States are required by the US Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families (ACF) to develop a Child and Family Services Plan (CFSP), which is a five-year strategic plan that sets forth the vision and goals to be accomplished to strengthen the state's child welfare system. The CFSP aligns and consolidates plans for multiple programs that serve children and families, as well as older youth and young adults formerly in foster care, to ensure a comprehensive approach to meeting the needs of children and families.
Over the past five years, North Carolina used its 2020-2024 CFSP as a roadmap to help transform its child welfare system. In June, our state submitted a new CFSP to ACF. This plan supports our state's continuing child welfare transformation journey by setting the following goals for the 2025-2029 period:
Goal 1: Strengthen all child welfare staff's ability to assess ongoing safety throughout the child/family's engagement with child welfare services.
Goal 2: Increase access to services for children and their families to keep children in the safest, least restrictive setting.
Goal 3: Develop and support a stable, competent, and professional workforce in child welfare.
Goal 4: Implement continuous quality improvement.
Goal 5: Improve engagement with stakeholders to ensure services are responsive to the needs of communities and outcomes for children and families are improved.
North Carolina's CFSP is posted on the NC DSS website HERE
This issue of Practice Notes offers a look at the ways our state is already pursuing goals 1-4 above to strengthen the child welfare system over the next five years. For more on current efforts to achieve Goal 5, engagement, please see the January 2024 issue of Practice Notes.
