To give feedback, enter into Chat (to “Everyone”) the number 1, 2, or 3 and your thoughts as identified below:1. Statement/Comment2. Clarification3. Idea

2. Who were the stakeholders including former foster youth, caregivers, biological parents, social workers and community partners? A lot of people I have spoken were caught off guard.

2. What is the current capacity at Keiki for children awaiting placement? The contract shows the capacity at Seneca will be 8. Do you have data as to how often there were more than 8 awaiting placement at DFCS in the past year? What will happen if Seneca has over 8 children/youth?

2.- Has DFCS evaluated any other currently contracted programs with Seneca to determine if they have been effective?

2.

2. - How will the Contractor address the complex trauma in the limited time span of 23/59? Realistically, if a youth is at the Welcoming Center for less than 23/59, BH will not be able to address the "complex trauma...." in any meaningful way. This process is a long-term process

Has the neighborhood associations around the proposed site been advised? Shelter and RAIC suffered from good neighbor issues.

2. Where will these children be placed after being in these Seneca homes? What action is being taken to increase Resource Parents who will take difficult to place children/youth?

2. Who was involved in the decision making to contract out the Welcome Center? What former foster youth groups did you reach out to in order to discuss this specifically? Resource Parents? Biological Parents? Social Workers? Community Partners? (06/25/20 report to BOS indicates that these groups were reached out to)

1: Seneca has continued to struggle with staffing issues and very high turn over. They have also now "absorbed" many programs from other agencies because of many layers of mismanagement.

2. When Unity Care shut down, contracts between Unity Care and DFCS ceased. Is there a contingency plan in place should this same thing occur with Seneca?

1: The "Welcoming Center" is really offensive. Any child how has been taken from their family member and now have the travel of removal will be thinking " Welcoming me to what? The rest of my life without my family?"

2. How will the Contractor prevent/decrease child welfare involvement? For families of color? How will they meet the cultural/language needs of the families?

1. Dan, you assured us early on that jobs would not be contracted out.

2. Can you please provide more details on how the decision was made for both child welfare as well as juvenile probation to be under one Welcome Center?

2. You referenced kids stuck in the congregate care end of the COC. Does this move include additional resources in the continuum that will address the two dozen or so highest need kids?

2. Licensing questions: Is the state outlawing counties from being licensed? Can Santa Clara County get licensed for the Welcoming Center?

#2 What are the known benefits as far as competency and accountability for contracting out services rather than improving the county's own system with our own social workers and clinicians. Our children need to be cared for under a system with both.

2: Will behavioral health be providing homes?

2: Will JDP be providing homes? The kiddos who are hard to place usually have more behavioral health needs or behaviors related to conduct which our

rfa homes cannot support

2. How many new placements are being provided through Seneca (Transitional Foster Home Program, Intensive Treatment Foster Care, Enhanced Intensive Treatment Foster Care)? What is the length of stay in each of these placement options? Do any of these placement options provide concurrency?

What will the current AIC (Assessment Intake Center) Social Worker II/III be doing if Seneca takes over?

2 How does the Welcoming Center differs from what is happening currently at Keiki. What is the setting that is different?

2: again, if these agencies are constantly asking for their contracts to get modified because they cannot staff clinicians and often have cases open without therapist assigned to the cases? How is this not a duplication of services of Unity Care already provides Placement Stabilization Services?

2: Where will children sleep when there are no placements? Especially older children, children with special needs? What happens when they have no placement for 2-3 weeks?

what will the scattered sites be replaced with?

Correction Uplift provides Placement Stabilization Services

2 What happens to a child that cannot be placed within 24 hours? Where will they sleep and eat?

2. So if there is no shelter licensing, what happens to children when they are removed during non-business hours? Where do they sleep if no beds are allowed?

2: A lot of children want to shower when they arrive at Keiki. Where will they shower? 2: RAIC BX Health already does an initial assessment. How are we going to decrease the amount of people interacting with the children? Will there be one person to do the CANS, Katie A, and placement interview? Kiddos that are not able to be placed in 23 hours, where will they go? Will they have to meet another set of Staff and experience another transition? Again, my worry is how this aligns or does not align with trauma-informed care.

w2. who will be monitoring the Center and how will that look different from the supervision and monitoring at the failed RAIC ?

