The Jefferson Service Region of Kentucky DCBS (Department for Community Based Services) has worked strategically since September 2005 to begin redefining the definition of “child welfare”. To most of the public, the “child welfare system” simply means the public child welfare agency or “CPS”.

This mythical definition of who “child welfare” is can not be further from the truth. What the public at large must remember is that members the community (not the CPS agency) have referred all families to the public child welfare agency for investigation of abuse, neglect or dependency. Families of color are referred by the community at a disproportionate rate compared to their population in the general census.

Once a family is involved with Kentucky DCBS, community partners that make up the “child welfare system” help DCBS make most of the key case decisions made during the life of a public child welfare case. The key decisions include the results of the investigation of abuse or neglect; the decision to leave the family intact or remove the child from the home; the decision to move a child from one placement to another placement; and finally, any permanency decision about a child (for example, the decision to change the child’s permanency goal to Adoption).

Community Partners are at the table when Kentucky DCBS makes these key decisions through two types of meetings that are conducted with families. All families who receive ongoing services from Kentucky DCBS will eventually be part of a “Family Team Meeting” or a “Facilitated Staffing” (sometimes called “Team Decision Making”). It is during these two types of meetings that community partners who make up the “child welfare system” help Kentucky DCBS make the key decisions in a public child welfare case.

These community partners are listed below and are committed to helping redefine who the “child welfare system” is in Louisville Kentucky.