All 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico are eligible to participate in the federal Court Improvement Program administered by the Children's Bureau of the US Department of Health and Human Services.  Federal legislations that provide funding for the CIP basic grant program was first enacted in 1993 as a response to the dramatic increase in child abuse and neglect cases and the expanded role of courts in achieving stable, permanent homes for children in foster care. The Safe and Stable Families Amendments of 1997, 2001, and 2006 extended the court improvement program through federal fiscal year 2011.  In addition, the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 amended the Social Security Act to authorize two new CIP grants; one for data collection and analysis to help ensure that foster children’s needs for safety, permanency and well-being are being met in a timely and appropriate manner and another grant to provide training for judges, attorneys and other legal personnel in child welfare cases as well as additional cross-training to include agency staff and providers.  All three grants, the basic grant, the data collection and analysis grant and the training grant are awarded to the highest court of each participating state.  Indiana has participated in the CIP program every year since its inception.

Indiana’s CIP Program
Federal grants under CIP are made to state supreme courts. The Indiana Supreme Court has established an executive committee to supervise the operation of the program in Indiana. Current members of the executive committee are Chief Justice Randall T. Shepard, Supreme Court Justice Frank Sullivan, Jr., and Allen Superior Court Judge Charles Pratt. Staff support for the program is provided by Mike Murphy of the Division of State Court Administration and Nancy Gettinger of the Indiana Judicial Center.
In addition to the Executive Committee, the Indiana CIP program is guided by an ongoing multi-disciplinary committee formed in 2006.  The members of the committee were jointly appointed by Chief Justice Shepard and Department of Child Services Director Payne.  The Child Welfare Improvement Committee (CWIC) meets regularly to help formulate Indiana’s CIP strategic plans, to help plan CIP events and to provided input regarding specific child welfare issues involving the courts.
Since Indiana began participating in the program in 1995, Indiana’s CIP has progressed through five phases. Activities of each phase are as follows:

A. Phase I: Assessment of Indiana’s Adjudication of Child Abuse and Neglect Cases (1995 to June 1997).
Under the guidance of the Executive Committee appointed by the Indiana Supreme Court that at that time consisted of the Chief Justice of Indiana, Randall T. Shepard, Monroe Circuit Court Judge Viola Taliaferro, Allen Superior Court Judge Stephen Sims, and Supreme Court Justice Frank Sullivan, Jr., the Court conducted a comprehensive study of the roles, responsibilities, and effectiveness of the state’s judicial system in handling child abuse and neglect cases. All of Indiana’s counties participated. The results of this statewide assessment were published in June 1997 in The Indiana Court Improvement Project Phase One Final Report.

The report concluded that the following goals aimed at improving Indiana’s adjudication of cases involving child abuse and neglect should be pursued:

• Put child abuse and neglect (“CHINS”) cases on a “fast track;” that is, reduce the amount of time between initial filing and entry of court dispositional decree; and reduce the amount of time between entry of the dispositional decree and the time the case is concluded.
• Enhance training of participants in the juvenile justice system.
• Establish Family Courts.
• Improve coordination of services delivered pursuant to orders in CHINS cases.

B. Phase II: Initial Sub-grants to Counties (Late 1996 to December 1998).
In late 1996, the Court solicited statewide proposals on what courts could do to put CHINS cases on a “fast track.” A total of eighteen grants were approved. All of these projects ended in December, 1998. The projects included computer and software enhancements in county trial courts with juvenile dockets; training for CASA volunteers, court personnel, and attorneys; provision of “family court case managers”; implementation of a “family court”; and the establishment of a “transitional services” program.

C. Phase III: Second Round of Sub-grants to Counties (March 1999 to January 2001).
The Executive Committee authorized a second round of grant applications in late 1998. In March, 1999, grants were awarded to the five Indiana counties handling the largest volume of child welfare cases from among those that applied. The projects funded were aimed at assisting and expediting the flow and disposition of child welfare cases within the county court system, as our 1997 assessment plan recommended. These programs are briefly summarized, as follows:

