On July 27, 2005, the Family Interaction for Child Protective Services Cases policy (Numbered Memo DCFS-2005-06) was issued. This policy provides standards and supplemental information to assist caseworkers in maintaining relationships between children and their parents/ families when those children are placed in out-of-home care.

At the request of agencies attending roundtable discussions and committee meetings, we are making two minor changes to the policy. The revisions facilitate the documentation of activities related to these family interactions. The changes to this policy are contained in the "Documenting Family Interaction" box of the policy and are the following:

• Deletion of all requirements to document "on a case note"
  
  
• Clarification that when documenting the Family Interaction Plan in the "comments" section of the Safety Assessment, agencies may choose to note "see plan attached" if the details of the plan are being documented in some other way (e.g., Family Interaction Plan in eWiSACWIS, contract provider form, etc.)

The attached revised policy will be incorporated at a later date into the revisions of the Ongoing Services Standards for Child Protective Services. This policy is regarded as interim because it is subject to change based on the revisions to the Ongoing Services Standards as well as requirements that may be included in proposed administrative rule Ch. HFS 44 relating to permanency planning and reasonable efforts.

Given that these changes will reduce workload, this revised policy is effective immediately.

Attachments  (PDF, 51 kb)