you guys intake for foster or caregiver. The, the, the misconnected you. I guess you can not really what I'm saying is that they're already in the system and they would. Foster parents and the foster parents is the one. Is the abuser of the child.

Yeah. And then they take the child out because they know they going to get investigated and then nobody follows up. So the principal. I don't know what the disconnect was or whatever, but they're already in the system. And you guys know already how many children already.

Under foster care. So that's why I wanted to know what is your guys oversight on who doing the investigation. I just gonna let you guys know. So I was a foster emergency foster parent. I was called when we had problem children that needed someplace immediately. So I know they had that.

Yeah.

But I still had to go to an extensive background check. I have to have my home inspected. Everybody in my house had to get fingerprinted. But then what I'm saying is who is doing that? It was a contractor that was representing you guys. So they pick and choose so I could give you guys another one.

So I had three Hawaiian children, two boys, one girl who was going to take them all. Contractor decided that was inadequate. They was going to separate the children. You know, right now in, in foster care, Hawaiian children is the highest that's not being adopted pretty much every other race.

So we gave them an opportunity that was going to take all three of them. But because we couldn't give the boys their own room. It was going to double up. He denied us. And you know what? I see plenty foster homes that I visit, they double up. So that's why you guys got to check.

You guys intake, whoever's doing, you guys intake for the state. That's the misconnect, guys. That's the thing. And. And I witnessed that because I. I was on the registry. After that happened, I took myself off because the system wasn't taking care of the children.

It was taking care of the vendor and the people that just want kids for money. We wanted to take these kids off the foster care because they was Hawaiian and it was not being together. It was going to be separated. So I made the decision that we was going to take off.

My mom, my grandmother, father, and my grandfather and my wife and me all got fingerprinted, went through all the procedures, and they came back and told us we couldn't. So again, if we couldn't do it before the fingerprinting, if we couldn't do it before, the background check would have been great.

But we did everything that we needed to do, and the vendor decided to separate those three kids. So I told them, take my papers. I don't want to do it anymore.

Yeah, thank. Thank you for doing that. And what you have experienced is also the reason, I believe that the audit showed the failings in the foster system. That's why they're hoping to have addressed it by now.

So I know before you move on, Chair, to address that, we are currently working with attorney Generals on developing final language. We're almost there on something called code of conduct, which we put in every contract that Child Welford does with the vendor.

Yeah. And then I also wanted to add that at the tail end of former Director Betts Administration, as Director, Child Welfare Service did Institute a policy where anytime there is a call against a resource caregiver possibly harming a child, that regardless of whether or not it's confirmed, we're going to investigate.

And pending that investigation, the children are removed from the home. So, I mean, the downside to that is it may not have occurred, but we're going to err on the side of the of caution and remove the child until we can conduct a thorough investigation and determine whether or not those allegations rng true or not.

So, again, if you want to revisit becoming a resource caregiver, we're always recruiting. So thank you for sharing your story, and we will look into it.

Okay. Senator Kidani, thank you.

Chair. My question is, how is Doe Made aware that there is a foster child in their community, it should be school. How do you assure that that child is getting an education? Whose eyes are on them?

Sure. So when, when children are removed, there is a form that we do send to the school to notify that this child has been removed from their home and placed in, in foster care. It does have the name, the address of the resource caregiver. So that goes to the school.

That's our, this to the school that the child has been removed. Now when the child gets placed back home, that whole, that form is reset and letting them know that the child was sent home. That is our internal process that we have.

That doesn't answer my question as to how do we know the child is continuing in education somewhere? Because you guys may know where they are, but the school that they're supposed to go to doesn't know they're there.

Right. So what happens is the school provides us reports because anytime there is, we gather the reports regularly. But when there is a review hearing before the court, we need to submit those educational reports so that the court can feel satisfied that the child's educational needs are being met.

Okay, so are we ready to move on to permanency? Okay, so you let us all to permanency. Are you prepared to let us know what happens at permanency? And you can refer to your deputy attorney generals and DOE as to what you can and cannot do after permanency. So permanency occurs. When does permanency occur?

So it's once a judicial determination has been made that the child is no longer able to go home, that triggers legal guardianship adoption. And that's, yeah, that's what we, we call it. That's the, that's what triggers that.

Okay, so what Senator Favela and Senator Kidani are talking about regarding resource caregivers abusing, potentially abusing children prior to permanency is very pertinent then, right? Because upon permanency planning, it's usually the foster parent who becomes a guardian or an adopter. Right or not. Right. It can be okay.

And I know you can't talk about the cases that have made the headlines, but it appears to me from what reading the news that they were all non relative cases.

I mean, non familial, like non familial.

So it seems to me that they were former foster parents of these kids.

So we can't comment on the cases. However, there are times which again, we have a high percentage of family foster placements where they're related to the foster child. So just because they're in foster care, there's a good chance that they could be related by blood or relationship. Then that's. We have a high percentage.

So what kind of investigation or services can occur or does occur post permanency?

For post permanency. So, for example, if they become. The child is adopted, we are required to treat them like they're parents of this child. So our ability to go into the home and mandate services cease once the courts determine that the child is adopted.

So you cannot investigate even if they are receiving monies from the child.

That federal payment has strict guidelines on what the payments that we give, and we are not allowed to do that unless there's a triggering event.

Got to start.

You got to start over. At intake, we would have this. Yes.

Yeah, go ahead.

So there needs to be a report. So that's when mandated reporters are needed. Yes. Okay. So it. In all of those cases that made the news, it seems to me that they were either. That they were in permanency positions. Okay. And for adoption, you cannot. What about guardianship?

Guardianship, we cannot. However, the judiciary.

We can have the deputy Attorney General come on up. Come on out. You can have my spot. Okay. What can DHS do post permanency after the child has been either adopted or guardianship?

Thank you, Chair and Vice Chair, Members of the Committee. I'm going to. My name is Matt Devanche, first Deputy Attorney General. I'm going to have Deputy Attorney General Lynn Yeomans explain the legal landscape behind this.