• Allen Superior Court. Hired a Dependency Mediator to facilitate all initial hearings in CHINS and Detention cases; developed a Resource Room to assist families in obtaining services; and funded technology to provide computer-generated court orders to the families immediately following the hearing.
• Elkhart Circuit Court.  Reconfigured existing space and created an additional magistrate’s hearing room in order to reduce the backlog of CHINS cases and move them more quickly through the court system. At the beginning of the project, there was a backlog of over 2,000 cases. The backlog was been eliminated. The court also purchased electronic equipment to interface with the local child welfare agency (“Office of Family and Children” or “OFC”) and video equipment to display an “advisement of rights” in both English and Spanish.
• Lake Superior Court.  Hired an additional judicial officer and court reporter to handle the backlog of termination of parental rights cases.
• Marion Superior Court. Modified its computer case management system (“Quest”) to provide monthly tracking reports and hired a case manager to work with the OFC and track individual cases. Referrals to the case manager were made in over 66% of the cases, allowing permanency to be achieved. In addition, the case manager worked with service providers to expedite families’ services, organized “Provider Fairs” to educate OFC workers, and developed an Initial Hearing brochure for families to help them better understand the CHINS system.
• St. Joseph Probate Court. Funded additional licenses and provided training for use with the existing computer case management system, which links the court and the OFC and upgraded the software.

In addition, CIP funding was used in 2000 to underwrite a special collaborative conference on implementation of the Adoption and Safe Families Act (“ASFA”). The conference, conducted under the auspices of the Indiana Judicial Center, included judges, Court Appointed Special Advocates, DCS staff including county attorneys, and state agency administrators

D. Phase IV: Family Court Pilot Projects (January 2000 to present).
At the request of the Supreme Court, the 1999 session of the Indiana General Assembly provided the Court with modest funding to support the Court’s Indiana Family Court Pilot Project. This state funding was used to initiate several “family court” pilot projects. Today, a total of 22 counties have now been designated as “family courts.”
The Family Court Project was born from the realization that families were often involved in multiple legal cases in front of different judges. Because the judges were not aware of all the cases involving the family, court orders and service referrals were inconsistent or redundant regarding family members. To address this situation, the pilot projects target families with more than one case pending in the legal system (multiple case families), or families with complex cases or at-risk situations. The projects have these common goals:

• coordinate the information flow, court orders, and service delivery regarding the family, and avoid conflicting and redundant court orders;
• expedite family matters to resolution with coordinated scheduling or concurrent hearings;
• promote the health, safety, and well-being of children by facilitating necessary service delivery and monitoring court orders for compliance and
• develop affordable forms of alternative dispute resolution to avoid time consuming and divisive court hearings in family matters.

In early 2000, the Executive Committee authorized CIP funding to supplement the state funding for two of the pilot counties in the Family Court Project to help them meet these goals.

• Porter County. Provided computer technology for information access on Family Court Cases; improved coordination of CHINS prevention services between courts and agencies; provided mediation training to court staff, and implemented mediation services in family court cases with CHINS involvement.
• Putnam County. Developed a Family Court Facilitator Project. The project provides an alternative to adversarial conflict resolution in the courtroom; protection and guidance for those who are indigent, a decrease in the trauma to the children involved; and brings together relevant parties to share information, opinions and ideas to resolve disputes. All family matters including CHINS and termination cases are referred by the judge for facilitation.

The Executive Committee has awarded CIP grants to the Family Court Project in recent years to help support those aspects of the pilot programs that impact the court process involving abused and neglected Children in Indiana.

E. Phase V: Replication of Successful Phase III and IV Subgrants.
The Executive Committee continues to approve additional funding for grants that would (1) fund new initiatives in the largest counties, (2) continue existing CIP-funded projects, or (3) permit other counties to replicate successful initiatives

• Allen Superior Court.  Continued funding of pre-hearing facilitation prior to each permanency hearing; created a mentoring program for children in foster care; and developed facilitation curriculum for training purposes.
• Elkhart Circuit Court. Funded case manager position to assist families in understanding the court system and obtaining court ordered services to work towards reunification.
• Johnson County Circuit Court. Funded a collaborative committee of juvenile justice, child welfare, educational and mental agencies to coordinate local services.

• Lake County Family Court.  Supported an Alternative Dispute Resolution Program and an Information Sharing Program to assist in the establishment of paternity in CHINS cases and to provide for better coordination between the Family Courts and the Juvenile Courts in those CHINS cases in which there are other domestic cases pending.
• LaPorte Circuit Court. Funded training and licensing of the Quest case management system and contributed to cost of pre-hearing facilitation, an integral part of the Family Court pilot project.
• Marion Superior Court. Funded a part-time clerk position to work in the court’s Family Group Conferencing Pilot Project.  In addition, CIP funded a full-time magistrate position to hear termination of parental rights cases.
• Porter County Family Court. Continued support of the Family Court Mediation Project by contributing towards the salary of a mediation coordinator, mediation services, and the development of a service access center
• Putnam County Family Court.  Continued support of Family Court pre-hearing facilitation and a case manager position.
• Tippecanoe County Superior Court.  CHINS Facilitation/Mediation Program; supported a staff person to serve as the neutral party in these mediations.
• Vanderburgh County Juvenile/Probate Court.  Developed a Drug Court for Parents of CHINS in order to address and monitor substance abuse issues quickly so that children can be safely returned home.

