A final draft of the plan to redesign Iowa’s child and family services should be on the state’s website sometime this afternoon. After months of hearings and review, the child welfare and juvenile-justice redesign is nearly complete. Department of Human Services project manager Wendy Rickman says its final outline says the state can coordinate its own programs better, and see that they coordinate with outside bodies, like schools, that also work with kids and familiesKids and families deal not just with D-H-S but also with the schools, public health and perhaps mental health and substance, so the redesign addresses how all those systems work together. There will also be attention to different ways to serve kids and their families through public agencies, or private providers. Public or private sector management of some cases, and for some kids it may be recommended that their group-care living arrangements be run by the private sector. Rickman says she herself began her career working with kids in residential treatment and has been pleased with the state’s relationship with private providers, saying they’re willing to sit down to work out what’s best for them. In all, the idea is to get better results for kids and families in an underfunded system that’s stretched like the rest of Iowa’s resources. The final report’s being published for everyone to read on the state website, at http://www.dhs.state.ia.us/
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