Courtroom Skills: Assessment of Training Quality and Participant Learning

http://www.truman.missouri.edu/ipp/publications/index.asp?ViewBy=DateThe purpose of the Courtroom Skills training was to improve the skills of juvenile officers and Children's Division case workers in the area of court preparation and testimony. The major objectives of the training were for Children's Division employees and juvenile officers to: Understand their role in the court process and improve their ability to persuade the judge of their position; Understand and work within the timeframes for the judicial process and the Children's Division; Prepare for and testify with competence and confidence; Grasp basic evidentiary rules and their uses during hearings; Knowing how to be responsive to questions and when to elaborate; React positively to cross-examination. The Courtroom Skills training was a one-day, seven-hour training, held in six locations around the state. While there was only one presenter per location, there were three presenters total, each of whom taught at two locations (see Table 1). All presenters used the same curriculum including the PowerPoint prepared by Mary Kay O'Malley. The first half of the day consisted of education on courtroom terminology and processes. The second half of the day was devoted to mock trials for participants to apply new knowledge. The mock trials were presented in slightly different fashions in each location. In Kansas City, law students served the role of attorneys and provided the questioning and cross examination. Another attorney for the juvenile office assisted in Springfield, while a prosecuting attorney served the same role in Benton

Moving Toward Implementation Through Interagency Education: Concurrent Planning in Child Abuse and Neglect Cases

In child abuse and neglect cases, a reunification plan for putting the child(ren) back in the care of the parent(s) is developed in tandem with an alternative permanent placement plan for the child in a process termed concurrent planning. Concurrent planning is a tenet of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 enacted in Missouri in 2004 (HB 1453). The goal of concurrent planning is to avoid multiple placements of a child in the child welfare system, thereby reducing the level of uncertainty in the child's life as well as the emotional risks posed by multiple placements. In concurrent planning, the role of those in the child welfare system is to simultaneously work toward placing a child back with the parent while recognizing that reunification efforts are not always successful. Rather than placing the child in a foster care setting where permanency is not an option, the child is placed with a foster family that is willing to work toward reunification and serve as a permanent home should the reunification fail. The dual and seemingly contradictory goals of concurrent planning make it a difficult concept to implement for both child abuse and neglect(CA/N) caseworkers and juvenile courts. Since 2004 when these changes went into effect, child welfare workers have experienced varying degrees of success in identifying and placing children in foster care settings that could become permanent homes in the future. Additionally, theconflicting nature of the goals of concurrent planning have led to confusion for some in terms of when the alternative placement plan should begin, how the plan should be discussed with biological parents, and the role of the juvenile court in assuring a concurrent plan is in place

Collaboration: Transforming the Concept to Practice in Missouri Judicial Circuits

In fiscal year 2006, the Missouri Department of Social Services, Children's Division (CD) and the Office of State Courts Administrator (OSCA) decided to partner again. The two agencies decided to offer a training opportunity specifically tailored to meet the team building needs of child welfare teams. After reviewing possible curriculums from a number of organizations, the educational team (composed of representatives from CD and OSCA) selected the “Collaboration: A Training Curriculum to Enhance the Effectiveness of Criminal Justice Teams” from the State Justice Institute to provide the training necessary to address the issues facing Missouri's child welfare teams. The Collaboration curriculum recognizes the diverse roles and purposes present on criminal justice teams and seeks to promote a better working environment by accepting those differences and moving forward to a common goal. In the case of child welfare teams, this goal is to meet the best interests of the child. By focusing on the common goal and not their differences, a child welfare team can learn to collaborate rather than cooperate. The outcomes for the child can be improved, as a result of this enhanced team functioning. The Collaboration curriculum also met other goals identified by the educational development team. The curriculum encourages small teams working in a neutral location and combines education with group exercises designed to enable groups to identify common goals, clarify responsibilities, and develop action plans for the future. This assessment of the Collaboration Workshop, conducted by the Children's Division and the Office of State Courts Administrator, is divided into four major sections. The first section details how circuit teams were selected and facilitators were trained. The next section focuses on the Collaboration Workshop through the use of facilitator observations and participant evaluations. The third section analyzes the results of the post-conference assessment and the report concludes with recommendations for future Collaboration Workshops

Assessing Change Following Interagency Education

House Bill 1453 (2004) brought about a number of changes in the way child welfare cases are processed and approached in the State of Missouri. These statutory changes affect not only the children and families involved, but also the judges, clerks, juvenile officers, Children's Division caseworkers, CASAs and attorneys handling child abuse and neglect cases

Time Limits In Missouri

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity and Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996 dramatically altered the social safety net. The federal legislation ended cash assistance as an entitlement program, shifted the funding stream to state block grants, and introduced time limits for individuals receiving cash assistance. According to federal guidelines, persons may not receive cash assistance for more than 60 months. Although states possess the option of implementing shorter time limits, Missouri, like many other states, adopted the federal guidelines of 60 months. Other states varied on both the length of a periodic time limit and the lifetime limit. Arizona, for example, does not have a lifetime limit but does not allow for more than 24 months of cash assistance within a 60 month period of time. Because of these variations in guidelines, the largest number of cases closed due to time limits are concentrated in states with shorter time limits such as Connecticut (21 months), Idaho (24 months), and Utah (36 months). Missouri's welfare plan was signed into law on July 1, 1997 and because of that time limits were first exhausted in July, 2002. This brief provides specific information regarding caseload trends in Missouri, including the length of time cases have been receiving benefits, the number of cases reaching the time limits, and the geographic distribution of case closures in Missouri.Includes bibliographical referece