Okay, thank you. So, as Director Yamane said, and as the Senator pointed out, if there's an adoption, those parents are considered the legal parents of that child. They assume the constitutional right to raise that child and basically prevent us from seeing that child interviewing that child or coming into their home.

In the guardianship situation, the relationship between the child and the guardian is a judicially created relationship. So it's a subject of a court order. The judge creates that relationship through the guardianship action. For that reason, in a guardianship situation. Now, guardians are still citizens of the United States, so they still have constitutional protections.

So we could not demand to enter their home. They would have the Fourth Amendment right to keep agents of the state out of their home. However, I believe that the judiciary would have additional authority in creating the guardianship in crafting that legal relationship to make additional requirements.

And at the last briefing, we did have the judiciary represented, and they have already taken steps to change that guardianship order to modify that relationship that they're creating to add additional protections of additional reports and, you know, additional oversight by the court. But that is where there would have to be some change.

It's in the drafting of those orders, in the creation of that legal relationship to allow for additional oversight.

Can the Legislature, by bill or by statute, create a duty during the guardianship process for. For more services? So we tried that with investigation and we were told it was unconstitutional and it was vetoed. What about for guardianship?

So in the guardianship statute. You know. There would have to be a careful understanding of exactly what was being done, because there are guardianships that come from child Protective act cases.

So that process that we put up on the screen, from intake through to termination of parental rights and assumption of legal guardianship, and then there are guardianships that are not the result of a child Protective act case that, you know, are private to a family or, you know, a community somehow decides that a particular person is going to take legal responsibility for a child who is not biologically their child.

So we would probably have difficulty as the Department of Human Services in inserting ourselves into private guardianships and, you know, mandating services and things like that.

There would probably be less difficulty in the cases that resulted from the Child Protective act case because dhs, although not technically a party to that guardianship, certainly was the decision maker in, you know, placing the child in that home. The court was the decision maker in placing that child in that home and providing services for them.

Okay, thank you. Any questions?

I have a follow up. So you're saying right now the only mechanism available is conditions that the judge needs to set on the guardianship pursuant to the order.

So, yes, after the guardianship. So when. Let me just explain what I understand as permanency.

So after parental rights are terminated, a decision is made about the best permanent plan for the child for some period of time that will continue to be permanent custody with court oversight, regular court hearings, judges overseeing the case, Once a decision is made that they're going to end the child Protective act case, that they're going to resolve that particular matter, and then either the child is going to be adopted or the child is going to be placed in legal guardianship, then the child Protective act case and all of the sort of structure of that case where there's regular review hearings, there's a guardian ad litem appointed to the child who does regular visits, there's regular reports to the court, all of that structure stops when a guardianship or an adoption is granted because the child Protective act case is done.

Are you done?

No, no, not yet. Okay, so shouldn't there, it just seems like to me, shouldn't there be some sort of additional flag or risk factor that's inserted into the. If you're saying guardianship or adoption essentially sets the whole process back to zero, and then you start at intake.

If there's a complaint there, right at intake, there's an assessment done by a social worker. Shouldn't the fact that the child was subject to an adoption, a permanency proceeding, shouldn't that just.

Shouldn't the assessment be factor in the fact that this child has already gone through the process in the initial intake, so that there's some sort of Alarm Bell that rings out? I understand that once you have a legal order conveying the right to guardianship or adoption to an adult, that we treat them like a parent.

But this whole thing is supposed to be set up for the child.

And so if you have a child that gets, that gets separated from their parents and then a judge allows another individual to take over guardianship, and then there's another complaint where the child is involved, shouldn't the assessment of that complaint come with just like a major red flag that, that is built into the.

This process here so that the accountability doesn't just fall on. I mean, there's no accountability after the judge makes an order. I, what I hear, what I think I hear you saying, is it's the judge's responsibility to assess the situation before assigning a guardian or granting an adoption, and they need to appropriately condition that agreement going forward.

But if, if whoever gets the guardianship doesn't comply, then we just start from scratch. It doesn't seem like that's right.

So that process, anytime intake is called in, as Ms. Olivalo was explaining, the intake line is staffed by social workers who, yes, go through and check their records for all prior contacts regarding that child and that family, that CWS has had with the family.

They also checked to see if other parts of the Department of Human Services have interacted with that child. Has the child received, you know, benefits, has the family been seen through some other program? And also, you know, are there any criminal background checks? So, yes, all of that information is available at the time of intake.

And yes, that if the child had been previously the subject of a Child Welfare Services case, that would be part of the assessment of that worker in terms of the seriousness of the response needed.

So now it sounds like we've gone.

In a circle, but that assumes that somebody has called in a report to the intake hotline. You know, absent that CWS is in many respects a reactive institution. We, you know, we don't wander through the schools talking to kids looking for reports.

We respond to the reports that receive from mandated reporters from the community and, you know, from people who have a concern.

And that's why we have practically mandated almost everybody to be a mandated reporter. But we still need a reporter. Okay, go ahead. Representative- oh, are you done, Senator? Okay. Representative MARTIN okay, so.

The First District Court instituted their new reporting requirements for permanent guardians, which are pretty robust. Getting information from primary care providers, from other healthcare providers. The schools have. Do we know if there's been any outcomes from that? Have they.

They're supposed to look for red flags and, and maybe they would initiate a call to Child Welfare Services for review. Do we know if that system is making a difference?

Sorry, I don't have the answer to that question. So I'm going to. Ella Dean, phone a friend.

So the question is, Eladine and Daisy, since the judiciary are mandated reporters and they have beefed up their guardianship requirements for more reporting, have you seen any reports to. Has the judiciary called you folks or made a report based upon the. Based upon the more robust reporting by the guardians, by the guardianship proceedings in the judiciary?

Do you know?

No, it's new. But I was just curious.

Yes. And can I just really clarify really quickly? So I know you said when it. Thank you. You know, when it comes back, it doesn't start all the way from the beginning. So that case is tracked and monitored within our system.