            F. Training Grant

In addition to the sub-grants described above, Indiana CIP has used its training grant funds to provide specific training events on a local, regional and statewide level.  In addition funds are available for judicial training for judges with juvenile court jurisdiction to attend and participate in training opportunities beyond those conferences offered by the Indiana Judicial Center.

At the local level, Indiana CIP helped fund a day long training seminar organized by Indiana Advocates for Children, Inc., the Court Appointed Special Advocates program for Marion County, Indiana and the Marion County Juvenile Court.  The seminar was offered at no charge and attended by nearly 100 attorneys, probation officers, CASA directors, service providers and judges.  The event was a collaborative effort supported by the Court, the CASA program, CIP and several private law firms. The presentation addressed immigration issues for children in the juvenile court system.

CIP is also providing to CASA program staff the Workplace Spanish® Training Program that has been developed through a partnership with the Indiana Supreme court and IVY Tech Community College. CIP funds are provided to CASA programs that would otherwise not be eligible for these classes because they are not court sponsored or employed by their local courts.

At the regional level, CIP has collaborated with the Indiana DCS to provide an introduction to the department’s child welfare practice reform for judges, court staff, CASA’s and public defenders. Trainings are ongoing in regions that request this training.

In December, 2007, Indiana CIP sponsored The Indiana Summit on Children—Partners Planning for Permanency. The Summit provided an opportunity for judges as well as the Department of Child Services staff and other community stakeholders to meet, collaborate and explore ways that everyone involved in Indiana’s child welfare system can positively impact the outcomes for children and families who enter the child welfare system.
Juvenile court judges brought multi- disciplinary teams of stakeholders to the Summit to hear from Indiana’s Supreme Court Chief Justice as well as Indiana’s Department of Child Service’s Director James Payne.  Justice Maura Corrigan of the Michigan Supreme Court delivered the keynote address.  Justice Corrigan has served as a member of the Pew Commission a national group that has investigated foster care issues across U.S. Bill Stanczykiewicz, President & CEO of Indiana Youth Institute, addressed the Summit.  Of particular interest to the participants was a panel presentation by youth who were either currently involved in the child welfare system or had recently left foster care. The afternoon included a time for dialogue and an idea exchange at a Child Welfare Café as well as a time for the individual teams to meet and to begin to do some planning for implementing positive changes in their own communities. 

Another collaborative effort between the DCS and the courts is the development of a training tool on the court process in a case involving a petition to terminate the parent-child relationship. In February, 2008, CIP funds were used to support mock termination of parental rights trial in Allen County.  The trial was attended by new as well as more experienced DCS staff.  The trial was taped and in the process of being edited so that it can be used to train judges, attorneys, CASA’s or other child welfare stakeholders across the state.

G. Data Collection and Training Grant
Indiana CIP’s intent is to use the Data Collection and Analysis Grant to conduct an ongoing, meaningful and collaborative study with the goal of strengthening court performance through review of past practices and observation of current practices.  The overarching objective is to involve all stakeholders in the improvement of circumstances for children in the Indiana Child Welfare System.  To develop a data strategy that would encourage collaboration has been the first and most important step in improving the safety, permanency and wellbeing of children in Indiana’s foster care system.

The initial mission for the Indiana Data Collection Grant has been to solicit input and direction from CWIC in preparation of a pilot study group for the primary purpose of determining current court performance strategies and developmental opportunities that could objectively be ascertained through data collection.  After several meetings, the decision was made to develop and implement a geographically broad survey group. By virtue of the vast coverage of more than two-thirds of Indiana’s counties represented by Guardian Ad litem/Court Appointed Special Advocate County Directors, the decision was made to utilize this group as the target group for a pilot study of Indiana’s statutorily created case benchmarks and timeliness indicators.  A survey of questions based entirely on time sensitive issues was introduced to the Directors at the GAL/CASA Annual Conference.  The survey itself utilized a popular user friendly multiple choice format and was distributed by email immediately after the conference, with responses by email.  The results of the survey have been analyzed and the next step is to expand the survey to the courts.

Training Grant funds are also being utilized to support the work of the Judicial Technology and Automation Committee (JTAC) as it implements technology to support case management and data collection in juvenile courts, thereby improving not only the judicial process, but also outcomes for families and children.