Good afternoon and welcome to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors Social Services Committee meeting for Monday, March the 23rd, 2026.

May have a road call, please.

Supervisor Bortunato Bass.

Presence.

Supervisor Tem present.

We have a core.

Thank you.

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Thank you.

Thank you very much.

So we have three informational items on the agenda today, starting with the CalFresh employment and training program update.

Thank you, Supervisor Tam Andrea Ford, Agency Director for Social Services.

Well, the impending implementation of CalFresh work requirements as a result of HR1.

We are going to give your board an update on CalFresh employment and training.

It's been about a couple of years, so um this today's update is very much needed.

Um I'd like to ask Christine and Candace to come to the podium and begin the presentation.

Thank you for the opportunity for allowing us to provide you an update on Alameda County's CalFresh Employment and Training Program.

My name is Candice Willis.

I'm an associate program specialist with program planning and support, and I will be joined by Christine Sherdu, who will be joining me after my updates.

I'll be going over the program overview and the ABOD updates, and Christine will then follow with employment outcomes program expansion and client success stories as well.

Next slide, please.

So before discussing the CalFresh employment and training program, it is helpful to briefly explain what CalFresh is.

And as discussed by my colleagues, Roland Schau and Jaima Nat and Smetskill in February's Health and Social Services Joint Committee.

CalFresh is the federal nutrition assistance program, known nationwide as SNAP.

But it's also known as food stamps, and it provides low-income households with monthly benefits on an electronic benefit transfer card, also known as an EBT card.

And clients can use this as their full retailers that accept it.

Next slide, please.

So CalFresh ENT is a voluntary employment and training program that helps participants build skills and move toward employment and long-term self-sufficiency.

It is also a qualifying work program that can help ABOD participants or able-bodied adults without dependents to meet the federal 80-hour monthly work requirement.

The program primarily serves active CalFresh recipients who are not required to participate in CalWorks Welfare to Work Program.

And so this would also include timed out CalWorks participants as well as general assistance recipients who also receive CalFresh.

Next slide.

CalFresh ENT includes several activities that support participants along their path to employment.

It begins with initial enrollment where participants complete orientation and assessment and develop an IEP plan or an individual employment or educational plan.

Participants may then engage in education or vocational training, including community college programs, adult schools, GED, or high school diploma programs, ESL, and other industry specific training.

The program also includes job search activities such as career counseling, independent job search, supportive job search, placement support, and work readiness workshops.

And our supervised job search provides a more structured support with job search and placement activities.

Next slide, please.

Calfresh ENT also includes work experience and work-based learning opportunities, which may be paid or unpaid.

These activities can include internships or on-the-job training and pre-apprenticeship programs.

The program also offers self-employment training for participants who are interested in developing and launching their own businesses.

In addition, we provide job retention services that are available for participants who obtain employment through the program.

These services include case management and supportive services for up to 90 days after employment to help participants maintain their jobs.

Calfresh ENT also provide supportive services.

These supportive services will help participants engage in program activities or maintain employment obtained through the program.

These services help cover necessary expenses directly related to participation in CalFresh ENT activities.

Supportive services may be issued up front or provided as reimbursement, depending on the participant situation.

Participants may also receive referrals to additional wraparound services, such as domestic violence support, mental health services, learning disability supports, or even re-entry services.

Allowable supportive services may include a range of costs that help participants take part in their CalFresh ENT activities.

This can include required books and supplies for their classes as well as transportation assistance to school or work.

Participants may also receive help with tuition not covered by financial aid, along with uniforms, tools, or equipment needed for training or employment.

Additional supports can include test fees, union dues, and licensing or bonding fees, and other allowable services may include minor vision correction or dental work, minor automobile repairs, internet service costs, and child care expenses.

And child care is another supportive service available through CalFresh ENT.

Participants may receive child care reimbursement for children ages 13 and under, or for up to age 21 for children with documented disabilities.

Child care services can be provided by licensed or eligible licensed exempt providers.

These services are available during the hours the participant is engaged in an approved CalFresh ENT activity.

Housing stabilization is another one of our supportive services.

And this is available to our participants who are homeless or at risk of eviction or experiencing housing instability.

This program provides temporary housing assistance along with case management support.

Housing payments may help cover security deposits, rental payments, remove in or eviction prevention and moving costs.

Assistance may also cover essential housing supplies and utilities.

And this is in line with Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

We want to make sure that the basic needs are met and clients can move forward in their self-sufficiency journey.

So Alameda County Social Services Social Workers provide housing case management through the CalFresh ENT housing stabilization program.

This begins with a participant assessment and the development of a housing and employment plan.

Social workers may also help participants apply for additional housing programs and provide regular check-ins as needed.

Support can also include landlord engagement when appropriate and referrals to other supportive services outside of housing.

CalFresh ENT services in Alameda County are delivered by our employment services staff.

Services are also provided through contracted community organization service providers or CBOs.

These partners operate our employment services activities at four career pathways, education and training or CPEC centers, and at five LEP or limited English proficiency service centers across the county.

And so the program operates with two partner models.

There is a third-party model, and then there's the state partner model.

The third-party model allows for service providers to be reimbursed for eligible employment services provided to the CalFresh participants.

Reimbursements cover 50% of allowable costs, which partners can then reinvest back into their CalFresh ENT programs.

Partners operate under an MOU with Alameda County Social Services Agency, and they submit regular invoices and reports.

Alameda County then reports to the state and disperses payments to partners after federal funds are received from the state.

And then our state partner model is a little different.

Under that model, organizations are approved by CDS as directly to operate across multiple counties.

And then those partners invoice the state directly for reimbursement rather than billing individual counties for services.

This is a list of our third-party partners on the left side and on the right side is a list of our state partners and their sub-recipients.

They include boss and CEO, Fresh Success.

Now Fresh Success is actually in CEO actually are state partners, and they do have their sub-recipients or partners that operate under them and report to them directly, which are three strands, Global Foundation, Shabot College, Chef Ann Foundation, Climb Higher, Five Keys and Europe United.

And then on to the ABOD update.

As you've heard in previous HR1 presentations, the ABOD waiver is expiring.

And as a refresher, the ABOD definition now states that individuals between ages 18 to 64 who are able-bodied and do not have dependent children under the age of 14 must meet a federal work requirement.

The work requirement must be met and participants will only be able to receive three months of CalFresh benefits within the 36-month period if the work requirement is not met.

That is the 36-month time clock.

However, implementation in Alameda County does not begin until June 1st.

And this graphic shows us how ABOTs fit within the larger CalFresh population.

The largest circle represents all CalFresh recipients, and within that group are work registrants and then ABODs, and then a smaller group of ABODs that are subject to the time limit, or they're considered non-exempt.

Now ABODs who are non-exempt must meet a federal work requirement in order to continue receiving CalFresh beyond the initial three-month time limit.

To meet this requirement, individuals must participate in qualifying work or training activities for at least 80 hours per month.

Calfresh ENT provides one of the primary pathways for participants to meet this requirement, and it'll be through approved employment and training activities and managed by our case managers, our employment counselors.

These services help individuals build skills, obtain employment, and maintain long-term stability while remaining eligible for nutrition assistance.

It is important to note that many CalFresh recipients are exempt from the ABOD work requirement.

Individuals may be exempt for several reasons, including age, disability, pregnancy at any stage of pregnancy or being responsible for the care of a dependent.

Others may be exempt if they're already meeting the work requirements through employment, education, or participation in another qualifying activity.

Because of these exemptions, only a smaller portion of CalFresh recipients are actually subject to the ABOD time limit.

And at this point, I will turn it over to Christine who will walk us through the program updates and the CalFresh ENT participant data, as well as provide more detail on how many individuals in Alameda County will be impacted.

Hello.

So on this slide here, you'll see a photo of some volunteers at our partner, the food bank, the Alamica County Community Food Bank.

And so this is one program expansion that we'd like to highlight is that we are expanding our partnership with them to implement a workfare component in Calfresh ENT.

And I will explain the next slide what that means.

But essentially it involves participating in public service activities in exchange for meeting the work requirement.

And many of you are very familiar with the food bank, they're a longtime partner.

