DHHS to implement new child welfare guidelines

KEARNEY, Neb. — Child welfare officials are making a shift from punishment to prevention in Nebraska, as the Department of Health and Human Services is looking to change the way it handles cases with families.

Speaking to a group of social workers and advocacy groups, Jenni Ahsing introduced Nebraska’s new guidelines for handling families known as Safety Organized Practice at a meeting in Kearney on Tuesday.

Matt Wallen, Director of Children and Family Services for Nebraska , said he is excited to introduce the new concepts to the Department of Health and Human Services.

“We are going to talk about our new practice model Safety Organized Practice. It focuses on teamwork by engaging families, and engaging families to be a part of their case plans and their involvement with DHHS in really a different way than they have been involved before,” said Wallen

The changes came after the department found it wasn’t engaging the families it was working with at an appropriate level.

The department says the new Safety Organized Practice will build better relationships with the families it serves and shift their focus from punishment to prevention.

They’re also looking to avoid possibly traumatic experiences like removing a child from its home.

“We were identified as not having as good of family engagement as we would’ve liked to so SOP focused on not being punitive to families, not being dictating to families on what they should do but works with families and engages families and encourages them to work on their own case plans so when the department goes away we don’t see them come back to us,” said Wallen.

While other states have introduced similar guidelines, Nebraska is the first state to bring Safety Organized Practice experts face to face with case workers and advocacy groups.

“We are learning about the concept now and starting the dialogue across the state with our stakeholders and providers and our own team about it, and we will take the feedback from this week and build it into our plan for next year,” said Wallen.

The SOP system or Safety Organized Practice system has already been implemented successfully in other parts of the country and the Department of Health and Human Services in Nebraska is hoping to implement SOP in early 2019.

Courtesy: NTV