What happens in that adoptive home, and we get a report when it comes back, all of those things are taken into consideration. It's not washed. So all of that provides another perspective and it is considered on how we intervene. So I, I just want. All of those things are not just washed.

Our system allows us to pull up all of the history and all of that.

So now. Okay.

Yeah. I also wanted to add, because it's not uncommon, that an adoptive family still has children in their home who are under foster care. So when we get a call saying that this adoptive parent has allegedly harmed a child, that's considered an institutional abuse call.

And then we remove all of the children from the home, pending the outcome of that investigation. So I just wanted to share that as well.

So you're not, you're looking at the possibility of, you know, the call might be on a particular child that was adopted, but all the children in the home will be impacted by a call that comes in because all of the children, regardless of their status with the Department, if they're foster care we're going to remove those children because that individual adult is an adoptive parent as well as still a resource caregiver a child.

So I just wanted to. The trigger is still the phone call, right?

Yes.

Okay. Yeah. So which, which usually falls on on a mandated reporter or an anonymous caller. Knowing this we have doe. Unless you have folks have any questions. I just have one for the Attorney General. Okay, go ahead.

No, I understand everything you guys saying. Same thing with Senator Keohokalole the primary. Even though we had I. I adopt a child. Primary care should be time period that we need to change because of course we'll do all the process and everything. We take check all the boxes and everything.

But there's a potential within six months, maybe not longer than that. We need to follow a child call the school hey, has the kid been going to school? And you're saying we did get all of these rights but then what about the rights of the child? We.

We just give up the rights of the child because somebody take ownership. I guess that's basically what the word are using ownership of the child. So now parent have all these rights. What about the child's rights he never signed off to be and take off his rights of a child that want to make sure that they.

They've been taken care of and going to school, not missing school, whatever because they can go through the process of all that they want. But again at the end of the line sometimes children is just money for some people. Yeah it's just a deductible. Some people I'm not saying all but that's.

That's what the pattern is that I seen. So how are we going to protect the child after adoption? Because you guys keep saying we cannot do. Because how can we change or how can we modify it along that says that we go check with the school. Maybe we don't really go to the parent.

We don't go to the parent. We'll check the school. They go to certain school call the principal, call a teacher hey, how's the student doing? Or maybe a six month or three month period. If it's okay then fine. But the student and the child do have rights. Not all the rights should be to the parent.

These child still have rights. It was a. She was healing, she was abused, she was in. In trauma or he was in trauma. And then we get an adopted parent. Yeah, right on. I'm adopted. But then the other kids that is belong to the parent treating this adopted kid like an adopted kid.

So how we know they're having a nurturing environment. If we don't do a follow up internally, maybe you cannot go because the parents have all these rights, but can you go to the school and say, hey Mrs. So and so, how is the child doing?

So. The period for that follow up, for that careful monitoring is best done during the pendency of the Child Protective act case.

So in that period between when you terminate parental rights but prior to awarding adoption, making sure that that period is of sufficient length to do the follow up that you're describing, to make sure that now that you know we're on a path towards having you be the adoptive family that we are monitoring and making sure that the relationship is developing between you and the child and the child's community in such a way that that adoption is going to be successful.

So that kind of monitoring and careful attention is best done when there's a Child Protective act case and there's a judge and a guardian ad litem for the child and people writing reports and all of those things, doing the careful monitoring that you're describing.

So I, I totally understand that. But what the faith and the trust that we're talking about, they sort of monitoring time and time again, and I'm not blaming any individual, has failed. That process had failed and it's proven right. We cannot go into details but it proven failed universe of times I can, I can't give up.

We on TV failed, 100 filled. So where is the backup data? How we know actually? Right. I actually went over there and I actually did all the work. Not just putting it on paper. How did I know or how anybody know within the Department if they actually went out there if they never just put it on paper?

Oh yeah, I seen the child on this day, this day. Where, where is the, where is the accountability for that? Because you're saying they're doing intensive phone call check. There's a lot of work now. They have a lot of cases. Yeah, not saying they all do it the same way, but they have a lot of cases.

They have a lot of work. Not saying that they're not doing it and they're doing it on purpose, but maybe they might have overlooked something because they had so much case and they were overworking, underpaid.

So I, I, I just think that there needs to be more, something that we need to do more as, as leaders and, and lawmakers because that oversight in the beginning, I know narcissists, I know plenty guys, they can get good for a little while and be a good role player, good actors. But then when it's Done.

The devil come out. You know what I mean? And I'm not calling nobody devil, so don't get offended. But I'm just saying, you know, if we have people like that, and I'm not saying that we don't, but we do. Okay. And we got to be very careful going forward. And how are we going again, all of this?

I don't worry about the parents. I don't worry about. I don't know, how are we going to ensure a protection of a child that's being guardian or adopted going forward? Because one child that gets abused from another person that adopted them is one child too much. That's. That's all we say. Okay.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Okay, so now we have Heidi and for Department of Education. Okay, so one of the threads we have noticed, at least on the reported cases that we've seen the newspapers, are the fatalities all seem to have one thing in common, that they are homeschooled kids.

And we have all heard from Department of Human Services that during the. While during the Child Protective act proceedings, the kids are not being homeschooled. So it's usually we're then going to assume during adoption and guardianship where the investigation is not as robust or we're more reliant upon mandated reporters or anonymous reporters.

And as Senator Fevella has pointed out, we can possibly drop in on the schools, but we can't drop in on homeschooled kids. So what is the Department of Education doing regarding that?

So, thank you. Currently, when a child is homeschooled, they fill out an intent to homeschool, a Form 4140, and that's kept somewhere within the school office. And the child is homeschooled. Their annual requirement is to give a progress report.

And then in the testing grades, they're to also submit or submit in place of the progress report, a standardized or norm reference test. And they can also participate in our statewide Smarter Balance testing in those grades right now. Well, until a couple weeks ago, we didn't have a system that allowed us to.

A computerized system that allowed us to track that. It was all in folders in the school, in the school office. So.