You may be aware of their work that they do with us and anchoring our emergency food distribution as well as our CalFresh application assistance and CalFresh outreach activities and partnering closely with us on CalFresh Awareness Month.

They've also been a very close partner during emergencies, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic when we worked closely with them to stand up, pop up food distribution sites, and deliver food to households that were isolating or quarantining during the pandemic, and also more recently with the federal uh government shutdown, also supporting food distribution at FCC offices.

So they've been a key partner throughout the years, and they definitely have a need for volunteers at their uh warehouse where they repack uh produce and send that out to 350 plus partner agencies.

And so we look forward to partnering with them to expand volunteer opportunities through them and help CalFresh ABODs meet the work requirement.

And through that partnership, it opens up opportunities to also expand that partnership to their 350 plus member agencies.

In addition to that, we're looking into developing similar partnerships with our existing uh contracted service providers who also provide other emergency food distribution services, whether that's few pantries or hot meal programs, um as well as our contracted service providers who provide CalFRESH and Medical application assistance.

So those are all kind of opportunities out that will open up soon.

Next slide, please.

So what is work fair?

So work fare is a way for individuals to work or provide public service in exchange for public benefits, and it must be completed with a public agency or a private or public nonprofit organization, not with private employers.

And this is one way of money that uh CalFresh uh ABODs can meet the work requirement, just one of the many ways that Candace mentioned earlier.

Um, one particular aspect of this is that it requires less hours, so it's easier to meet the work, the ABOD work requirement than the other options.

Um the required hours are calculated by dividing the household's CalFresh allotment by the highest local minimum wage.

And that usually works out to about you know 12 to 15 hours or so per month as opposed to 20 hours per week, 80 hours per month.

So it's a big difference.

And in exchange, we are providing a service to our partners who need that volunteer support to maintain their operations.

And it does differ a bit from other work-based learning activities that CalFurish ENT provides, such as work experience, which can include internships and on-the-job training in these activities.

Placements may more closely match the participants' career interests.

There may be a subsidized wage involved, and the work site experience may be paired with classroom lessons and professional development and work towards gaining certifications in the field.

And the hours can be completed by all of the ABODs in the CalFRSH household, not just the individual ABOD.

And participants gain valuable essential skills in meeting work site expectations and workplace communication skills.

Next slide, please.

So a couple other things we're doing are adding a couple new partners.

So this includes the Salvation Army in Oakland, their Garden Street site.

And they will be offering the opportunity for CalFresh ENT participants to enroll in their certified nursing assistance certification program as well as their construction pre-apprentipogram with APC NORCAL.

These are both five-week programs.

And at the end of the CNA program, participants have the opportunity to take the CNA exam.

And at the end of the construction pre-apprentip, participants receive OSHA certification and learn other essential skills at various trades as well as job readiness skills.

And we're also looking forward to adding another community college in addition to Chabot College to our partners.

That includes Las Basita College.

And Candace mentioned our partnership with Fresh Success earlier, also called Foundation for California Community Colleges.

They're one of our state partners, and through their partnership, they're able to provide administrative support that kind of lowers the bar for participation for some of our community colleges that you know may not be able to may not have the staff capacity to keep up with all of that reporting and invoicing involved as a direct third-party partner.

And so they take on some of that burden in exchange for some additional support to their community colleges.

And we also are working on expanding our referrals to third-party partners in both directions.

So currently, um, as Candace mentioned, our third-party partners right now primarily work off what we call reverse referrals.

And so these are organizations that already are in the business of providing workforce services to their participants.

And they help their participants apply for CalFresh, screen who is already receiving CalFresh, and through that process can reverse refer clients to us as CalFresh ENT participants.

But with the ABOD requirement coming up, we expect that there will be more CalFresh clients coming through our offices interested in participating in ENT, and we we'd like to also be able to refer them to our third-party partners from our offices to them to participate in their programs.

And so that's something that we're working with them to establish the process to refer that way as well and kind of assessing their capacity to expand and receive more referrals from the county.

And then in addition to that to that, we of course are updating our staff training materials and our policies and procedures to reflect the policy updates for meeting the ABOD requirement, and then also updating some of our reporting systems, data management systems, and some of the coordination that of the data between our partners and the county so that we can ensure that there's streamlined data updates in our CalSaws database, and so that none of our clients are losing their CalFresh benefits due to inadequate documentation.

Next slide, please.

So in addition to our county-based efforts, we just wanted to mention that the state is also looking into how they can expand the capacity of CalFRSH ENT statewide.

So CEO, our other state partner originally started as a county-based partner working with Alameda County and a few other counties.

And we're able to partner with CDSS as a state partner where they have that direct partnership and sort of for lack of a better word, franchise that out, that model out to other counties throughout the state.

And so the state is looking for similar partnerships with more organizations who can kind of, you know, who have that capacity to deliver those services statewide to multiple counties.

And so that's something they're looking into.

And of course, we're continuing to get training and technical assistance from the state as we as we develop our implementation plans and just you know kind of double check with them, make sure that we're doing things in accordance with policy.

Next slide, please.

So the next couple slides go over some of the demographics of our participants in Calforce ENT.

And this so in federal fiscal year 2425, we had over a thousand 1,091 unduplicated participants.

And you can see the breakdown on the slides, um, 58% male, 42% female, and 23% uh youth and young adults, um, 18 to 26.

Quite a few of our partners focus on that population, and then um 64 percent, 27 to 49 years year olds, which is the the old ABOD age limit up to 49, and then the new ABOD age limit up to 64 years olds.

So the 50 to 64 year old age group is 13 percent.

Um, and then the ABOD breakdown is uh 27% ABODs without exemptions and 73% of exempt ABODs who would not need to comply with the ABOD work requirement.

Next slide, please.

Um, and here you can see the race and ethnicity breakdown of our participants.

So you can see 40% black or African American, other unknown unreported 26%, Latin American 16%, white 6%, Asian 6%, mixed race 5%, and Native American and Pacific Islander 2%.

And then you can see in the top right the breakdown by um by uh boss district, and so the oh so you can see the the majority the of participants are um in districts three followed by four and five, and then additional participants in districts two and one.

Next slide, please.

Um here are some of our employment outcomes.

So for federal fiscal year 2425, 33 percent were employed through the program, and that was about an even split of 50 percent part-time and and 50 percent full-time.

The average wage was 1958, and the highest wage was 3750 per hour.

Okay, and here we just have a breakdown of um job industry sectors.

You can see the largest is education.

We definitely have a few of our partners who focus on that, including safe passages, which um provides internships for participants to work in after school programs, um, and environmental management, 16%.

You can see this is um largely reflected by our partner Civic Court, and then um social assistance and community outreach, 10%, retail six percent, security six percent, other transportation six percent, warehouse four percent, truck driving and waste management four percent, custodial and grounds maintenance, four percent, food service three percent, office clerical three percent, construction two percent, communications two percent, and then the last um few small slippers there are one percent each of manufacturing health, hospitality, tech, mail courier, maintenance and repair, and caregiving.

Uh, next slide, please.

And here we just have um some logos of some uh employers we wanted to highlight that we've placed participants with.

Um, as you can see, a lot of our partners have a practice of hiring on participants as staff onto their organizations.

So you'll see a lot of the same logos of our third-party partners and state partners who have done that, um, and as well as other public agencies, other nonprofits, and other private employers.

Um, next slide, please.

And we just wanted to highlight a couple of our partners uh for their innovative partnerships and employer pipelines.

So one is Civic Core.

Um many of you may be familiar with their partnership with waste management to provide commercial recycling services in Oakland.

Um this is a long-standing partnership they've had over the years, and through this are able to hire participants into Class B recycling truck driving jobs.

These are union jobs with the Teamsters.

Um, and then they've also developed uh additional partnerships with other agencies over the years through internships, certification trainings, and other permanent job placements through some of these other agencies listed here, the most long-time partnership with the East Bay Regional Parks, which I believe is like a decades-long partnership.

And then in more recent years, they've developed partnerships with East Bay Municipal Utilities District, EB MUD, California State Parks, and that's a uh recent facilities maintenance internship at Mount Diablo State Park that they've developed, Port of Oakland State Coastal Conservancy for some habitat restoration work, and then also some um wildfire resilience training with in partnership with the watershed research and training center in Calfire.

