Projects
CIP Training Grant
The Louisiana Supreme Court's Court Improvement Program (CIP) received funding for two new CIP grants from the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) Promoting Safe and Stable Families (PSSF) program in 2006:

Training funds for education and interdisciplinary training of judges, lawyers, social workers, CASAs and other child welfare stakeholders.
  • Identify the specific skills and areas of knowledge that judges, attorneys, and other legal personnel need to best serve children and families;
  • Develop curricula that address those skills and areas of knowledge and employ the most effective methods for imparting them;
  • Ensure that all who need such training will receive it, such as by making participation convenient, providing inducements for attendance or imposing requirements for attendance, and tracking attendance;
  • Ensure that those attending training actually obtain the identified skills and knowledge, such as through online testing and refresher training;
  • Use technology such as online training and training videos;Convene local meetings and groups to participate in training developed in remote locations, such as through use of videos or videoconferences;
  • Provide cross-system, multidisciplinary training on topics of mutual interest to different participants in the system, such as mental health, substance abuse, education of children in foster care, the role of caseworkers in court, and the preparation and use of court reports; and
  • Co-locate judicial, court employee, and agency training, when practical, to allow a combination of cross-system training and separate training on specialized topics.
 
Integrated Juvenile Justice Integrated Information System (IJJIS)
 
 
CIP Data Collection & Analysis Grant
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families (ACF) Children’s Bureau awarded the State of Louisiana a Data Collection and Analysis Grant in September 2006.  This Strategic Plan describes planned activities to be completed October 2006 - September 2011 to achieve desired outcomes as it relates to the objectives included in the Program Instruction issued on June 15, 2006.  Grant funds will be used for a number of initiatives, which may include, but will not be limited to:
  • On-going development and enhancement of the Child in Need of Care (CINC) component of Louisiana’s Integrated Juvenile Justice Information System (IJJIS) specifically for cases involving child abuse and neglect, foster care, adoption and legal guardianship of children in foster care including specific tools and automating the following court functions (at a minimum):
    • Electronic filing of documents;
    • Automated creation and printing of documents;
    • Downloading of data from court documents (e.g., court orders) into the IJJIS-CINC database;
    • Case scheduling software that takes into account scheduling needs of all parties including the generation and maintenance of court calendars featuring electronic distribution of information within and outside the court;
    • Reminders (ticklers/alerts) to prompt users to take specific actions, such as schedule hearings and provide notice;
    • Electronic transmission of information to parties, participants, and other agencies;
    • Tracking the status of individual cases (or group of related cases) and involvement of parties and other persons in such cases; and
    • Summary information for specific cases (i.e., adding summary case information to lists of “actions,” such as service of process, filing of pleadings, and court orders).
  • Promulgating court performance measures to allow court systems to analyze their performance regarding child safety, permanency, procedural fairness, timeliness, and, if practical, other aspects of child well-being;
  • Providing for effective and comprehensive data exchange between the courts, the Office of Community Services (OCS) and other entities by developing an interface between the court’s case management system (IJJIS-CINC) and ACESS, the state’s child welfare agency Statewide  Automated Child Welfare Information System (SACWIS);
  • Continuing to focus resources to remove any remaining legislative and policy barriers to  meaningful data collection and analysis, particularly as it relates to data exchange among state entities;
  • Developing and implementing policies and procedures that assist court employees with the collection and use of data in a more effective, knowledge-based manner;
  • Reviewing and optimizing processes which contribute to extended periods of foster care time or which unnecessarily delay case management
  • Providing an automated tool to facilitate collection and analysis of demographic information regarding children in foster care;

Louisiana began development of its Integrated Juvenile Justice Information System (IJJIS) in 2004.  Development is underway for the IJJIS-CINC module to specifically support cases involving child abuse and neglect, foster care, adoption and legal guardianship of children in foster care.  Grant funds will be used to complete this component and enhance data collection, system integration, data analysis and data reporting.

Additionally, grant funds will be used to support the following actions:
  • Developing and implementing quality assurance and quality improvement practices for court operations and performance;
  • Developing and conducting workload assessments for judges, court staff, and attorneys, using computerized data to the extent practical, and focusing on what workloads are needed both to support judicial best practices and to achieve positive outcomes for children and families; and
  • Collaborating with and training defined system user community on how to improve overall data collection and analysis.
 
 
Connections for Permanency Demonstration Project
Connections for Permanency (CFP) is a seven-month (mid-January 2007 - August 2007) demonstration project designed to assess the effectiveness of “family finding” practices in the State of Louisiana.  CFP is sponsored by the Louisiana Supreme Court’s Court Improvement Program through funding provided by the Louisiana Department of Social Services Office of Community Services.

CFP currently receives referrals for youth ages 16-18 directly from case workers at the Orleans and Jefferson parish Office of Community Services (OCS) Regional Offices.  The program targets those youth with few or no known family relationships and who have experienced the highest level of urgency for being connected.
 
The targeted youth often have a history of mental illness, destructive behavior, multiple placements and few, if any, significant relationships in their lives. They may also be close to “aging out” of the system.  In addition, all youth in the identified areas/parishes are more likely to exhibit these characteristics due to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.