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The New York City Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) has failed to properly oversee a Brooklyn preventive care service provider to ensure that criminal background checks are being conducted on employees working with children, according to an audit by New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr.

“The Child Development Support Corporation (CDSC) is entrusted with providing essential services to families, and their children who are at risk of entering the foster care system,” Thompson said. “However, a recent audit by my office shows that CDSC has not adequately followed guidelines for hiring employees, providing services, and tracking data. It is imperative that ACS work with CDSC to correct these discrepancies so that children and their families receive the attention and services that they need.”

CDSC – a not-for-profit, community based, multi-service organization – provides preventive services under agreements with ACS to families of the Clinton Hill, Fort Greene, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Brownsville communities of Brooklyn.

Preventive services provided by CDSC include supportive and rehabilitative services to children under 18 years of age and their families for the purpose of either averting the placement of a child in foster care or enabling a child who has been placed in foster care to return to his or her family at an earlier time than would be otherwise possible. Examples of preventive services provided by CDSC include, but are not limited to, the following areas: day care, parent training, domestic violence, substance abuse, housing, job training, and access to health coverage.

Thompson’s audit, which covers the period July 2005 through June 2007, found that CDSC did not adequately comply with significant provisions of its preventive service agreements with ACS and its own procedures. Full text of the audit can be viewed at www.comptroller.nyc.gov.

“As a result, there is no reasonable assurance that CDSC properly helped families to obtain the preventive services needed to become stabilized so that the children are not placed in foster care,” Thompson said.

CDSC has two agreements with ACS, each for a three-year term, covering the period January 1, 2006 through December 31, 2008, to provide preventive services to families. The first agreement, totaling $3,109,832, requires CDSC to provide general preventive services to 75 families. The second agreement, totaling $1,370,613, requires CDSC to provide family rehabilitation services to 30 families.

ACS monitors and evaluates the performance of CDSC through two separate computer systems that are not linked – CONNECTIONS, a New York State system of statewide records of child welfare cases, and the Preventive Organization Management Information System (PROMIS), an ACS system of records of preventive services cases. CDSC is required to record detailed case information in CONNECTIONS and general case information in PROMIS.

One of the audit’s major findings was that CDSC could not provide evidence that the credentials of some of the employees who worked for the agency were proper.  Specifically, CDSC could not provide evidence that 15% of employees met proper job credentials.

Furthermore, CDSC could not provide evidence that criminal-history record checks were conducted through the State Division of Criminal Justice Services for 95 % of employees.
Thompson’s audit also found that CDSC did not adequately monitor the preventive service cases reviewed in the audit sample. For example, the required number of minimum casework contacts with the families was not always made. For many of the cases involving substance abuse, there was no indication in the case records that CDSC staff ensured that parents were periodically tested for substance abuse.

Thirdly, the audit found that CDSC case workers did not always submit Family Assessment and Service Plans (FASPs) on time, and the plans did not always contain the required signatures.

Finally, auditors found that CDSC did not always ensure the reliability of case data recorded in CONNECTIONS and PROMIS. Therefore, they were unable to determine whether CDSC maintained at least a 90 percent utilization rate, as required by its agreements with ACS. 
Thompson made 12 recommendations, including that:

• CDSC comply with the personnel provisions of its preventive agreements with ACS;
  
  
• CDSC and ACS should review the cases in the audit sample that were identified as not having received the preventive services needed. If warranted, CDSC and ACS should immediately take actions to ensure that the necessary services are provided to the children and their families;
  
• CDSC should improve its oversight of cases and comply with the case-practice provisions of its agreements with ACS;
  
  
• ACS should modify the ACS Preventive Services Quality Assurance Standards & Indicators and FRP Addendum to define a benchmark for minimum frequency of testing of parents engaged in substance abuse; and,
  
  
• CDSC and ACS should investigate discrepancies in CONNECTIONS and PROMIS, and if warranted make necessary changes.

In their response to the audit, ACS officials agreed with 10 and partially agreed with 2 of the audit’s 12 recommendations.


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