Um I just wanted to mention that um in addition to these partnerships, you know, their employer partners like EBMUD, for example, really go out of their way to really mentor and support participants, you know, providing guidance on what to expect in the application and the selection process, how to succeed at EBMED interviews.

So it's a really um it's a really kind of close cultivated partnership that helps participants to succeed.

Um next slide.

Please.

Um so another partner that we wanted to highlight was Roots Community Health Center, and many of you may be familiar with them and much of the clinical services that they provide in partnership with the county.

Um, in addition to their clinical services, they also partner with us to provide workforce services, um, including opportunities through a couple social enterprises that they've um established.

So Clean 360 Soap Factory is a uh business that they've established that uh manufactures and sells soap and other body products.

Um, and then Hamilton Broadway Signs and Installation is a graphic design company.

And so participants have the opportunity to participate in both of these social enterprises, um get experience in either light manufacturing or graphic design and the retail side of things.

Um then they also develop external pathway partnerships with other companies such as Green Shield Security.

And then lastly, we wanted to just highlight a couple of our client success stories.

Um here we have Fernando Griego from the Center for Employment Opportunities.

And you can see here in this little blurb that Fernando participated in employment readiness and job placement assistance with CEO, and this experience helped him to secure full-time employment with HP Communications as a maintenance and communications technician.

So now through this role, he operates heavy equipment and installs data extension cables that supports uh communications infrastructure throughout the bay.

And he attributes you know his success and his stability in his career now to his participation in CEO.

Next slide, please.

And then we have Lashonda P from Chabot College, and she um you can see in her quote here, she talks about how as a former foster youth, she received a lot of support from Chago College to really grow in her academic path.

And in addition to that, um, they uh helped her to stay on top of her CalFresh benefits, made sure she knew when that semi-end report was due so that she was able to keep her benefits and also uh provided transportation assistance so that she was able to get to class every day.

Um, and so she attributes her kind of academic success and her good grades to to the program.

And I think both of these success stories are really exemplary of how um you know California T provides support to participants with kind of their whole person needs, right, through case management, supportive services, wraparound services, in addition to the employment services.

Um and that concludes our our overview.

Um at the end of the slides, there's an appendix.

If you wanted to read further, it has a little bit of more information about our partners and and what they all do.

Um that we're open to questions.

Thank you so much.

Thank you very much for this very timely update, especially on ways in which we are already meeting a lot of the ABOD requirements that we will be expecting with HR1.

Let me start with uh Supervisor Fortune of asked the questions or comments.

Thank you.

Yes, this was very timely, very comprehensive.

It's great to have a full picture of what this program entails.

Just a few quick questions.

How many staff do the social work for this program?

And out of those funded staff positions, are there significant vacancies?

That is a good question.

And though I would love to guesstimate, I can actually get that information to you.

That's fine if you don't know it.

And so you want to know exactly how many social workers or are we talking case management in general?

Um social workers case management.

It's um a very robust program uh with all the different um steps that you described from you know the intake to the training and the other pieces.

So what I'm trying to get at is understanding if we have um the staffing that it will take to help people who um meet any of the exemptions.

So it's fine to email me a follow-up with that information.

Yes, we can't.

Okay, I just want to get clarification.

Um there are a couple different classifications that were mentioned during the presentation.

One was social workers who assist with one component.

The other piece would be employment counselors who manage the work requirements, and the other would be our contracted partners.

So not all work is done in-house, right?

Um, as was referenced, um, there are four or seven contracted partners that are also assisting with this.

So we have contracts with our CalFresh program employment CPET providers, and then we have the limited English proficient employment providers as well.

So it's not just internal staff that's wrapped around as well, but external as well.

So we'll be able to get you the internal numbers for sure.

Yeah, I guess I'm interested in slide five.

There's a list of activities and initial enrollment, education, vocational training, job search, supervised job search.

I'm just trying to get a sense of whether you feel like we've got the capacity that we will need in the future as the work requirements roll out.

So, and again, I'm happy to get that answer next time we meet Director Ford.

Um, I also wanted to make sure that I understand the interplay between the work requirements for Medi-Cal versus CalFresh.

And so for the $500 a month minimum for Medi-Cal work requirements, is that the same for CalFresh?

Meaning if they well, let me just um stop there.

That I'm just trying to understand if it's the same for for both programs.

Actually, it's not the same.

Um, so for Medi-Cal, they could meet the work requirements um for I think $580 a month, paid or unpaid.

Can also include Social Security, SSI and some other sources of income.

That's right, um, which is a little different from the CalFresh side of things.

Okay.

So we're going to have to just sort of meet people where they at, depending on what benefits they have and what the requirements are.

Yeah, and I think um one effort the state is working on both on the California Department of Social Services side as well as the Department of Healthcare Services side is seeing where there might be alignment with work requirements and how they can um utilize one program's um eligibility criteria for another.

So that's currently happening at the state level as well.

And as a reminder, we won't get the full guidance for Medi-Cal work requirements until June of this year.

Right.

Right.

Okay.

And then last question: how many months per year do recipients need to work for CalFresh?

Um, if the um participant is subject to ABOD, then in within the 36 month period, they need to meet the work requirement every month, except for there's three what we call countable months.

So they have three opportunities in a 36-month period to get accountable month and not lose their benefits.

Um, but if they use up their three months within the 36 month period, then um if they do not start to comply again with the work requirement, then they would lose their calfresh benefits, or if it's a mix of ABODs and non-ABODs in the CalFRISH household, the CalFresh allotment would be reduced by the amount for the ABOD individual.

And they would not be able to reapply again until the end of the 36 month period if they did not, if they chose not to comply with the work requirement.

Okay.

Thank you.

And Director Ford, do you remember for MediCal?

Is that needing to work one month during every six months because the re-enrollment is roughly that?

And I'm just trying to understand both.

I have not committed that to memory.

Okay, that's fine.

That's fine.

But I do know that Juan explained everything into Medicaid working group last week.

Yes, I think we have notes from that presentation.

Okay.

I think knowing that people may have benefits from both programs.

I'm just trying to wrap my head around how we sort of manage all of that detail, but I'm sure the staff that will be working on this will be well trained.

Yeah, and just a point of clarification here.

So HR1 introduced, well, ABOD work requirements has been in existence for at least the last 15 to 20 years, but it's the waiver that's ending.

But we also have work requirements in the CalWorks program and the general assistance program.

So it's almost every program that's administered by the Department of Workforce and Bitfits Administration have work requirements.

And so I think where there can be alignment across the board in all four of those programs will be beneficial not only to the client but for the workforce as well.

Because the workload is associated with all the work requirements in different programs.

So I think it's beneficial to find to see how we can seamlessly apply those work requirements across the board where it applies to the same individual.

Thank you.

So it's good to see so many partners.

Does it appear that we have enough partners for job placement or volunteer opportunities, or is there potentially a need to find more partners?

That is definitely something we're looking into.

And we have, you know, run some numbers on projections.

I just wanted to just to explain to first some context in terms of the volume of participants who would need to comply.

It doesn't all kind of hit everyone at once, right?

And so the the way that the ABOD requirement is implemented, it um it's based on the CalFresh recertification date.

And so starting in June 1st, um each month that CalFresh uh recipients have their CalFresh recertification or their annual renewal application due, um, that's when they'll need to be re-screened to see whether they're an ABOD and whether they'll need to comply with the ABOD work requirement.

So essentially helps us to stretch out that implementation over the first 12 months by dividing that, you know, by by recertification date.

Um those are some of the numbers that we're looking at.

And based on the expansion, you know, with the food bank and the ability to tap into that network of 30, 350 plus partners as well as our existing other contractors who do emergency food distribution and calfresh and medical application assistance.

We're really kind of thinking on that network to support that expansion.

Um there's other opportunities possibly with our um CPEP providers that at Director Ford mentioned, but you know, they they provide many other employment services that we want to make sure that if we expanded that to them as well, that we're not kind of mixing too many different um programs in in kind of their scope of work in their contract.

Um, and then um uh and you mentioned some of the in-house um support too.

And so the case management um that we provide also supports all of that.

