Information obtained during the Debrief regarding Learning Point:
â€¢	March 2016 was a very challenging time for the agency
o	There was a major influx in the amount of CP intakes being made and their system was being inundated with a backlog of CP intakes and screened in CP intakes waiting assignment for family assessment (FA) and family investigation (FI)
o	The increased volume of reports being made was not manageable was influenced by:
ï‚§	The governor's task force recommendations and the multiple changes to the screening guidelines. 
ï‚§	The agency was accepting more CP intakes for screen ins
ï‚§	Reporters who normally did not report were now reporting
ï‚§	The adverse media coverage increased defensive practice and fear based, CYA methods of practice
ï‚§	Workers were quitting all the time; turnover was extremely high due to the workload was not manageable
o	There was one program manager to advise supervisors, whereas now there are three
ï‚§	Consults with Program Manager gave minimal guidance for how to triage the backlog of FA/FI's pending assignment
ï‚§	Priority response was given to CP reports that involved children under the age of 2 and to reports of allegations of physical abuse and sexual abuse.
ï‚§	No other guidance on how to triage CP reports in backlog 
â€¢	Program manager was overwhelmed; there was no way for one manager to review all the cases needing to be triaged, therefore supervisors had some discretion on method used to triage.
o	Routinely, it is common in the spring for the agency to experience increased reporting from mandated reporters i.e. school social workers.
ï‚§	It is a common pattern for the agency to experience one mandated reporter make multiple reports for many children they are concerned about at the end of the school year because they will no longer have the ability to check in with the children when school is let out for the summer.
ï‚§	The time of year being March 2016, in combination with the factors mentioned above, contributed to backlogs and delays in assignment to cases, thus impacting ability to meet the face to face timeline  
â€¢	Occurring at this time was the largest backlog of FA/.FI's pending assignment for FA/FI response in the supervisors unit was 90 pending cases. It was the highest backlog of all the units, with many pending being ed. neglect types of cases.
o	There were not enough staff to assign the new cases
ï‚§	Workers can handle 3-4 new case assignments a week, 4 being challenging, but in March 2016 workers were taking on 4-5 a week, and that was not manageable
ï‚§	There were 10 workers in this unit, it was not uncommon to get 14-15 new screened in reports in the FA/FI backlog a day.
â€¢	With 10 workers taking 5 reports a week, could get 50 cases assigned a week, but the volume surpassed the agency's ability to stay caught up due to staff turnover and not enough staff available to take new cases. 
o	This FA/FI unit was a specialty unit, meaning regardless of the rotation for CP intakes being assigned to FA/FI units, the supervisor's unit took all reports for a delegated city further contributing to this unit the highest number of cases.  
ï‚§	The city delegated to the supervisor's unit has a population that receives a large amount of new CP intakes and screened in reports. 
â€¢	The CP Intake was assigned to the supervisor's unit on 3/25. 
â€¢	The CP intake sat pending under the Supervisors name from 3/25 â€“ 4/7. Was pending a little over 2 weeks; this was not as bad as it could have been.
o	Educational neglect intakes were not considered high risk during this time and they could sit in pending for as long as six weeks waiting for assignment at times. 
â€¢	If another FA/FI unit did not have as many cases pending assignment, those units would assist and take CP reports pending from this supervisor's unit as a result 
o	In this case, the Supervisor assigned this ed neglect to a colleague supervisor in another FA/FI unit, when an available staff to take the ed neglect case became available
ï‚§	The agency was trying to dig out of all the ed neglects pending, there were 100's of them. 
ï‚§	A staff was brought back out of retirement to help specifically with the backlogged ed. neglect case assignments pending.
ï‚§	The other supervisor's unit was not a specialty unit.