46100. Monthly Clinical Supervision Case Reviews

Original Date: September 27, 1995

Revised Date: January 3, 2022

Sunset Review Date: December 31, 2025

Approved by: Frank Ordway, Chief of Staff

Purpose

The purpose of this policy is to provide guidance to child welfare supervisors on conducting monthly clinical supervision case reviews. Clinical supervision includes building caseworker’s competencies, encouraging self-reflection and critical thinking skills, and building on training to support casework decision-making.

Scope

This policy applies to supervisors

Policy

Supervisors must:

Conduct monthly clinical supervision case reviews and verify policy is followed for the appropriate program with each caseworker under their supervision for all cases open 30 calendar days or more.
Maintain caseworker’s performance documentation separate from client case files.

Procedure

During clinical supervision case reviews, supervisors must:

Verify that the caseworker’s decisions demonstrated critical thinking for each case by reviewing and discussing the following:
1. Safety
  1. The safety assessments, safety plans, and decision-making process, per the Child Safety policy. This includes, but is not limited to:
    1. Decisions to leave children or youth in the home or to remove them from the home.
    2. Assessments for all individuals living in the home or on the premises and their role in supervising or providing care for the children or youth.
    3. Behavioral, emotional, and cognitive changes needed for the parents or guardians to safely parent their children or youth in the home.
    4. In-home safety plans, when applicable.
    5. Completion of background checks, per the Background Checks policy.
    6. Level of supervision for family time.
  2. Timeliness of response times and efforts to locate children or youth, per the Child Protective Services (CPS) Initial Face-to-Face (IFF) Response policy.
2. Permanency
  1. Timely identification and documentation of appropriate primary or alternate plans, including compelling reasons, when applicable.
  2. Progress towards achieving a primary or alternate plan.
  3. Plans and conditions for return home, including, but not limited to:
    1. Whether an in-home safety plan could support a return home.
    2. Any barriers to the family completing services.
    3. How parents or guardians have increased their parenting abilities to improve the child’s or youth’s safety.
    4. Whether a dependency dismissal, termination of parental rights, guardianship, adoption, or Extended Foster Care is recommended.
3. Well-being
  1. Timeliness, frequency, and quality of health and safety visits and monthly visits with parents and caregivers, when applicable.
  2. Appropriate services for children and youth, parents or guardians, or caregivers were identified, offered, referred, and are in place, when applicable. Services include whether:
    1. Voluntary or additional services that could either:
      1. Increase a child’s or youth’s safety.
      2. Reduce or eliminate risk and increase the parents’ or guardians’ protective capacities.
    2. Additional services needed for children or youth who have been in their parent’s or guardian’s home for 6 months.
    3. Any other services are needed.
    4. The family has connections to formal and informal supports or other community resources.
    5. Service authorizations are closed.
4. Engagement
  1. Engagement efforts with the family, including what is needed for the caseworker to successfully engage and work with the family.
  2. Ongoing efforts to locate parents, per the Guidelines for Reasonable Efforts to Locate children and/or Parents DCYF 02-607 form, when applicable.
  3. Family’s strengths and barriers, determined through the caseworker’s assessments in partnership with children and youth and family.
  4. The case plan was developed with the children, youth, and family and is appropriate to the family needs, when required.
5. Indian Child Welfare (ICW)
  Whether ICW applies and ICW policies were followed, when applicable.
  1. Case Documentation
    Whether case documentation is complete and adequately describes case activities, including assessments, collateral contacts, and family contacts.
Document a summary of the discussion under the Supervision/Administrative Review case note or in the Supervisor Case Review Tool in FamLink under the client case name and include important next steps, dates, and specific timelines, when applicable.