So with that kind of tiered um implementation over time, um we we are confident that that should be able to support the the demand.

And Christina, before you hand over the mic, can you briefly explain um the CalFresh employment training process?

How we submit the application um was it annually or every two years to the state?

And it and we can always add partners if necessary.

Right.

Yeah, we have an annual plan process.

So you know, it's the third-party partnership is it's different from our kind of standard competitive contract procurement process that I think you're probably more familiar with.

But this is sort of a different process that goes through the state where we um update our annual plan, which includes all of the partners that we're working with, what their scopes of work are, which activities are providing, how many participants they project to serve, and their budgets that they'll be using to leverage that 50% reimbursement.

Um, and all of that is um submitted every year to the state and then also reviewed by um food and nutrition services uh before we're authorized to begin the next year of services.

So every year we have the opportunity to add more partners as needed.

We can do amendments to our plan.

We're actually in the process of doing an amendment right now to add the food bank for the workfair partnership.

Um so we have that opportunity, um, and the state expects it too, they expect counties to start amending their plans to expand their services to meet the demand.

Um, yeah.

And the last thing I'll add is not every county in the state of California is a Cal Fresh Employment Training partner.

I think we're one of 35 or 36 counties, but not all counties apart have a CalFresh employment training program.

Thank you for those questions.

Um just to follow up on that line of thinking.

So the third party partner model and the state partner model, uh, they have reimbursements that are different.

And so I was trying to understand um how do we budget for one model and versus the other model.

So the state partners work directly with the state.

Okay.

Um, however, our clients get an opportunity to benefit from their programs because they're operating in our county.

And so the reimbursement that happens is between the state partner and the state.

So our funding is not involved in that thing.

For our third party partners, um, there is a 50% reimbursement, and we target partners who are already doing the program services, and so they're using 100% of their own funds to service the program, and then once they submit their invoices, then we provide a 50% uh reimbursement that comes from the state, and then that comes from the federal government.

So we're acting as a liaison between the state and that partner for the third party partner.

So that's the difference.

The state partner goes straight to the state, third party partners uses us as a middleman.

Okay.

And so when uh we talked about our CalFresh employment and training program, overall, how much can we say that the program cost?

Um I don't actually have the numbers off the top of my head of the most recent annual plan.

Um I think past plans, I think our last plan was a little bit less.

I think past plans have been around five million, six million.

I think the last one was more around two to three million.

Um so when Candace just to add to what Candace was um referring to in terms of the 50% reimbursement.

So the 50% reimbursement um from our third-party partners, that's fully a pass-through from the feds and the state to them.

So that's not coming out of any county fund.

They have to come up with their own non-federal funding match to leverage that 50% reimbursement.

So they have to spend like whether it's like a grant they got from a foundation or donations that they get as their own revenues that they're using as their non-federal funds, they have to put that up for their budget that they're using to pay for their employment services, and then through that they leverage their 50% reimbursement, and we just pass it through, like Candace mentioned.

And then there's the other part of our 50% funds, is our budget.

And so we as the county, we have to find whether it's general fund or other um sources of non-federal funds to leverage the portion of our budget that's 50% for that's for things like our employment counselors, right, and um career development specialists, and then we have a small portion of what we call 100% funds that the state allocates to us where we don't have to come up with any match at all.

It's just it's just part of our budget that they give to us, but it's typically a much smaller percent than the of the total funds that we get or the total budget versus our 50% fund.

So it's kind of a mix of many different things, and as you can see, how Candace explained it, the more third-party partners that we have, the more we can leverage that funding without any cost to the county because it's essentially the third-party partners who are leveraging their own funds, and there's some administrative cost, of course, because we handle a lot of the reporting and invoicing with the third party partners, so there's some of that involved in terms of county costs, but other than that, it's um it's uh it's a much lower cost way to provide the services.

But other than that it's um it's uh it's a much lower cost way to provide the services okay so so when we um we look at our current um participants you said it's 1091 now that are in the um cow fresh ENT program that was from federal fiscal year 2425 2425 so do we have that updated for 2526 and then obviously come June and then October with the different requirements whether it comes from CalFresh or Medi Cal um how much do we expect the participant levels to increase um so the the most those numbers are the most current because that's last full fiscal year that we have data for and we're still in 2526 um and sorry the the last part of your question was sorry can you repeat that again obviously with HR1 and some of the adjustments in the ABOD requirements do we know how much more participants the program will have to support yeah that's similar to our response to supervisor boss around you know will we have enough capacity to serve it's sort of the same set of numbers that we're looking at to answer that question and so we're looking at that rollout of the um you know how many participants um would need to comply within you know every every 12 months or sorry every month within the first 12 months um who have their CalFresh recertification due and are likely to be screened as ABOD and then with with that number um we're kind of down estimating to account for the fact that many of them will also um likely be screened for an exemption and then some of them will also possibly meet the work requirement through another another mechanism like whether it's volunteering at their church for example um you know because um that that is kind of uh a point of difference between Calfresh ENT and like Cal works for example is that um you don't have to meet the work requirement through CalFresh ENT but we think it's the best way because then it opens up case management supportive services and all these other things right but technically folks don't have to meet it that way they could they could say I'm volunteering with my church and meet it that way as well so we're kind of down estimating that number for some of those factors and then coming up with that smaller number and that's that's the number that we're looking at filling through those partnerships with the food bank and okay some of our other partners and and supervisor TM Cales employment trainings on the federal fiscal year.

So we wouldn't have the next numbers until the end of September of this in terms of like overlap between uh the medical and the Calfresh ABOD requirements which is stricter and if like if you met CalFresh would you be able to meet the Medi-Cal requirements and in some instances um if you meet CalFresh that would also meet the Medi-Cal work requirement but that has to be written into the Cal Fresh employment training plan.

So with this modification they're currently doing they'll need to write that language into the current plan but it can't be the reverse so you have to receive CalFresh and Medi-Cal to get the lower work requirement but you can't use that for medical only because they're not getting CalFresh but but there is a better way to meet the CalFresh and Medi-Cal work requirement if the recipient receives both okay because I notice there's some exemptions for example like um Native Americans are exempt uh from some of the CalFresh ABOD requirements but I'm not quite sure that's necessarily the case with Medical because obviously then the American Health Center relies a lot on CalEM and MediCal funding us support.

Yeah we'll try to take the um path of police resistance in implementing this I think it was like a week and a half I just heard that if you're a CalFresh recipient and you're receiving Medi-Cal once they do the calculation of um CalFresh allotment divided by minimum wage it could be that that CalFresh Medi Cal recipient might only have to participate 10 hours that just that's just an example.

Um, so when I uh first joined the board, I know uh Supervisor Brown and Supervisor Chan at that time had um secured some funding uh with uh Senator Skinner, and we were looking at um a food hub concept, you know, the whole circular uh food economy with bringing re-entry people, bringing food as medicine, uh training at food centers and the food hub, and then obviously with re-entry folks potentially going into um like the food delivery and truck business.

The the question at that time we we had aborted the contract or our portion of it to the um the food bank and as part of their strategic planning, they they looked at um entering into this uh ENT partnership, I believe.

Uh was that part of their whole concept of trying to meet the food hub um requirements?

Uh not to my knowledge.

I recall a little bit of what you're talking about, but not in that context.

Okay, I appreciate that, but that was very hyper focused on food, whereas this employment opportunity spans more than just the food industry.

It's more about training and workforce development.

Okay, this is very helpful.

Thank you so much.

Uh any other questions?

Go ahead.

Just one more, thank you.

So for community service or volunteer work, are there specific guidelines on that, or do we have more information around what that entails in terms of meeting the work requirements?

As long as it is with a nonprofit and they are completing 20 hours per week, then it is sufficient.

There's some verification that's provided as well.

Well, yes, they would provide verification indicating they've done the 20 hours per week.

Okay, but yeah, it's it's low barrier.

Uh-huh.

Um those nonprofits need to be part of the 350 plus partners with with the county.

No.

No, this is a uh part of the federal work requirement.

So these guidelines are set by FNS, and so the community service can be provided by any nonprofit.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Do we have any public comments on this item?

There are no public comments on this item.

Thank you.

Uh, let's go to the next informational item, which is the update on the commission on status of women.