So the Department has just completed in our student information system, a new module that allows the school, when a child, when they receive that 4,140 intent to home school, the child is entered in that system marked as a homeschool student. And then there are also sections within that module so.

So that we can monitor that every year that Homeschooled family or parent or guardian has submitted the annual progress report or the standardized test.

If the principal notices a lack of progress or a lack of growth to periods in a row, then they can look into the curriculum and the programming because it is required by 302A that the parent keep a list of the curriculum, a list of the program, a list of the homeschool times, etcetera.

That is when the principal can ask to look at that and then deem if educational neglect should proceed. So the windows of opportunity to check in on the or to get a report from the family by statute is now annually.

So, so this is a recent change. It at least there's going to be annual reports. Have you thought I mean what I've heard is that you folks have stopped online learning. Is an online learning a possibility for parents who choose to homeschool their kids?

Okay, I'll just backtrack real quick on the previous homeschool parents have always had to do the annual progress report. We didn't have a standardized system to collect and to mark. You know, on May 18, 2024 parent came in, showed or sent the school this information, gave the school this assessment.

They did it, but we didn't a statewide Department wide repository to keep that information. We now do. Okay, so going to your homeschool question, we do have a statewide distance learning program for grades 9-12.

And so if a and there are many requests from homeschool to that program if they can participate but if they participate in the, in the distance learning program they would be registered within our system because they would have a teacher of record for the courses that we're offering.

They wouldn't come to campus to take the courses, but they would be in a distance learning program. They wouldn't be on record a homeschool student.

So one of the I believe what Senator Fevella and our concern is is if all the parents are going to going to do as soon as they remove the kid from regular school into homeschooling is to provide this written report.

How do we ensure that the child is seen by a mandated reporter to ensure that the child is still okay?

Right now within the Department there's not a progress for Department of Education to go into. We don't have the authority to go into a home and check on a homeschool student because they're not our students.

Is there, there's, there's a mandatory education law though. Right. So these homeschool kids need to test. Yes. How do they test if there isn't if they don't go to school to at least do the test right, then.

As the law states, they can turn in any norm referenced or criterion referenced test that they've taken during their homeschool time and turn it into the school.

How do we know what does the Department of Education do to ensure sure that the person that the kid is actually doing the test that is being.

Turned in, the parent is verifying that the child did it? The Department does not go into the home for any homeschool student and monitor what the homeschool program is like daily.

So as soon as a child is in permanency, gets into homeschooling, there is really no eyes on the kid. If, if the parent chooses not to.

Not, not from the Department legally, we couldn't go into the home and ask to see what the student is doing or how the child is doing because they are not under our supervisory jurisdiction.

If you folks have any questions, go ahead. Representative Mark and I think Senator Fevella is going to have a lot.

So the last time we met we talked about possibilities for kids coming in in person, being required to come in in person for that annual assessment.

It's super concerning to know that even if the reports and the work is actually the child's work, it takes two years of no progress for to trigger something so legally like how far can we go? That may not be your question. That may be for the AG's office.

How far can we go in strengthening that oversight, changing the laws, not within the current laws, but what can we do as a body to change the laws to make that oversight much stronger?

Okay. Deputy AG yes.

And I also have Deputy Attorney General Carter Saw here.

Two deputy AG.

Right. So my understanding is that other states do have such a requirement to come in once a year or something like that to take a test, homeschool kids or to do an assessment, but it.

Has to be legislatively driven.

I mean, I don't think there's any. Authority right now for the DOE to do.

I think last time we appeared, I. Think the DOE had a listing. They did their own legal research on. The different jurisdictions across the nation and how they address the situation. I think we can relook at that.

Again and suggest, give us a suggested approach. And I'm sure Senator Fevella is going to introduce a bill if not, but go ahead.

120 %. The thing that bothers me, the, you know, Child Protective Services said that, you know, none of these kids that is under the care can go to homeschooling. Am I correct? Is that, is that correct? Right. Yeah, they cannot. Right. Okay. So the ones that get off of foster care and permanent whatever situation and they go under that.

Why, why the school? I mean, you don't have to have them to enter the home, but make a friendly.

The reason why I say this is because if nobody have anything to hide, if I want parent and I'm homeschooling my child and I just got them because after the child went through all of this trauma and all of this experience and the school just make a friendly call counselor, whoever said, hey, you know, it's okay for Jamie to come in today and we can check, check her out on some of the test scores that you guys submitted, something friendly like that.

And when you guys, when they tell you no, it has a red flag. But again, we got, we go. I have no problem in making and making a bill like that.

But the schools have a discretion to ask hey, you know, not telling you you mandated or you have to by law, but just by, just by coming courtesy that you concern about the child. If, like what, Senator? I was saying, if they're actually doing the work, right, parent could be there. You know, they bring in the work.

Okay, fine. But if, if there's a red flag by them telling you no, then that should be reported. That should be something that would cause a red flag that the child no can come in. I mean, you, you taking care of the kid at home. So you should be at home. Right.

And, and those suggestions might be considered for possible changes to, to the 302A as it's written now, because as it's written. Now that's not. And I know you're not saying a requirement, but that's not a responsibility of the DOE. But I do want to clarify with the lack of progress it was.

When the principal sees a report that hasn't shown progress or is concerning, then it's a two semester, not a two year. So it's two semesters. So they check it that semester, they check it the second semester, and then they can recommend or look deeper into.

I just wanted to clarify semester versus year, but I think a lot of what is discussed or what is shared and I'll let our legal person, Carter, talk about it, but we would need changes to the existing statute. Okay.

And I did want to clarify one thing. We've been talking about homeschooling in the post permanency context. But even if there is an active Child Protective act case and a resource caregiver wants to homeschool the child, they or the guardian ad litem can petition the Family Court to allow them to do that.

And even though it's CWS policy to not allow that and we object to it, the Family Court can make that decision.

Yes. So then when they do that, if they do that, I don't know much cases do that. What is the oversight? So now they take them out of school. What is the oversight for the school or for Child Protective Services to monitor this child? They got taken out of school.