Evaluation of Recommended Sentencing Pilot Program

Missouri's prison population rose significantly through the 1990s and early 2000s. When compared nationally, Missouri's sentencing laws resulted in longer prison terms and in the imprisonment of a greater proportion of non-violent offenders. Imprisonment is the most costly alternative ($14,005 in Fiscal Year 05), but may not be the most effective alternative. In 2003, the Missouri General Assembly responded to these issues with the passage of Senate Bill 5 which, among other things, provided additional sentencing alternatives for nonviolent offenders. In partial response to the changes made in SB 5, the Missouri Sentencing Advisory Commission issued the Report on Recommended Sentencing, in 2004 which contained a proposed Sentencing Assessment Report, designed to replace the existing Pre-sentence Investigation Reports. The Sentencing Assessment Reports were implemented on a trial basis in six circuits in early 2005. This analysis provides an assessment of the new reports

Use of Cash Assistance by Non-Citizens in Missouri

"07-2005."The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) set in place restrictions on many forms of assistance, including cash grants or Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). Specifically, these new federal guidelines limited assistance for certain categories of immigrants, most notably those who entered the country after the federal welfare bill was signed in August of 1996. Most of these immigrants were required to have a five year minimum waiting period before they were eligible for cash assistance. However, as with most provisions, states had some ability to modify federal regulations. In Missouri, several groups of non-citizens are allowed to receive TANF. First, non-citizens who were in the country prior to August 22, 1996, and who otherwise meet criteria, maintained their eligibility. Additionally, certain groups who entered the country after August 22, 1996, were also classified as eligible. These included: refugees, asylees, and trafficking victims. According to a report by the Urban Institute, Missouri has a rather extensive safety net system still in place for immigrants, and is ranked among the top quarter of all states (Tumlim, Zimmerman, and Ost 1999). Given these changes, it is important to understand the situation of non-citizens with regard to the safety net in Missouri. How many non-citizens are receiving benefits? Where do they live in Missouri? In this brief, we assess patterns of cash assistance for non-citizens from 1999 to 2003. We find that, overall, noncitizens represent a very small percentage of the caseload, less than five percent at the peak in early 1999. Additionally, cases headed by non-citizens have declined substantially over the time studied, both in terms of raw numbers and relative to cases headed by citizens. The reason for the decline can not be known with certainty, but increased rates of naturalization have played a role. Finally, the non-citizen cases are not spread evenly across the state, but are concentrated in several counties, particularly those that have experienced recent increases in immigration.Includes bibliographical reference

Comprehensive Child Welfare Conference An Evaluation of Interagency Learning

In Missouri, 9,833 reports of child abuse and neglect were substantiated in fiscal year 2004 and 8,725 children were under the care of the Department of Social Services, Children's Services Division. Each time a child enters the social service system, state law requires a team of professionals, including the Children's Services Division, judges, juvenile officers, court appointed special advocates (CASA), and guardian ad litems, to work together. These teams investigate the abuse / neglect issues and determine what steps should be taken in the best interest of the child. The wide impact of the new law (House Bill 1453, 2004) required a new approach, a multidisciplinary approach, that would allow circuits to work as a team to devise methods to implement the provisions. In an effort to improve the coordination and problem solving abilities of these teams at the local level, the Department of Social Services and the Office of State Courts Administrator funded, developed, and implemented a series of regional conferences in Spring 2005. The Comprehensive Child Welfare Conference (CCWC) brought together over 600 professionals from each of the judicial circuits in Missouri. The regional conferences were held in Cape Girardeau, Columbia, Kansas City, St. Louis and Springfield. Each circuit was represented by a team of twelve to twenty-five individuals and tended to be well balanced between court staff (judges, clerks, juvenile officers), Children's Division employees, attorneys (for parents and for children), and special advocates (CASA). Each regional conference provided education on House Bill 1453 and addressed other issues related to child welfare cases through plenary sessions and concurrent workshops. Further, each conference provided the opportunity for representatives of multiple perspectives within each circuit to discuss how changes can and should be made to child welfare case processing. Regional conferences are expensive and time-consuming undertakings. If the objectives of the conference - education and enhanced circuit level problem solving - were not achieved, new educational approaches would be necessary in the future. With this in mind, the Institute of Public Policy worked with OSCA to develop an evaluation plan that would, in part, determine successes and identify improvements for the future. The first step of this evaluation process was to identify the goals of the regional conferences. Through a series of meetings with the organizers, goals were identifi ed and linked to the assessment forms to be completed by attendees during the conference

An Overview of Highway Funding In Missouri

http://www.truman.missouri.edu/ipp/publications/index.asp?ViewBy=DateEstablished in 1913, the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) is responsible for all modes of transportation including air, rail, water, and mass transit, as well as highway transportation. Unlike most other Missouri departments, the director of MoDOT is not appointed by the Governor. Rather, a group of six commissioners, appointed by the Governor and approved by the Senate, hire the director. The director then manages the day to day operations of the more than 6,650 full-time-equivalent employees. This report focuses on highway transportation, the largest, most controversial and most important of the department's transportation functions. The report provides a historical context for highway development and maintenance, an overview of the issues currently facing MoDOT and of the current funding mechanisms, a brief comparison of Missouri's highway funding rates with those of other states, and a description of the ways the revenues are distributed.Includes bibliographical referece

Focus Groups on Infant Care Practices in Missouri

The goal of this research project was to better understand how individuals, primarily low-income African-American parents in Missouri, make decisions on infant care practices, specifically those focused around feeding and sleeping