Release #250 -98

Contact: Colleen Roche (212) 788-2958 or Leonora Wiener (212) 266-2255 (ACS)

The initial RFP will result in the award of contracts to Bronx providers only and will provide for the payment of $183,988,000 annually for child welfare services. In the Fall, an RFP will be issued for service contracts in Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island. By the end of the process, $613,800,000 in contracts will have been awarded citywide for child welfare services.

"This new system represents one of the many dramatic changes we are making to ensure that New York City's children and families receive the protection and services they need," Mayor Giuliani said. "By concentrating child welfare services in each neighborhood, we can assure that all of the important players in children's lives-parents, teachers, clergy, and social workers-can work effectively as a team, in partnership with government, to help safeguard children and nurture their development. The delivery of neighborhood-based services is one of the underpinnings of the ACS Reform Plan that this administration released in December 1996. Today, we take another critical step toward its completion."

Under the current system, the trauma of victimized children is sometimes exacerbated when they are sent to foster families far from their homes, friends, schools, and extended family. Since nearly 75 percent of the children in foster care eventually return home or to other relatives, it is important that, in appropriate cases, children maintain strong relationships with their parents or relatives during their stay in foster care.

ACS will construct a neighborhood-based system, through its own programs and in cooperation with contract agencies, that will:

• develop a strong network of providers and advocates that will help prevent and detect abuse in its earliest stages;
• provide preventive services that address both the individual needs of the child as well as the family members;
• build a pool of strong, nurturing foster care and adoptive families within all neighborhoods, especially those where the need for services is the greatest;
• coordinate the delivery of services, including medical, mental health, substance abuse, to children and families in a network of local providers;
• facilitate a Family-to-Family approach to foster care, where, in appropriate cases, birth parents, caseworkers and foster parents will be part of a service plan for the child in care.

Commissioner Scoppetta said, "ACS believes that a neighborhood-based services system will significantly benefit children. Under this system, children and families will be served in their own neighborhoods. Preventive services will be community-based and when it becomes necessary to remove children from the home they will be placed with foster parents in their neighborhood, reducing some of the trauma associated with separation.

"This effort will require the support and commitment of more than one hundred preventive, foster care and homemaking agencies we now contract with and new agencies who will respond to the Request for Proposals. Together, we can greatly enhance our ability to protect and improve children's lives," Commissioner Scoppetta concluded.

This RFP for services in the Bronx represents the first phase of the neighborhood-based services initiative. More than 9,000 Bronx foster children will be served under the RFP, while thousands of other families in the Bronx receive preventive and homemaking services.

The second phase of the initiative will begin in the Fall when an RFP for child welfare services will be released for the remaining four boroughs and for certain specialized services throughout the City.

The shift to neighborhood-based services is accompanied by other key ACS reforms, including:

• Re-deployment of Child Protective Caseworkers By Community District. Previously, caseworkers were assigned to large sprawling zones which encompass many community districts. Now, caseworkers assigned by community district will have an opportunity to develop a more intimate knowledge of the community they serve, and the institutions and agencies in those districts. In turn, the community will have an opportunity to develop more effective relationships with ACS caseworkers and other staff. Caseworkers have already been reassigned in Manhattan and parts of Queens. Re-deployment will extend to Brooklyn in July and will be completed city-wide by the Fall.

• 72 Hour Case Conferencing. On June 4, 1998, the Division of Child Protection will begin holding case conferences in Queens within 72 hours after the removal of a child. The purpose will be to immediately confer with as many people who have an interest and knowledge of the child as possible; this will include the caseworker, relatives, teachers, clergy and others. The result will be a more informed judgment as to whether a removal is necessary and, if so, what service plan should be developed for the child and family. Case conferencing will be extended to the rest of the City by the end of the Fall.