So I'll defer to my deputies, but I believe it's the same amount of oversight as in the Child Protective act case itself. So there is a level of oversight that's different from adoption?

Yes. There is a guardian ad litem appointed to the child during the pendency of. A Child Protective act case that guardian. Ad litem by statute must visit the child in person at least once every three months. There's also the requirement that the DHS social worker would be going out to see the child.

And that's a federal mandate that it be once a month. And also there will be regular review hearings in the Child Protective act case. In front of the judge.

So I think the other question is. And Director Yamane and is still out there. Is. Is the. Since the Department of Education. No. I'm going to ask her. Isn't the Department of Education. Okay. Their teachers are mandated reporters. Correct. Is the. Is the request to pull out the child and homeschool it?

Does that trigger a report, a mandated report to DHS?

No.

Okay. Even if the child was a former foster child.

At this time? No. But those are conversations that the Department and DHS are having, trying to figure out a way for. For that communication to happen where every. Where we know who's responsible to communicate what and then how that communication takes place. So those are conversations that we are.

Having and that's one of the MOU. Is that going to be covered by the MOU that Director Yamane referred to in one of his slides?

The MOU that we just completed and it should be signed now or it will within a couple days is the best interest determination. What you just spoke of is not covered in the current MOU. So that however that's documented would be forthcoming. Okay.

Okay, thank you very much. Anything else for DOE before we go on to the next thing? Okay, go ahead Representative Marten.

What is in the in. Progress MOU, the Education Stability Support. What is the content of that?

That's the best interest determination. So that should it's finalized. We're just awaiting final signature.

Okay. And then the data sharing is just. Sharing that somebody is in foster care.

So that that allows us to give, to freely exchange necessary information of the children, whether it be their attendance, their scores, et cetera with DHS.

Okay, thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, next one. And I think we've already covered it, but we're back to DHS regarding, and it seems to me a really big issue regarding recruitment of foster parents and training of foster parents. And I know, I think we have Tia out there too. No, no, no, no, no.

You gotta sit. You know, you got confirmed. We get to question you. Okay, so how are you folks doing regarding foster parents recruitment and training? And obviously from the questions that's occurred since permanency occurs, you folks don't have much oversight limited by the law. So training is big. How are you folks doing regarding that?

And that also was a thing with the Malama Ohana Working Group, right? Training and recruitment.

Yeah. Okay, so in terms of recruitment for resource caregivers, we have the portal so they can apply online if they are. If they don't have the ability to do it online, then we have it still available by paper.

We are in the process of, like I shared earlier, creating that contract so that we can do better recruitment and have a service provider assist us with recruitment.

The need seems to be for the special licensed RCGs though, and those are the kin placements that we talk about because we try to have our children who are taken into foster care stay with family as much as possible.

Because as Senator Favela stated, a lot of our children are native Hawaiian children and we want Them to stay with Native Hawaiian families versus a General licensed resource caregiver who usually is not of Native Hawaiian descent.

So in terms of general license, we do, we still have interests for that, but for the special licensed one, you know, that's where we want to focus. Like, you know, these, these kids with special needs, that's where we need more resource caregivers.

We're finding that for teens especially, there aren't that many General licensed resource caregiver who want to care for, for teens, they're more interested in the younger children.

I think the, not just the recruitment, but the investigation to ensure that what Senator Favela is talking about, that they're not just in it for the money. Right? Yeah.

So part of that was in the discussion of the development of the KAKAO program. We looked at the process, we looked at current situations that have developed and past unfortunate outcomes.

And one of the things that we wanted to do as a Department is provide additional resources and eyes not only on our foster children, but our resource caregivers. So that was the impetus of the development of kko. So while we have the children under our jurisdiction, we developed the program to have a wellness check on our children.

We also doing that discussion, determine from feedback that doing it non traditional hours, not Monday through Friday, unannounced, would then enhance the ability for the children to know that there'll be people out there checking in on them and can support them as well as we can support the families during some very difficult potential times, which is nights, times, weekends, when there's other activities going on.

So that was what we're trying to do to get sites out there and visit foster parents, even those that might become future adoptive parents, so we can have additional eyes on the children as well as on the care.

So when you talked about differentials, did you also budget in differentials for foster parents to make recruitment easier?

The differentials are not for our caregivers. They would be internal. And right now, the differentials, as well as the Kako program, we're using internal resources which may or may not be available in the future. But we are working on that.

When did you start the Kako program?

We started it two weeks ago.

And then Senator Aquino then you.

Daniel okay, so Director, you mentioned about. The Kako program and congratulations and making that an initiative. You talk about the mission or you guys presented on the mission, you guys presented on the plan. You guys provided data highlights, but we don't really see the metrics or benchmarks or goals for this program. What, what are the Benchmarks.

Okay. So the benchmarks we are keeping data records of not only we came up with criteria on who we are going to identify as potential acuity level risk from all of our foster children and caregivers. We are monitoring the ability for us to visit, have access to the home.

If we do have, let's say, resistance to be able to see the children, that is a potential red flag of not only our ability to check on our caregivers, but either the caregiving itself. Right. Because that is a condition for people to become resource caregivers.

We would like to give you over a period of time of how many hours it actually takes to do these visits. Some of the stats, however, again, we just started this. We're doing this internal, by the way, we did do it statewide on every island.

Okay, Senator Keohokalole.

Yeah. So it says you visited 43 families so far. How has it gone? If you. If you randomly were to show up. At my house at night on like a Thursday night. You not be too. I would be worried somebody would be screaming or there'd be a giant mess. Or some sort of flag.

I don't want to assume things, but. The whole program is intended to make. Sure that we're catching what we weren't catching before. And so I'm just wondering how it's.

Gone actually so far. And I'll turn it over to Eladine, but we've actually got. Majority of. It's been a positive response. The goal for a wellness visit is not to check on, you know, this is not an inspection. This is not a licensing check.

This is just an opportunity for us to say, hey, can we talk with the kids? Put eyes on them and then ask the resource caregivers, the foster parents, hey, we know it's tough. We're here. Is there additional, you know, what are things?