Hi, okay.

Let's see.

Hi, Supervisor Tan and Supervisor Bass.

My name is Sonia Salwan.

I am a vice chair of Alameda County Commission for Status for Women.

So I'm here today to update what commission has been doing lately or last uh one year.

Our main work has been advocacy and community engagement impacting women and girls in Alameda County.

Community engagement.

You go to next slide.

Okay, next slide.

Next slide.

Uh so we have about uh 12 commissioners so far from different and districts.

There are some vacancies left.

Next slide.

So this is our community engagement.

Uh, this is our visit to Center Rita jail.

This is our initiative to attend a graduation ceremony for incarcerated women.

This was more than a visit, it was about recognizing rehabilitation, encouraging second chances, and most importantly, restoring dignity.

We believe that women are supported during re-entry.

It has a long-lasting effect.

Next slide, please.

Celebrating uh, I would say policy advocacy and state level engagement.

We actively engaged with the California Commission on the Status of Women and Girls during their 60th anniversary.

It was in LA County.

Key issues we advocated for support for foster youth addressing human trafficking.

Two of our commissioners they went to LA and presented actionable strategies focused on real measurable outcomes for vulnerable populations.

Because of our efforts, the California Commission for Status of Women adopted foster kids advocacy as their number one priority for California Commission for Women.

Next slide.

What is CEDAW?

CEDA is convention of eliminating all differences against women.

CEDA asks governments to remove laws and practices that discriminate against women in areas like education, work, health care, and rights at home.

It was adopted by United Nations in 1979.

Alameda County adopted CEDA in June 2025, that is last year.

I want to extend our sincere gratitude to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors for adopting CEDA in June 2025.

This historic step reflects a strong commitment of Alameda County to advance gender equality all across Alameda.

So what's next?

It's adopted.

What do we do?

The next step is implementation.

The Commission remains committed to supporting the next phase of work and is excited to be involved in the implementation process, which should be intersectional gender analysis in Alameda County.

So we work with different organizations, we work with research and try to figure out where Alameda County is lacking equality in women, where is the disparity?

Then we highlight those points and help the implementation of those points.

So far the commission, the county of San Francisco has implemented CEDAW.

LA County has implemented, and Santa Clara County is preparing to launch its implementation this year, and we want to be the next.

Implementation is our final commitment.

Next step.

Supporting causes for foster kids.

Our focus has been on increasing access to resources, strengthening support system, helping foster kids remains our core priority moving forward this year.

Next slide, please.

Celebrating leadership.

You are our welcomed.

So in conclusion, I would I can say that our work this year reflects a commitment to advocacy at state level, community engagement, CEDA implementation groundwork, preparing for our 50th anniversary.

And lastly, I would emphasize to say when we invest in women, we strengthen families.

And when we strengthen families, we strengthen our entire Alameda County.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

You've been busy.

Yes, thank you.

Questions or comments, Supervisor Coach and Advancers.

Sonia.

If you can come back to the polymer for questions.

Sorry about this.

Thank you, Vice Chair Salwan.

I definitely appreciate your service as well as the presentation on all of the tremendous work that you've been doing.

It's really been a lot of work supporting women across the entire county.

So I appreciate that.

My main question is are there ways that the board as a whole or our individual offices can help support your work, including the implementation of CDAW?

I think as we said, you know, you have done amazing job supporting us all along.

And the implementation as I see it, it takes some kind of like a research all across the county.

So I think they have um uh interns from different colleges who are uh connecting with different organizations, different um I would say county programs to see where the disparity is.

Wherever we see, like I would see that most in Alameda County, um there is uh violence and human trafficking is a main part.

Do we how much is that reported?

And then there's an involvement of foster kids.

Um if you see with human trafficking, 60 to 70 percent victims are from foster homes, they have some kind of uh link there.

So we're trying to help these foster kids, and many of them are girls, maybe help them go with education, they don't finish their colleges.

They age out by age 18, so then they become homeless, and then they engage in different things that they can stay away from.

So I think the main is supporting them.

Like we went to this jail, there were many incarcerated women.

They were very innocent.

And uh you you can't imagine them being in jail.

So then they're given second chance, like uh different um skill set.

You can see how they were happy to adopt to uh these new skill sets.

They were uh happy to learn culinary skills, uh, excited to go out and uh do something more meaningful.

It's it's more like support system.

They don't have it, so they get distracted.

And um, if a woman can support another woman, I would say half of world's problems will be solved.

Thank you.

And just a quick note.

Um I have been in touch with uh Catherine Leibarger, who serves on the commission, and uh Shannon Holbrook, and we will be appointing our third appointee very soon, so that um our slots are full.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, and we will appreciate and see you guys at our 50th anniversary.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um I also wanted to extend my appreciation for all the work that the commission has done.

Um in particular, um, helping us with uh getting the CDA ordinance adopted and moving into this phase of looking at where the disparities lies in order to have an implementation plan that um is grounded in what the data provides.

Um can you be a little bit more specific about ways in which we could have the commission more activated in terms of supporting foster kids because I know that's a key part of what's going on right now.

Yes, I think I I also joined commission last year, so I'm also learning and start running before I knew how to walk.

So since last year, I think um we are more involved with foster care.

And uh as I say, you know, the housing is an issue, especially in Alameda County.

Housing is a crisis.

If we can maybe set aside that hey, this housing can be more for foster kids, like you know, section eight, we can have we can advocate more for housing.

Like LA County, they are creating big buildings for foster kids.

There are like 50 uh rooms for foster kids, and they will just like in senior house cares.

Uh there are their senior home cares where all the seniors are there, all the activities for seniors are there.

I think in the same way, instead of sending foster kid one here, one there, one there, and then they keep on rotating to different houses.

Maybe we can have a bigger area.

We can say these are foster house system.

We can put 50 kids there, and we have volunteers who can come and maybe teach them by the end of the day.

So this way our volunteers would be more inclined because there's a one building for foster cares.

They will come teach someone's lacking in math, they need math education, they can do that.

Um, someone needs more emotional support.

Our volunteers can go to these places, and there could be some rooms where could that could be dedicated for different activities and all that here.

And there will be more, I would say kinship between foster kids, you know, more emotional support.

Um if one foster kid is living in one house in one part of the city, the other one in other part of the city, they feel like odd one out.

If there's a housing system, we can start with, as I say, you know, maybe 30 houses, 30 rooms in a um in a housing community where all 30 foster kids are there.

So they feel like they're part of one system, they are not alone.

I think that can be very beneficial for these children.

They won't feel alone.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you so much.

Any other questions?

Okay.

I don't have any questions.

I look forward to the 50th anniversary and seeing you this weekend.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Do we have any public comments on the update from the commission of status women?

There are no public comments on this item.

Thank you.

We'll go to the next item, which is the Department of Children and Family Services, our seventh status update.

How many updates are we gonna have?

Um, until you all tell us that's enough.

Nonsense.

Uh so um, yeah, as you mentioned, Supervisor Tam, this is the seventh update from the Department of Children and Family Services on the um 2024-108 audit report.

Um, what you will hear today is, and let me just back a little bit on update number six was at your March 10th board work session.

At that time, I say the next update would be April 23rd, 2026.

Not realizing that um today is a date for the six-month um submission.

So we thought it would be prudent for Michelle to provide audit.

I mean, update number seven today, the same day that the submission is due.

Michelle love take it away.

Good afternoon, supervisors TAM and Supervisor Fortunato Bass.

Um next slide.

So today I'm gonna be covering um the audit timeline, the upcoming California C DSS audit on site, um, which is this Thursday.

The updates to the information that's been submitted at last week's um task force meeting that includes dashboard transparency and data integrity, accountability mechanisms, emergency response unit, timeliness, the backlog of open referrals, emergency response, daily staffing averages, um, the emergency response unit, the emergency response unit workflow, emergency response unit overtime, training capacity, placement capacity, placement capacity, recruitment and placements, documentation and court reports and quality of notes, the memorandum of understanding agreements, hiring bachelor's levels, and master's level staff.

Next slide, please, and agreed upon deliverables, and then I will go over what is being submitted today to the California State Auditor's Office and the status of implementation of those recommendations.

Next slide.

