As you are aware, the Division, in conjunction with our county and tribal partners, has been working over the last several months to develop standards and guidelines for ongoing child protective services for children and their families. These "Ongoing Services Standards and Guidelines for Child Protective Services" are designed to cover the life of a case from the time that the child protective services investigation is completed through the closing of the ongoing services case. Coupled with the already existing "CPS Investigation Standards," these standards and guidelines will cover all aspects of child protective services cases.

The standards included in the document reflect requirements of state and federal law and regulations and targeted case management. A few of the standards are based on basic tenets of the assurance of safety, permanency and well being. Since the standards are almost exclusively based on statutory or regulatory requirements that have been in place for several years or became effective in 1997 with the passage of the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) or in 2000 with the issuance of the final federal regulations on ASFA, the standards are now in effect. The guidelines are intended to identify good practice in the ongoing case process and to provide an increased focus on the issue of risk-reduction, thereby promoting timely and effective case management, including timely closure in the case process.

The ASFA-related standards are based on information previously provided to counties through Numbered Memos CFS 98-12, 99-05 and 2000-15; Information Memos 98-01,
98-09, 98-15, 99-01 and 2000-05; and joint DWD/DES and DHFS/DCFS Administrators'
Memo 99-14.

Pursuant to our conversations with county representatives and to assure the effective implementation of these new ongoing standards and guidelines, following the distribution of this memo, this Division, the Wisconsin County Human Services Association and the Child Welfare Training Partnerships will develop a plan to assess the needs of individual counties, the Training Partnerships and DCFS for communication strategies, technical assistance, training and capacity development. We will provide you with more information regarding this effort in the near future.

I appreciate your continued efforts to create a child welfare system that is comprehensive and responsive to the needs of the children and families we serve.