Just that, you know, the goal that I envision with this expanding, which we are working potentially with a vendor too, is incorporating some of first lady's desire for food security is we would like to go out, not only check on them and do this, but maybe give a care package, maybe give them additional resources that they may or may not have gotten.

Right. We also want during the checks to. And actually I personally did some, you know, we're asking them, hey, did your workers come out and see you? How are you doing in school? Right. One of the conditions we put is the actual worker for these children are not doing their kako visits. Right.

These are different workers monitoring our children. So this way we get more eyes, more points of view and input on on the checks of the child as well as providing resources. So Eladine and I did one in Senator Favella's district and we actually spent quite a while. We offered them resources.

We talked to them about even programs like QLCC for Native Hawaiian children. So these are things that, you know, we're just doing extra the response at those times. Again, you're right, some parents will not be happy.

But however, during the period in which they are our foster kids, as stated by you guys as well as for us, we want to have more eyes and most of our parents are very supportive of that. And they understand that.

Well, my comment wasn't that I would. Be upset that you showed up, that. I would be scared that you would. View chaos in my house.

Well, yeah, so I went to visit your house.

Maybe three kids.

Well, I mean, so.

But that's, you know, I mean, I. Guess the point is just to make sure that you're. Yeah. You're checking in on these families to make sure things are going okay. That's so.

So, Senator, Dr. Yamani did issue a letter out to all resource caregivers. They were sent out twice as well as a third time by one of our providers. So that when we did start the. We had a trial run last week, which they both did. I was part of the one this past weekend as well.

So by then, one of the first things we asked was once they let us in their home was, oh, did you get the letter? And many of many of them did. There were a few that did not.

However, once we explained what we were there for, I believe most of the feedback we got was they did warm up and were happy to see us there. And added benefit that we did not take into consideration is because our. Our resource caregivers have multiple children in their home.

So although we're there to visit a particular child, we can still observe the other children in the home. And so that was something that is an added benefit to the Kokoa program.

Thank you.

Okay, Senator Favella, you guys get enough staff for all of this stuff that you guys having right now.

So actually. So, Senator, great question. So when this program was devised and we worked it, actually I wanted to start it internal. And when I first proposed the idea, I predicted I would have four volunteers, since this is volunteer, volunteer, not volunteered. And I would be using internal resources to cover the overtime.

Again, the DHS Ohana team in child welfare came together and we put conditions on how you can qualify. You have to be approved by your worker. You have to be up to date with all your current cases. Right. And all of these. So there's all these internal measures.

My understanding, I think we have what, 87 internal volunteers on all islands.

What kind of. What kind of background. This is one of the issues too. What kind of background do you give the foster parent on individual. I know you guys been talking about problem, you know, children getting problems to.

To be fostered, but kids that been abused or came maybe as addicted to drugs or sexually abused, all of those terrible things. What kind of background you give the parent? Foster parent, Foster parent aware of.

Okay, again, you want to talk about training for the research.

So right now I'm the foster parent. You give me a. I don't know nothing about the kid, but the kid was just terribly sexually abused, beat him up, broken skull, whatever, always is in the hospital. And now they're going to come to my career as a caregiver of that child.

What kind of General, I mean General information that you give the foster parent to be aware of?

Sure. So we have Hanai training, which is the initial training that we give to every resource caregiver. We also have ongoing. They're required to take, I think it's six hours of training. So there's this ongoing training as well that they get. We also have resources that they can go ahead and tap into.

There's videos, there's like this library that we can provide to them to do that. And you know, in addition to their licensing worker going out to see them, they can express their needs. We can do follow up with them regarding that.

We also have external trainings that we have that we've partnered with our children's justice center where we are trying to be more robust in our training for resource caregivers. So there's a variety of different trainings that we offer depending on the need of the Resource Care Department.

That is all good. What I'm saying is that I'm potentially going to have a child that was sexually molested that's going to come into my home that I have. Maybe I have other kids in the home.

And tendency when a child is abused for that long period of time, that's sad to say, sometimes they become predators no matter how young they are. And I'm stating a certain case. That's the reason why I don't want to get into due detail because that had happened to somebody that I know.

Worker did not tell them the abuse or the extent of the abuse of the child and it was placed in the home and this child act out things that was Happening to him or her at the time as being in foster care. And when they. I mean, of course, things change.

Now, I'm just not saying you guys still doing it. But when the foster parent had reached out to have the child removed, they refused to remove the child that potentially could cause harm to their actual children in the home. So I just want to know. I mean, I.

I know there's a HIPAA law, all these kinds of laws that protect the child. But again, you cannot be setting up a foster. Not seeing you guys, but putting a foster parent and their family at risk.

Something that this kid went through extensive trauma to the point that he had to have surgery, all of these kinds of stuff. And later on the kid was removed, but it wasn't until a year and a half later. Yeah. And they couldn't do anything else because if they did, they would have got fined.

Not from you guys, probably from the vendor who refused to take the child out because the child was acting out in an aggressive manner.

Yeah. So, Senator, resource caregivers are considered limited parties to these child welfare cases. So they are able to attend court hearings and, you know, they can express whatever concerns they have to the judge. The social worker in the case is supposed to be, you know, providing them with information that is necessary to care for the child.

So they have that avenue to. To voice anything they want in terms of how our case is moving forward at those review hearings, because they are limited parties and they are able to attend those confidential proceedings.

Okay, thank you. Any other questions? Okay. Representative Martin.

So I'm glad you folks found internal. Resources for some of these initiatives. Have you started tapping into that $800,000. For permanency support or incentives, or are. You going to let that lapse?

We're going to try our best not to let it lapse if it hasn't already been used to enhance contracts. The MedQuest has a program where if children see their doctors, they can get a financial benefit.

So we're going to see if we can somehow connect with them so that they can provide us information of potential foster for families with children in foster care so that we can reach out and provide that additional incentive that that money was set aside for.

So we're just trying to figure out how we can go about doing that.

