Out-of-Home Care Reform: Request for Qualifications Released
On July 1, 2008, the Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Children and Family Services, (CFS) began the process of improving the manner in which services for CFS clients (Child Welfare and Office of Juvenile Service-OJS) are purchased by the State of Nebraska. On that day, contracts were implemented with 5 lead agencies for the provision of Safety and In-Home Services to clients, a reduction from over 100 previous contracts. The new contracts contain incentives to encourage exceptional performance and contractor performance is tied directly to outcomes shown to help provide safety, permanency and well-being for children, youth and the community.
On September 5, 2008, CFS announced the next step in its ongoing efforts to improve services to children/youth and their families. A very high level plan, "Framework Recommendations for Out-of-Home Care Reform" was released to the public outlining the intention of CFS to expand the lead agency, performance-based approach to contracting to include all non-treatment care in CFS cases and to require lead agencies responsible for that care to also provide limited coordination of the services provided to CFS clients.
To gather information and suggestions about the framework recommendations, CFS publicized an e-mail address to receive comments electronically and scheduled fourteen public forums at ten different locations around the state as well as meeting with CFS staff.
On November 7, 2008, CFS announced the results of the input received regarding the reform effort. A great deal of information has been received, reviewed, and considered, and has proven to be very helpful as CFS moves forward with this reform.
Input received through this process has been incorporated into the "Plan for the Reform of Out-of-Home Care." The documents below "Out-of-Home Care Reform Plan (11-26-08)" and "Out-of-Home Care Reform Timeline-Revised (11-26-08)" provide the out of home care reform plan.
Interested organizations are asked to respond to the
Out-of-Home Care Reform: Request for Qualifications no later than January 15, 2009. *An edit was made on December 3rd to page 7 of this document. The postmarked date was changed from November 1, 2008, to January 15, 2009. An edit was made on December 29, 2008, to the first paragraph under the heading “RFQ Response Information and Format”. Reference to Joint submissions was removed. The paragraph titled “Note” on page 8 of the document, indicates the Department’s intent to receive responses from the entity that will be accountable for the response to the RFQ and which will be the contracting agency. An edit was made on December 29, 2008, to page 7 of the document under “Financial Resources”, item D, to remove reference to an embedded spreadsheet.
September 5, 2008
Reform of Out-of-Home
PowerPoint
November 7, 2008
November 26, 2008
December 2, 2008
Please feel free to contact us with your comments or suggestions on the reform of out-of-home services. Your input is valued and will be considered as this process continues to move forward. Please know that we will not be responding to each individual e-mail. Please use the following e-mail address OHC.Reform@dhhs.ne.gov
Documents in
which can be downloaded for free from Adobe Systems, Inc.
