What are the Braam Professional Standards All About?

The Braam Settlement Agreement required the Braam Panel, in collaboration with the Department and with substantial input from the Plaintiffs, to establish professional standards to be used in the event of enforcement proceedings.  Professional standards refer to standards of practice for the child welfare agency (here, the Children’s Administration) that establish clear expectations for the treatment of children in the foster care system.  These standards clarify expectations for social workers as well as the state administration.

Under the Settlement Agreement, the parties agreed that the standards established by the Panel would be the standards to be used in any enforcement proceeding to help determine whether the Department's noncompliance with the Implementation Plan constitutes a substantial departure from professionally accepted standards.  Under the relevant legal standard, a substantial departure from professionally accepted standards that harms children is a constitutional violation.  It is important to note that the Braam agreement does not include a mechanism to monitor whether standards are being followed in each and every case and itself does not require full compliance with the standards in every individual case.  Instead, they provide the professional standards to be used in an enforcement proceeding, as explained above, as well as “clear expectations for the treatment of children in the foster care system” for the Children’s Administration and individual caseworkers.

The Panel has now established its list of professional standards, having received significant input from the parties over the past year. 

The professional standards are composed of selected standards from the Council on Accreditation (COA).  For more information about COA, see http://www.coastandards.org/about.  The Children's Administration is currently in the process of being accredited by COA, however, the Panel views the COA accreditation and review process as separate from compliance with the Panel’s professional standards.  In a small number of cases in which the Panel found the COA 8th edition standards to be insufficient, the Panel has added its own interpretations to existing COA standards. These incorporate concepts from standards from other sources such as AAP and from other COA standards that were not selected for full inclusion by the Panel.

While the Panel decided not to include goals, benchmarks or outcomes of the Implementation Plan as professional standards, those will be monitored separately through the Panel’s regular reporting process.  And while the Panel also chose not to include state statutes as professional standards, the Panel has noted that “[a]s with goals, outcomes and benchmarks, the Department must comply with statutes even though they have not been included as professional standards…” 

All standards apply to all children in the Braam class, including both those children living in licensed settings and those living in unlicensed relative placements, except for a very few exceptions that are noted in the standards themselves. 

The following are a few examples of the standards included in the Braam Professional Standards:

FC 18.06  A manageable workload, which includes caseload and other agency responsibilities:

a.                      makes it possible for workers to meet practice requirements;

b.                      does not impede the achievement of outcomes; and
 
c.                      takes into consideration the qualifications and competencies of the worker and case status and complexity.
Interpretation: Generally, caseloads do not exceed 18 children or 8 children with special therapeutic needs. Case complexity can take into account: intensity of child and family needs, size of the family, and the goal of the case.  

FC 2.04  The child receives an initial health screening from a qualified medical practitioner within 72 hours of entry into care to identify the need for immediate medical or mental health care and assess for infectious and communicable diseases.   Interpretation: The mental health screening identifies suicidal ideation or history of suicide attempts and aggressive, dangerous, self-destructive, or psychotic behaviors.  

FC 12.01  The family foster care worker meets separately with the child and the parents at least once a month to:
a.     assess safety and well-being;
b.     monitor service delivery; and
c.     support the achievement of permanency and other service plan goals. Interpretation: Therapeutic foster care providers visit with the child at least twice a month.

KC 7.04  Sibling relationships are maintained through placement together or through communication, visits, and shared activities.  

The complete Braam Professional Standards are available here (pdf version, word version) and also in the "Panel reports" section of the Braam Panel website at www.braampanel.org. 

The above explanation of the Professional Standards is also available here as a word document.