Okay, thank you. Okay, so I want to go into. There are parents who need help but are concerned about CPS, and we had a bill redefining neglect. How do they get services without going to CPS Family Resource Centers?

Yeah, we can do neighborhood places that we have Those we do have a contract currently set up in every community on the different islands. So they are able to walk into those centers, get support. If they also wanted to call and find out, I think we should be able to refer them to those.

But there's resource centers that are already set up.

Okay, so we have the. Yes, the family resource centers that we partnered with Department of Education. So it's actually through. Through them.

Okay, come. Could you come on up? And I think I also would like to have Tia Office of Wellness come on up as to what kind of services you folks provide too. Right.

So let's go talk about resource centers because what we have found in the Malama Ohana working group and just in the regular at large community is that there is substantial number of people who would like to. Who need help caring for their kids, but they're super concerned about CPS involvement.

And the reality is majority of the abuse cases is neglect rather than physical abuse. How could these parents. We have mandated reporters everywhere, but how could these parents have outreach, you know, trying to reach out to get help without triggering a CPS involvement? Talk about family resource centers and.

Okay, well, some of our schools, not all of our schools, have family resource centers. And a family resource center, of course, has someone manning the center. And then that person will be able to connect whoever comes in with the type of resources that they're asking for or that they're showing a need for.

And so it's a very safe way for a parent or a caregiver to get access to services or knowledge of what exists, what is out there, who's available to support them, and the connections can be made at that location without involving cws.

It's just an interaction between the person running the center and whatever agency they've been connected with. Okay.

So we brought time because the Malama Ohana working group. And I'm going to ask Laurie to. Cheeky. She's going to regret showing up, but I'm going to be asking her as to whether or not she's heard something here that hopefully is hopeful with going forward.

So what kind of trauma informed care are you providing to the social workers so that when they see a child that is traumatized, they know how to react as well as parents who are just seeking help and of course, foster parents who need help caring for a child so it doesn't escalate to physical abuse?

Yeah, thank you for the question. Thank you for inviting us to present. We ran the Malama Ohana working group for the last year and a half. This working group was comprised. It was a legislatively mandated working group. So thank you for passing that bill.

It was comprised of several Department representatives as well as nonprofits and resource caregivers and even youth that were currently or formerly in the foster care system. From that working group report came out several, almost 100 recommendations.

Recommendations were distilled down to about five key kind of large scope recommendations, one of which was to build recommendation number four which was to build a trauma develop a trauma informed system.

So one of the bills that we introduced that is still alive is looking at providing comprehensive assessment and then co developing with the Department of Human Services a full comprehensive trauma informed care training specifically for supervisors, because those are the ones that are typically the ones that will be more sustained in a Department.

They don't come and go as much as frontline workers.

And so by first of all training up the mid level supervisors as well as administrators to look and see what the impacts of trauma are on behavior, what it might look like in activity on a daily basis, but also lots of pieces around what it looks like to identify yellow flags of vicarious trauma and secondary traumatic stress, what departmental types of policies can be enhanced or revised or developed to create more trauma informed approaches and responses within the current procedures and policies that are already in place.

So working with the Department, that's what the bill is looking at.

Working with the Department on not only assessing the entire Department with an evidence based trauma informed organizational assessment that was developed by the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, but also really looking at how we can co develop a training that they would, that they need, that they've shown data in the need not only from our Social Determinants of Health dashboard on our worker well being survey on what the Department staff are requesting and what they need in terms of supports at work, but also what does trauma informed system of care look like within a Department of Child Welfare, Department of Human Services and child Welfare specific.

So that bill was introduced. It's still alive. Did you want to add anything to that?

Okay, so yeah, one of the bills, it's in your slide, I guess that died. I. I didn't know it died.

No, it's still alive.

Five year welfare system diversion.

That's the other. That's the other bill. That's Senate Bill 952. That's still alive as well.

Okay. Why don't you talk about that? Is that, is that a. Do you want to talk about it? Sure.

So. So that bill is a child welfare. Diversion and intervention program. What we're looking at is working with families that through those either school based. Or community based resource centers, we're having families go through an assessment to determine if they're at risk of child abuse and neglect. If so, they would participate in this.

Pilot that would provide peer support, navigation. To help families to apply for benefits. So, so there's a whole selection of wraparound services. The other would be financial assistance. Up to what, what we're saying is. Up to $600 a month to provide. Food, clothing, hygiene, housing.

So these are the neglect support. Because if it's abuse, then obviously physical abuse and obviously CPS, CWS needs to be involved. At risk of. Yeah. So these are. Okay, yeah. Neglect, yeah.

And then also a program that would. Provide parenting classes and therapy for both. The child and for the parent or resource caregiver.

Okay.

So it's moving along.

This bill that set up bill 952 is very specific to the Malama Ohana Working Group recommendations around building family resilience. So it's really looking at building.

We took recommendations from that report and crafted it into, worked closely with Department of Human Services to craft that specific bill to make sure that we were looking at all the service that are currently offered in the system of care.

So in the community, nonprofits and really look to see what's missing and created a bill that kind of fills in the pukas of what's missing so that we're not overlapping and replicating current offerings. There is some overlap to some of those services, but the peer support offer, the financial assistance offer.

There are financial assistance offers already in place, but this brief intervention with the parent and child to build the family bond, to build that kind of resilience, parenting skills and doing that kind of brief intervention of teachings, those types of calming and emotional regulation strategies for parents and youth.

That is the, that is what we kind of found would be kind of a unique offer in this bill.

Yeah, I apologize for that, especially since I'm chairing the hearing. Okay. Any questions regarding Office of Wellness and Resilience? Okay, basically we're, we're going to wrap this up. I, I like to have my hearings wrap up in two hours. Do we have any further questions? I have a question of Laurie Pachiki.

Could you come on up as, as a Malama Ohana Working Group Member? And I know that you have listened to. You were there at the, at the prior hearing. You were there at a time when we tried to put together the Malamahana Working Group before it got vetoed by the Governor.

