Association Updates
Board of Trustees meets
On Oct. 2, the PCSAO Board of Trustees met and approved last month’s minutes, August financial report, the Dues Committee recommendation, the revised financial procedures manual, and the updated investment policy. The board decided on topics for the upcoming Executive Membership meeting and discussed the Annual Conference held the previous week. The board received updates on the budget investment pertaining to children services, Family First, Tiered Treatment Foster Care, and Ohio START. The board reviewed recommendations for the Legislative Committee pertaining to HB 298, HB 302, and HB 321. Lakeisha Hilton, ODJFS OFC Assistant Deputy Director, along with representatives from OSU presented the Citizen Review Panel’s 2019 recommendations and gathered feedback. The Board of Trustees will meet next on Nov. 6.
East Central Ohio Directors’ Association fall retreat
The OJFSDA East Central District held its fall retreat on Oct. 1. ODJFS Director Kim Hall provided the opening keynote highlighting the new budget investments for children services; new trainings being developed; future roundtables on specific JFS topics; and plan for developing the department’s 20-21 strategic plan. Attendees were able to ask questions during this morning session. Angela Sausser, PCSAO’s Executive Director, presented updates pertaining to the Family First Prevention Services Act during a breakout session. Other topics that were presented at the retreat included cross-division creative partnership, CCMEP best practices, PRC plans, and updates on technology.
Community Education Committee meets
Training on video production using Adobe Premiere Pro was provided by Stacy Ferencik (Trumbull) and Stephen Flannery (Cuyahoga) at the Oct. 4 meeting. The final meeting of the year, Nov. 8, will focus on training casework and other agency staff on communications basics.
Anti-human trafficking update
PCSAO and grant partners provided an all-day human trafficking training for Delaware County Juvenile Court and their community partners Oct. 1. PCSAO and grant partners provided all-day human trafficking trainings to staff of Tuscarawas County Job and Family Services Oct. 3 and 4. If your agency would like a human trafficking training, please reach out to PCSAO's anti-human trafficking coordinator by emailing
[email protected]
.
Rules updates
As reported earlier, new rule 5101:9-7-29.1, Public children services agency (PCSA) local contributions, has been final-filed with JCARR and became effective Oct. 4. Please note that by Oct. 31, the following must occur:
- Certification of receipt of local county funds in CY2019 (PCSA Director and County Auditor both certify)
- Certification of receipt of local county funds in SFY2020—only for those counties which received local county funds in CY2019. (PCSA Director and County Auditor both certify)
ODJFS Fiscal will send the final rule, along with guidance and certification forms, to agencies the week of Oct. 7.
Similarly, new rule 5101:9-6-20, Foster parent recruitment allocation, was filed with JCARR on Aug. 23 and is expected to be effective this month or in November. Am. HB 166 of the 133rd General Assembly appropriated $5M/year GRF for the 2020-2021 biennium, to be distributed to county public children services agencies. The purpose of the funds is to assist PCSA staff with foster parent recruitment, engagement and support activities.
ODJFS has confirmed the following administrative details for this allocation and will issue guidance soon:
- Activities from staffing to recruitment and support are allowable activities under this funding and both a direct charge code and RMS code will be available.
- RMS code 789 – Foster Parent Recruitment, has been established. In addition a direct charge code also will be available for this funding.
- Foster Parent and Recruitment will be added to the Certification of Funds process in order to have the ability to move the non-Allocated portion to the grant allocation.
Pre-Clearance: As of Oct. 4, no children services-related rules were in pre-clearance.
Clearance: Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act Policy Letter No. 19-01 is currently in clearance through Oct. 14. This letter is in regards to implementation of workforce development services under the Opioid Emergency Recovery grant. You can review and comment
here
.
The PCSAO Rules Review Committee met in-person on Oct. 3. ODJFS staff presented draft revisions to Ch. 37 Assessment Rules, based on feedback from this summer’s MORRPH sessions. The draft revisions were reviewed together by ODJFS staff and committee members, and additional changes were made to the rules. ODJFS plans to re-submit the revised rules to pre-clearance sometime in the next few weeks; all MORRPH attendees will receive notice when that occurs.
Rules filed with JCARR: A revised Kinship Caregiver Program rule was filed on Oct. 3, with only a grammatical revision to clarify the legislation reference. The public hearing for this rule remains on Oct. 9. You can review the revised rule
here
.