What exactly will lower the number of overstays? Increased number of IFTC & EIFTCs? Why do you need to outsource the RAIC to increase IFTCs?

Shouldn’t the scattered sites be staffed by Seneca? Aren’t those where our high acuity kids are? Isn’t that what Seneca was suppose to specialize in? why should that fall on the social workers?

2. ..thinking to use Julian for regular care and supervision - which staff would do this?

2. There is a "license" for the scattered sites that will be run by DFCS Social Workers/Children's Counselors, but the Welcoming Center will be operated by Seneca. Why can't the Welcoming Center be run by DFCS Social Workers?

why are we limiting therapeutic homes to 6 months?

2.Where do the highest need kids end up within the current state directed continuum? The current configuration is failing a small but very visible percentage of our children. Those are the kids who wind up as frequent utilizers of the RAIC/Shelter/Welcome Center (whatever we call it). We have not developed the appropriate response/support for these kids. We end up moving them from place to place and compounding their complex trauma. Anything we develop that does not address these kids will be overwhelmed by the dramatic needs that they present. These kids, their needs and their behaviors are the issues that make the shelter/raic/keiki an issue for the Board of Supervisors. No doubt-we do well with the "average" kids-but the high need kids will always be foremost in our minds and the headlines.

2: How many therapeutic homes do we currently have? How many would we need to have licensed in order to meet the current needs?

are there permanent therapeutic homes available?

How will Seneca staff assess high acuity youth that are in need of STRTP placement immediately.

2. will contracting the WC with Seneca cost more than doing it in-house?

1. Super disappointed that this meeting and stakeholder process is just now taking place so late in the planning.

1. Yes, Ruben, very disappointing. I am still wondering what stakeholders gave feedback as Bob's memo mentioned.

Who will determine if a youth is better suited for a Professional Parent home with another agency?

2. We placed our high acuity kids with Seneca in their homes and our Keike staff were assigned to Seneca homes to work in their homes because Seneca staff were refusing to work with these kids. Further, Seneca has a high turnover of staff. How can we assure that Seneca will not refuse any of our high acuity kids? How is Seneca dealing with their high turnover of staff?

2 what is the plan to appropriately take care of our SARC children and will you have trained staff to meet their needs?

In the immediate term (before "build out" is complete), who will go to Welcoming Ctr and who to Keiki. How will you avoid mixing dependents ("frequent fliers") with kids just entering the system?

3. As this process unfolds, I would suggest regular provider/county meetings to ensure services are interlocking smoothly, avoiding duplication, sharing data, and successful strategies and models.

2. Does Seneca have any experience with the receiving and intake of children when they are first removed and are experiencing the foster care system for the first time? What about high acuity teens that have been 7 day noticed with no alternative placements available?How many of those employees with that experience have been with Seneca for over 20, 15, or even 10 years?

2. Traditionally after placement disruptions older and higher acuity youth have refused placement and created a gap in the system where trauma has been compounded. What is the Seneca/DFCS contingency plan or protocol for high acuity youth who refuse these Intensive Foster Care placements?

1. If people answering questions can be succinct please, there are still a lot of questions on the table and we have very limited time.

2 How many children will be placed in one therapeutic foster, Seneca home or professional parent?

Regarding acuity, our kiddos get ejected from RFA and PP homes, and even EPS. The lack of homes responsibility falls back on DFCS. What will JPD and Bx Health do to have their own homes Staffed for these children?

What is Juvenile Probation’s role in this process?

2.2. Who was involved in the decision making to contract out the Welcome Center? What former foster youth groups did you reach out to in order to discuss this specifically? Resource Parents? Biological Parents? Social Workers? Community Partners? (06/25/20 report to BOS indicates that these groups were reached out to)

2: Was youth, parent and foster parent input taken prior to management moving forward with these plans> They are they primary stakeholders. They should be choosing what organization is the holder of this "welcoming" center.

2. What are the specific remedies in the contract if Seneca violates the contract or has poor outcomes? Will they be fined? eg. refuses a high acuity child

What role does the DFCS social worker have in this process?

Does the family have a voice and a choice in the final decision in the placement of a child.

