Team Decision Making Update

Orange County continues to make changes within the agency to reach the ultimate goal of having Team Decision Making Meetings occur on all cases. Currently TDM’s are being held on all cases for all initial placement decisions that occur during normal working hours. These cases do not include those in which law enforcement removes a child without agency assistance. These cases account for approximately 50% of children removed. Approximately half of the children brought into custody by law enforcement are returned home within 72 hours. To reduce the number of child removals by law enforcement, without agency assistance, Orange County has implemented a “second shift” for Emergency Response workers that will employ regular staff until 10:00 p.m. This will not only reduce the number of children detained, but will also allow more children coming into care to have a TDM. In addition, a rapid police response workgroup has convened to strategize how the agency can respond to the law enforcement requests for assistance quicker thereby reducing the number of children detained. A special hotline for law enforcement agencies has been activated so they can request a social worker respond when they believe a child removal is imminent. This will facilitate Children & Family Services bringing into custody only those children who must come into care for safety reasons.

More TDM Facts:

• Currently there are 5 ½ TDM facilitators
• TDM’s have occurred in 10 languages including English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Sign, Korean, Mandarin, Chinese, Japanese, and Farsi
• Approximately 50% of placement change TDM’s have either maintained the current placement or resulted in the child being placed in a less restrictive environment.
• Since TDM’s began in March of 2004, over 1,100 TDM’s have been held.
• Of 256 emergency removal TDM’s 23% were released to their parents
• The largest volume of TDM Meetings are for placement moves