And then it got started, restarted again, and then you went through everything from what you've heard. Do we, do you think that we need a oversight Commission or shall we try to since we are progressing? Sounds like there's some progress. We just need to just keep our tabs on what's going on.

Senator and Representative, thank you. Thank you for this opportunity. I any progress is helpful, but our report points out deep systemic problems in coordination, in collaboration, in oversight, in handling grievances.

And I guess I'm going to sit here and call foul a little bit because, yes, we need to have some improvements, but for instance, in terms of collaboration, coordination, that piece, because we said we need policy changes, we need resource changes, we need relationship changes, we need functional changes, and we need mindset changes.

Some of those MOUs about sharing information between the Department of Education and the Department of Human and Services have been pending for years. And so, yes, I'm so grateful that some things are working and some things are in place, but we really need an implementation plan.

We need a thoughtful implementation plan and how that happens, whether it's an oversight commission or a czar or something, we have to have more of a kick in the pants, frankly, in order to actually see some changes.

For instance, accountability is a huge one, but communication, looking at the NGOs, looking at the nonprofit organizations, you know, it's true you've given some additional funds because the contracts do not cover the costs of doing business. Right.

But those additional funds each year, last year and this year were given to the nonprofit sometime around March to spend by June. And so, you know, when we talk about, for instance, staff, staff vacancies in our nonprofit organizations, the nonprofit I just retired from had almost zero staff vacancies. But it's not because we paid very well.

And unless there's more systemic help on those contracts, it's not going to make a difference. So these are not things we can do band aids with. We are going to continue to harm and hurt our families and our children unless we have something more robust.

And frankly, I feel that our report, because it came from the community and the voices of the community, maybe it's easy to dismiss maybe, but those voices are loud and they are hurting. And I don't think that the things that have been put in place are enough. They're good start, I really appreciate the start.

And there are good people doing this work, there really are. But we need more. We need more help.

So it seems to me. And maybe Tia could be more involved, but this five year child welfare system diversion and intervention pilot program sounds like a pretty systematic Change.

That is a system change. It's an opportunity to bring people together. Looking at tanf, looking at the TANF money, looking at Department of Health Services, bringing them together. Family Resource Centers are amazing. They're a wonderful opportunity. They're only, I think less than a dozen of them now, so not enough. Right.

We've got to make a commitment to these families. Otherwise we're just going to complete, we're going to continue to repeat the problems that we have had.

Okay. And we hear you. Thank you very much, Lauren. Thank you. Okay. DHS Director, you get the last word? Yeah, well, you heard Lloyd Tuchiki and basically they're, they're hopeful because something actually got done.

But it actually required a kick in the pants, you know, required Malama Ohana working group coming out with recommendations, us having the informational briefing a few months ago and us keeping, keeping tabs on you folks. And I know you're new, you just got confirmed less than a month ago. Or I don't know, probably last week.

Last week hung that over you for 10 years.

So last week. And you've done really well. Oh, and just, and just what we got. But basically what is your commitment to this systematic change? I mean that, that, that was brought up in the last hearing, in the, in the last beep since the last briefing.

So Chair, we took the feedback from Alamo, Hana and the auditors very seriously. We actually met and take feedback even from the AGs with their recommendations. Part of the movement forward for Child Welfare Services is to do some internal improvements.

So some of the things that are mentioned regarding payment of vendors, we actually had them redo or I guess update their flow of how they do contracts. We looked and determined that there are backlog on GIAs that has been cleared off. There were determinations that there were some delays in the processing of invoices.

We are currently working on processing that out. But I think my understanding is either we caught up or about to. That means we're trying to pay our vendors on time rather than, you know, have these delays. Currently we identify 13 contracts. They were able to clear off two within a matter of three weeks.

We are wrapping up several others. Those current MOUs, which is correct. Some of those MOUs were stagnant for a year. My understanding is we will be working with DOE on amendment language. Hopefully it won't be more than two sentences. The Liloa Kalani Trust MOU is almost done.

My understanding we are going out to signature soon and that will be huge for our ability to work collaboratively with the Those Kanaka Maolis. Right.

So we can continue that not only with the Little Kalani Trust, which is orphaned by death for Native Hawaiians, but to expand that and use some of that cultural Tia and OWR will be becoming attached agency to DHS July 1st. And not only that, we are actually looking internally.

So we are trying to work again, getting feedback from our staffs internally, not only in back offices, about how to again better serve our children and our community. So we are making some of those change. We're not kind of advertising some of these back things because these things need to get done.

If you probably talk to some of those in child SSD office back offices, they probably don't have that. Too many good things to say about my style over the last month regarding some of the backlog. But I, you know, we actually personally went through their position descriptions. We've updated some roles and responsibilities.

We do see that there are some areas that we need to improve on, like our computer systems. But I tell you one thing, even though they might not like what they're hearing, most of them, if not all from line up, are committed to doing the best they can for the kids.

So we are trying to move forward as one DHS Ohana, but as well as one division of ssd. So again, we appreciate the support that, you know, you have given the Department. And we are going to move forward. We are working towards that.

We have outreach to several of our providers to actually do more innovative things to support our families and kids.

Okay, so my last thing here was do you see anything in the near future about the federal issues and potential money, money shut off? So is that going to, is that going to affect our pay differentials and the, the monies that Laurie Tlicki was talking about, that the contracted monies?

All I can tell you is potentially we are monitoring closely what's happening with our federal partners and ACF. As you know, their roles have changed. We are currently monitoring, all of DHS, is currently monitoring our collaboration with the feds to decide what is adjusted.

We also are lurking internally exploring what would be the priorities, how we would be able to address things. Again, right now it's too early to say because we don't have an exact, I guess, projections.

But we are planning and once we do that, we are committed to not only letting our internal people know, but all of our partners, including you at the ledge and the Governor, working together on what potential solutions would be if and how we are impacted by federal cuts.

Thank you very much. Any other questions? Many Members and with that, we are adjourned, and thank you very much. But as you know, there will probably be another informational briefing to make sure you guys keep up on this adjournment.