2 Who will be doing the assessment of this new process to determine it is working successfully.

How is using Seneca staff thought to be an improvement over the county's social workers, clinicians and foster parents? Why is the county not utilizing and training our own where there is more direct oversight and potential for accountability?

1. contracting out raic was not discussed at the FRC community forum. I was there

2. Why is the dept. Continuing down this path when foster parents and social workers are unanimously against it and want to partner on how to do it better?What do you have against foster parents?What do you have against social workers?

1. the change in the RAIC was not discussed at the FTC forums

2. What was meant by beginning in Jan 2020 we would be operating unlicensed? It is my understanding RAIC for DFCS is still licensed by CDSS as of Friday 06/19/2020. (Re - 'rush' question)

1. Contracting out was never discussed. There were conversations on what could be different.

3. Is it feasible to have a county nurse available at Keiki 24/7?

1 The focus of the FRC. meetings was DFCS listening to the needs of the Resource families and their concerns. There was no follow up.

1. As a former foster youth, I came to work for Santa Clara County because I believed in the work this county was doing for foster care youth. The lack of transparency and reach out to key stakeholders is disheartening.

2. Pg. 4 CSFC report says WC “focus will be on youth with higher behavioral or therapeutic needs, youth served by probation, or youth with no identified placement options.” These kids will be mixed with the babies and toddlers?

2. Jeff Smith said there might be some space at a hospital to create a receiving center.What happened with that?

2. Is there a blue print/photos/drawing so we can see the difference at the 23h49min Welcoming Center to be located at the Seneca Offices at 485 N. 1st Street, San Jose, CA?

2. What specific services/assessment tools will be administered at the Welcoming Center at 485 N. 1st Street?

2. What professionals will be co-located at the Welcoming Center for the (quote) "one stop shop"?

1. there is a lot of follow up that is needed. why is the dept. asking the board to sign the contract tomorrow?

2. Please explain the functional difference between a Receiving, Assessment, and Intake Center and the Welcoming Center.

2: addressing racial disparities begin with system contact... meaning ER referrals of JPD contact not at intake

Will the Dashboard provided by DFCS regarding children entering Keiki cover the children into the “Welcoming Center.”

2. Although, historically, JPD/DFCS and high needs BHS youth have been seen as different populations, there is very large overlap - given this and the DIY Unit, how has the DIY Unit's input been considered in developing CoC flow?

2: contracts get modified all the time by behavioral health and they dismiss the language need if the agency states they cannot hire bilingual staff. How is this going to be guaranteed this time?

1: any agency eyeing major increases to their contracts are very agreeable its when they have it in writing that things change and needs are met and they become resistant to really teaming

What happens when a youth is unsuccessful and is discharged from placement with Seneca? Are DFCS Placement SW's then asked to look for traditional placement with RFA/FFA homes?

2. How does proposes staffing # compare to current staffing for RAIC functions?

2. Pg. 6 CSFC report says RDA will guide and provide oversight. If we have an immediate problem with the WC staff, who do we contact?1. RDA? If not, how is that considered “oversight?” Will we get an org chart of WC staff?

Are Seneca's offices on N. 1st even a place to consider? The times that I've been there at both locations, the spaces seem limited. Parking is limited and can't even accommodate the employees there. I know for a fact that the neighbors are not happy about the parking overflow.

was Seneca invited to this mtg?

1. Are you aware that Nebraska had to pay back the federal government over $20M because they could not account for the money spent by the private contractors? How will you protect against that? That money would come out of the county’s budget.

Are there professional parents in this new model?

Hopefully more concrete answers are able to be e-mailed out to the questions as the original and stated plan to the board for tomorrow and Thursday is for a roll-out of July 1, 2020.

Hello there, Can we have another meeting before the contract goes to the Board again?

thank you~

Thank you for this. It is helpful

there were a lot of questions today I really hope they get addressed

1. I think the BOS will still have a lot of questions as they had at the last meeting.

Can we see the results of that poll?

Thank you! However, much more to process.

i would like to see the pol results as well

I did not get the original link!

to many unanswered questions.

I didn’t get it

Thank you for today.

Thank you 😊

Thank you Margaret Ledesma, Daniel Little, Ken Epstein and Ken Berrick for your time.

Would like to see the answers to unanswered questions