Oh, and regarding the agenda, a lot of these slides are regarding questions that have been asked at the task force meeting.

So we just want you to have all of that information that's being presented.

So on our timeline today, our six month progress report is due.

The following things, oh, next slide.

That works.

So our on site with CDSS is scheduled for this Thursday, March 26th.

The purpose of this on site is to review chat welfare program activity in Alameda County.

During the on-site, CDSS will perform case reviews, conduct interviews of staff and supervisors, as well as focus groups with staff and management.

There will be an entrance and exit conference.

They'll look at the reviews and interviews and review county practice, including timely response to alleged child abuse, prompt delivery of services to foster youth, timely and accurate documentation of service delivery.

Following the completion of the review, the department will review receive a report of findings and recommendations for review and response.

We'll have a better idea of the timeline of when we'll receive that after this Thursday's meeting.

Next slide.

So dashboard transparency and data integrity.

The dashboard is powered primarily by data that's been extracted from our CWS CMS, which is our chat welfare services case management services database.

The three tools are safe measures, which are reports developed by Evident Change, which overlays the database.

Internally developed reports queried from the database utilizing business objects, and reports developed by the California Child Welfare Indicator Project through UC Berkeley.

Data is refreshed monthly for most metrics, and the public dashboard verbiage has been updated to be clear about where we are getting the data from.

So accountability mechanisms.

So this is just looking at how we're trying to drive some of the change in practice through other venues.

One is a policy driver.

So January 2026, we began a meet and confer process with the PACE unit, which supervises, which assists members in the child welfare supervisory realm.

Supervisors actually go out on with new staff.

It looks at documenting the twice-monthly supervision conference memos, the ongoing monitoring of referral progress, and timeliness towards closure, utilization of safe measures for compliance issues, review of staff performance, and CFTs.

Next slide, please.

229 of those are pending approval by the supervisor.

So that means the worker has done all their work to complete the investigation and the supervisor needs to review it and approve it.

Looks like from 2021, there are about five open referrals that are in a various states of closure.

Some were opened erroneously, and we're in the process of fixing that.

A retired staff person is reviewing those.

So it looks like about 50% of referrals have no contacts that are assigned to people who are resigned or out on leave.

This next number is incorrect.

It says there are approximately 984 referrals without any contacts.

The number is actually 687.

The 984 represents it doesn't include attempts where we've gone out to the home or contacts that have actually been input in the system.

So, but of the 687, a point I wanted you all to have is no contacts in the system does not mean an investigation hasn't begun.

I think we've said previously that our staff tend to input everything all at one time.

They go out and do all their field work, and when that's all done, they come back and put their contacts in and do their investigation narrative.

But it's not a mandate, it's an encouragement.

And that's been agreed upon with our union for workers SEIU.

But the completion of investigation involves field work, which includes the documentation, all contact notes in a case management system.

So some of that 687 are absolutely referrals that staff may not have gotten to, but there's a whole nother set that staff may actually be in the process of finishing.

Next slide.

So emergency response, and this is the timeliness of backlog and open referrals.

So it just lets you know where cases are that are open.

So there's just over 300 new referrals that reveal we have received in the last 30 days.

And that seems to be about how many we get a month.

300 or so.

In the category of 31 to 60 days, there's just under or just over 200.

The bulk of open referrals are about a thousand.

So that's where the bulk of those cases lie.

You can see the highest number is with our 10-day responses.

Next slide.

In January 15, and in February, we're down to 11.

We're anticipating new staff coming in, staff coming on leave.

This is a fluctuating target.

This is for staff that are working from our day shift and our swing shift.

So staff start working at 7, and then we have our swing shift ends at 10 o'clock.

From 10 o'clock through the next day at 7, we have what we call our stand-by callback program.

And they take all the after hours calls, holidays, and weekends.

Next slide.

So we were asked for questions about dedicated time.

Supervisors and child welfare workers develop plans for how they will use their dedicated time.

This is two hours at the beginning of your shift, except on the swing, they do it on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

If they were to do the two hours of all their shifts, they would miss the window of being able to interview children at school.

As I said earlier, an investigation, probably about a third of that investigation time is spent out in the field, interviewing people, the child, the school, the parents, and the rest is spent on documentation in our system.

And that includes contact notes for everyone they've spoken to.

The investigation narrative and wrapping up the little pieces that let you move a case to your supervisor.

Next slide, please.

We were asked what the workflow looks like for just emergency response.

I know in previous presentations, we provided the workflow of the whole from beginning to the end of our system.

This looks like the workflow just at the very beginning.

So families identify with needs, and we may get calls to our child abuse hotline.

It can go a couple of ways depending on what the need is.

We may direct it to our community pathway from the very beginning, or referral may come in.

Referrals can either be evaluated out, some don't meet the metric on our tools that say that we should be investigated.

Some do, but there aren't any active safety threats or concerns, and those cases can actually go to our alternative response system, which allows for intensive case management and home visiting, or they can be assigned in ERU.

Cases are assigned in ERU as an immediate or 10-day, and then they go to investigations.

An immediate can wind up two ways.

One, it could wind up being referred back to our community pathways.

It could result in a child being removed from care, can result in a closure or court involvement.

So this is just a little piece of our system, but um it was one of the questions asked.

Next slide.

The next slide asked about overtime and emergency response specifically.

So the hours are separated by overtime hours, the first group grid that focuses on staff that are assigned either during the day or the swing shift, and that's the grand total of overtime hours for six months was about 1700.

Um, and then it's broken down again by overtime pay or overtime comp.

Staff can elect for comp time up to 80 hours, and after that just you get pay.

Um, the callback hours, our callback program is all over time, so all of those hours are for all the work that's done after 10 o'clock holidays and weekends.

Next slide, please.

One of the questions we've been asked was about training capacity.

So our staff development specialists facilitate 12 weeks of state mandated counting and program specific training.

Um, the staff development specialists assigned to the department receive a pay differential for the supervision and evaluation of induction participants.

Our training and onboarding for the department is aligned with what are regional best practices.

Child welfare supervisors, coach child welfare workers regarding 10-day and immediate investigations, increasing severity of maltreatment types in accordance with skill, ability, and progression.

So when staff first get to ERU, they don't start with ERU and then just take all the cases.

We start with them observing someone, then the first cases they will go out on would be general neglect after their success there.

We would do every type of abuse that they may see as a 10-day before we move them to an immediate investigation with those types of abuse.

Next slide.

Placement capacity.

We have good news.

We anticipate a soft opening of our transitional shelter care facility this Friday.

And what we mean by soft opening is for the first week or so, we're not opening it to the general public.

Our staff are removing children all the time.

And so this will allow us when we don't have an alternative placement for children to go to that transitional shelter care facility.

After we make sure that all the kinks are worked out of the system, you know, we have a septic system, we're going to have an increase of capacity at the assessment center, things like that.

Um, then we'll open it up to law enforcement for them to utilize the assessment center.

Part of that is there is a capacity of six.

We don't want everyone just rushing to bring all the children to the assessment center when we don't have a capacity.

Um we have 47 approved resource family homes that includes relatives, friends of the family, and community homes.

There's also additional capacity from FFAs that we partner with.

Um we have approximately 928 children and young adults and out of home care.

Excuse me.

And 231 are young adults.

Homes are needed to accommodate different ages, sibling sets, language, special needs, striography.

Um, and we continue those recruitment efforts on an ongoing basis.

Next slide.

We participate in community-based uh recruitment events throughout the year.

Thus far this year, we've gone through about six community events, and we have 14 scheduled through the remainder of the year.

And those are events are like County Fair, the Solano Stroll things in Alameda County where we are expecting to see the community at large, and it's an opportunity to connect with them in a different way.

We continue to invest in relative and kin placements, and we are still a participant in the state's Kin First Accelerator program.

Data shows that placement with relatives and can offer the best outcomes for system involved youth and lead to long-term permanent connections.

The county is also partnering with two organizations offering family finding and engagement services, which will expand our ability to locate relatives and explore connections, which will lead to additional placement opportunities.

Next slide, please.

All right.

Documentation, court reports, and quality of notes.

This was part of the audit.

Um, but we've developed templates for court reports, child visits, mental health tracking, interagency collaboration.

Our supervisors were trained on this new policy November 6th, 2025.

And things like an investigation narrative setup, which can take 45 minutes to do, is now being pre-populated by our case assistant support staff.

Next slide, please.

Next slide, please.

So one of the questions we were asked is how many staff we have hired in the last couple of years.

Um bachelors, we've hired 22 and 24.

In 2025, we hired 10, in part because the list had exhausted, so we had to start a new list.

Master's level, we hired 46 in 2024, and in 2025, we hired 24 theatricians below in 2024.

We lost 19 of the bachelor's level staff, and in 2025, well, that's total staff, and in 2025, we lost 10 total.

Um for the next task force meeting, which is this this Friday.

Um, we'll they've asked for a breakdown of open referrals by year of origination.

Um they may ask questions about the site visit.

Um, and we will be going over the six-month audit report progress progress report, and additional data points that they may have asked about emergency response will also be provided.

Next slide.

Um, so the updates that we are in progress of making to the California auditor's office.

So recommendations six, seven, nine, and thirteen, which were about making shadowing mandatory for all new staff.

The documentation of service provision, our relative notification process, and developing a process to track training hours for supervisors and child welfare workers.

All those had been deemed by the auditor's office as fully implemented.

The next item I'm expecting that will go to be fully implemented is recommendation number 10.

That's about our SIP.

We added the additional item as requested, and your board approved this in December of 2025.

So I've let them know that it was approved, and I'll be providing them with the minute orders from that date so I can prove that that's actually been accomplished.

Next slide.

So recommendations 11 and 12.

We've done all the written policies they've requested, but there are actually some action items that are required when the center opens, like tracking the number of oversays and presenting that to the steering committee, tracking the critical incidents and presenting that to the steering committee, restarting the health and safety committee.

None of those items can be done until the assessment center is open.

And now that we are opening this Friday, we will have positive traction and we'll be able to finish those two items.

Recommendation number 14 is about how are we holding staff and supervisors accountable for completing their training hours.

I present it that we've had six months of documenting in our conference memos when staff where they are with their training hours and how much need to be done.

Our conference memos that we have allow us to indicate if there's a performance issue.

And now this information can be more clearly stated in a worker, a child welfare worker, or in a supervisor's annual evaluation.

So I'm going to provide that information to them.

When you read the item and the recommendation clearly, they were looking to make sure training is clearly identified in the annual evaluation, and there's measures for both.

So I'm going to submit those and see if they believe that is a fully implemented item.

Next slide.

So the following recommendations will not be submitted as fully implemented.

They are in progress.

And things like that.

Well, all progress has been submitted.

Next slide, please.

So this is just the status of implementation of recommendations.

We've gone to a green, yellow, red for you all to have this information in a different format.

Before we had a timeline, we thought this might be an easier way for you to have a quick reference point.

So this just lays out where we are with all of our recommendations.

As I just said, recommendations one through four are pending or ongoing.

Next slide.

Next slide.

And then you have the green and pending.

So this is really a reference point for you all.

Number 11.

Those were, as I said earlier, 11 and 12 are pending the facility reopening.

Next slide, please.

And 13 is completed.

14.

Next slide.

And those are ongoing, although they may move to fully implemented.

Questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I uh appreciate your responsiveness to the task force and the audit committee and to our committee and to the entire board and our work sessions.

Um I have some questions, but let me start with supervisor fortunata best.

Thank you, Chair Tam.

Thank you, Miss Love, and thank you also to your staff.

I know that the work uh that this department does is incredibly important.

It's also very difficult.

Um, so I just wanted to make sure I appreciate the work that you do caring for the children of this county.

Um, we've had a number of updates, so I appreciate seeing the progress and I appreciate seeing how your um you know being responsive in terms of presenting this information both to the board as well as to the task force.

Um, I did want to note since there is an agreement in our board packet for tomorrow for family finding engagement, assuming that is executed, uh Victor Community Outreach comes on board, that will be very positive because it means we'll have additional capacity to do that family finding, and of course, matching a foster youth with their family is one of the you know, perhaps one of the strongest outcomes we could achieve.

I am curious just to hear how getting that contract in place and getting that capacity online will impact staff's ability to do more timely investigations and all of the other work that needs to get done.

So that won't impact investigations at all.

So remember, our system, I think because the audit is so heavily focused on emergency response, it skews the belief on what our system is.

So what it does is when children come into care, ideally they are going to a relative.

That is our first choice.

We would like children to be with relatives whenever possible.

So in terms of the audit, it doesn't have a whole lot.

The audit stated that they wanted children to have better relationships with siblings.

Whenever possible, we place children with siblings.

Um later and we still make that effort.

What it does for us though is when children come in and there are no relatives obviously available.

Family finding does the work of going back through and looking at all the history we have, all the searches, and not only do they find family, but they work to engage the kid with the family.

Because sometimes it may not be a placement, but it is someplace where you can go for every holiday.

Umnection to family stabilizes children.

It doesn't change investigations, but it does let our children, if they are removed from care, go be with their family of origin, and ultimately that's critical for all of our children.

Okay, that's good to understand.

Um and then slide 15 talks about placement capacity.

So 477 approved resource family homes.

Um, and it does say on the slide um that there are homes needed to accommodate different ages, sibling sets, language, special needs, etc.

So does this mean um, well, I guess the family finding engagement will help identify homes, is more needed in terms of making sure that when children are in need, they have someplace to go.

Absolutely.

I mean, I think the audit talks a bit about overstays.

We are always in need of children for older youth.

We are in need of people being willing to take a chance on children that have been commercially sexually exploited, siblings, older kids, kids with regional center need.

So we are always looking for homes for our children.

Um is there sort of a target number of homes or types of homes or sort of a plan in terms of identify more homes to be available?

What we look at is the number of children we actually have in care.

So we've got about 700 kids in care.

Ideally, we would have a home for every child, right?

And so that's always the target.

So ideally, we could get another 250 homes or another 250 relatives to take children.

We would like our children to not be in congregate settings.

We don't have a ton, um, but we would like to move them out of that.

We have some children in specialized settings where we're paying for the entire home for all the kids that could be placed there because our kids need that one-on-one support.

Ideally, we'd be able to move those youth, step them down from what we call small family homes into regular placements.

So I think there will always be a need for foster homes.

I've been doing this a while.

But I don't recall the time since I've been a manager in child welfare that we've ever had enough foster homes for all of our children.

So that will always likely be a need for us.

Okay and that wasn't a focus of the audit.

The focus of the audit was on overstays um so overstays come about because you either are looking for a child with very high needs to have some place to go or sibling set where we want to keep the kids together or commercially sexually exploited youth people with complicating factors it's very hard to find a placement for within 72 hours so that's where it kind of comes up I think from the question that was asked.

Okay.

And then the dashboard that is on the social services agency website is a good tool in addition to the updated chart that you provided us I do think sort of the green yellow red is you know it's easy to digest it's still a lot of information because it's a lot of recommendations.

Regarding the dashboard it did not look like all the recommendations were listed.

Is there a reason why they have been Jennifer Jennifer has been working on this dashboard and she's our senior management analyst she oversees our CQI work in the department as well.

Do you want to sure um good afternoon Supervisor Tam and Supervisor Bass.

So we have metrics in our audit dashboard for all of the recommendations where there's an associated metric for it.

So we have not included um we don't have measures for necessarily each and every audit recommendation but for the ones where it made sense to include a metric so we have ones related to the number of children in foster care the investigation timeliness and so we've tried to include the language about the recommendation that is associated with those metrics and that's kind of in a section above where you can look at the the recommendation text directly and then it's followed by the um the metrics so it doesn't necessarily include everything.

I see yeah okay um it may be helpful to you know link the latest chart on this page so that if you're looking to see how we're doing in relation to the recommendations you can see that there the green yellow and red I'm sorry are you talking about the green yellow red at the end yes um there's a lot of information out there I I think it's important to make sure this information is accessible to the public to journalists to stakeholders um so if there is a place to link the board reports perhaps that would be the easiest thing to do so that people can see what the latest information is.

So every presentation gets linked after it's presented so this will get uploaded tomorrow.

So anybody that goes to the page will see all of our um presentations it'll also see things like the state's letter saying that they will be doing it on site anything related to the audit that we've created or presented is on the website.

Right I did see um that information on the website if if it's possible to link to link to that page on the dashboard specifically specifically since I think if we go to slide six I think it's five six doesn't have a link.

Right and once you go to the dashboard though navigating back to the last board report or the collection of board reports you know it it just so it's all in one place is what I'm saying because this dashboard does have good information in terms of the associated metrics and over time but if somebody comes here and they're looking to see well how are we doing on the rest of the recommendations I think they do have to sort of navigate that to the website and look for it.

So don't slide the link is on slide five.

Right.

Okay.

That wouldn't be a problem to add it to the main introductory page just to say for further exam until to link back to that so I can add that.

Okay thank you.

And then we probably don't have time today, but perhaps the next time this comes to the full board.

Um it would be helpful to walk through the dashboard.

You know, I think that given that this these metrics refer to investigations and closures, staffing, the well-being of children in foster care.

I think it would be helpful to look at these trends over time.

So I'd like to request that we do that next time it comes to a board work session.

To the full board and not to here.

Okay.

Yes.

Okay.

Walking through the dashboard.

Thank you.

Um, let's see.

I I appreciate those questions.

I wanted to just double check a couple of items that I just need some clarification on.

So you said that we get about 300 new referrals every month.

And that um right now we have 687, not the 984 referrals.

Um that are quote without contacts, but that not necessarily mean without contacts.

Um is that concerning to you?

I mean, do you think did I turn it off?

Um it's always concerning when they all haven't been seen.

Yes.

Um, we do know that we are slowly going through some staff that went out on leave.

We're pulling their cases and absorbing them in to other caseloads.

Um, and then there's some 10 days, so it's it's always the process.

So if you were just to subtract what's come in in the last 30 days, it's still concerning.

But we knew we had a backlog that we have slowly been going through.

So 687.

I mean, the number continues to decline.

I think in terms of the backlog and cases not being seen in a few months, that number is gonna, it's slowly going down.

It's just we're eking through it.

That's the problem because it can have the bodies, but it is a concern.

If ever there is a kid that isn't seen in the timeliness that the state is identified, absolutely.

These are the things that keep me up at night.

So, yes.

Yeah, the uh obviously um you you don't want to create a situation where you're kind of compounding it, you're you're dealing with the 300 that's coming in every month, and then you've got the existing ones that still need to be um closed, and then you end up with a situation like I think you had um five open referrals, and then the one from 2021 is still under review.

So it I mean, taking like five years for that one, was it extremely complicated or just anomaly?

So some of them are anomaly.

One, the information had been.

I'm just remembering off the top of what was in the Excel sheet that I looked at.

One the information was put in a referral and it should have been put in another referral.

Okay, but it came up as that.

One another county sent us.

They did the investigation and for some reason referred it back to us.

So there's little things like that that would happen.

Um, but there's five out of the thousands that we see.

Um, it doesn't one, we have a question about whether or not it was an investigation.

For those five, clearly were not investigations, and we're just trying to figure out what the metric is to close it.

So, what I would say is yes, we have 300 ongoing brand new cases every month, but this is a dance that we have to do, right?

Because even though they get new stuff, we need workers to close the old things as well.

So I think our workers are always doing the dance of you gotta get caught up so that you can just focus on the new cases.

I think workers are aware of that.

I think when that happens, it takes stress off of them because even though it worries me that sitting in your inbox, it worries you more.

We've tried a number of strategies to close these referrals.

We've been successful, it's just taking a little more time.

So remember at one point we actually had 300, almost 4,000 open referrals.

So in the last two years, we have worked to close all that backlog to get it down.

Um and now we're going through and some of those people and we like Andrea recently gave permission for us to look at to open up the computer system because we think that worker actually has her notes somewhere else that we can pull and then we can create the um her completed investigation based on the information she has with her Microsoft notes.

And some of those people and we like Andrea recently gave permission for us to look at to open up the computer system because we think that worker actually has her notes somewhere else that we can pull and then we can create the um her completed investigation based on the information she has with her Microsoft notes.

So that's something we hadn't before, and Andrea gave us permission to do that last week, I believe.

So we're looking at all the things available to us, looking at transferring people to work on this.

We have tried just having staff close cases that were open, like bringing people initially that's what we did with our bachelor staff.

They just focused on open cases.

So we've tried to be creative to continue to close and make sure every case that wasn't seen was seen.

That's the most important thing.

Let's get out, make sure someone was scene and everything's okay.

So we have to do a lot of things at one time.

That's understood.

Appreciate that.

Um page 19, I'm trying to um understand this a little better.

So in 2024, under the bachelor's level, there were 22 hires, and in 2024 under the master's level, there's 46 higher.

So that's 68.

So the attrition was 19 for both those classes.

And so you had an attrition of in 2024 of 19 divided by 68, that's 27%.

Yes.

And then, but then in 2025, you had 20 out of 34.

That's like 59 or 60 percent almost.

Is that typical for your attrition?

It seems like you bring them in and then they leave or so it isn't typical of our previous attrition, but we're also trying something new.

Bachelor's coming on is new, and I think maybe a couple weeks ago, I was mentioning that we're realizing that there is a big lift for a bachelor's level staff to come in and do this work, and primarily when they get to the point of transitioning to the full load that the master's level would have.

There's other things in play.

We've had a few retirements, and some people come and this is not for them, and they realize that, and that's okay.

Even with that level of attrition, we've declined in our overall percentage rate of vacancy.

So in 2024, remember we had a high of 35%, and we're down to 25%.

So we're slowly going through stabilizing our workforce, but we have some staff that have chosen to leave.

I do believe um as cases stabilize and as the caseloads get lower because they do that with more staff just automatically, we will see more stabilization from our workforce.

We've also learned some things about how do we onboard people, right?

Um, one of the reasons why we take time in ERU to onboard is because we were losing staff without it, and so we've added a similar onboarding in every program before 24.

We didn't have that.

So we've done some things looking, we do exit interviews to look at why people are leaving.

Um but onboarding and training was one of the things that was identified that we could correct immediately, and so that's what we've done to try to stabilize it.

So I do think things are getting better.

Okay.

Yeah, I'm just uh sensitive to what you were saying about how to address the backlog and to address the new cases in.

You're gonna need trained people, people that are stay long enough to get trained and then to do the work and do the quality work because um I think in order for us to show at least the recommendations like one through five, which is the key when it comes to timeliness of investigations to show that it's fully implemented, we're gonna have to make these kind of changes.

So I'm trying to also get a sense of what we we can do, like what um we at the board can do.

Can do we need to invest more in technology for you, or you know, like the sheriff's department has AI writing their their sheriff's report at stops and things like that.

I don't I don't know what is it that what more we can do.

So as we come up with ideas where you can assist, we'll definitely bring them back here.

Okay, so that we're offering up um those ideas to you all first and ways that you can support us in this work.

We have tried some technology.

Um we did the nuance mics that Andrea helped us to invest in a few years ago.

The mics didn't work, but we are realizing staff will use their phone to do it.

So it's encouraging people to try the technology to help them do their work.

Um we're doing focus groups to hear from staff from our survey, like what are the additional things that you need for us to bring on.

So as things are identified, we'll definitely start to include in our presentations where staff have identified something that could come back to the board to assist us.

Okay.

Um I I just want to underscore that, you know, we're in this collectively together as a county, and uh we want to make sure that we provide the best tools and opportunities to ensure that our children are safe and that um they are in surroundings that will keep them safe in the long run.

So let us know.

We appreciate that.

Thank you.

We appreciate your support as well.

It's social work month, so I don't want to go.

Supervisor Fortinata Bass mentioned that she appreciated the work of our staff.

It means so much to our staff that they feel like you are invested and behind them in getting this done.

And we thank them for their hard work um in trying to meet the recommendations of the auditors.

Very much so.

Thank you.

Any other questions or comments?

Do we have any public comments on this item?

There are no public comments on this item.

Wow, okay.

Um, do we have any public comments on items that are not on today's agenda?

There are no public comments on not agenda's items.

Thank you.

This meeting is adjourned.

Appreciate everyone's time.