Present: Judge Sonja Clapp, Chair Judge Todd Cresap Dennis Herbeck Robin Huseby Connie Portscheller Judge David Reich Dale Rivard Bob Rutten
Absent: Judge Richard Grosz Scott Davis Karen Kringlie Tara Mulhauser
Staff: Louie Hentzen LeeAnn Barnhardt Julie Bruns Lana Zimmerman, scribe
Judge Clapp called the meeting to order. She asked for comments on the minutes from
September 30, 2010 meeting. Dale Rivard moved to approve the minutes; Judge Reich seconded.
Minutes approved.
Sub-Committee Reports
GAL Sub-Committee - Due to Dave McGeary retiring in October, this sub-committee does not
have a chair. Dennis Herbeck who chairs the ICWA sub-committee volunteered to step down
from the ICWA sub-committee to chair the GAL sub-committee. Dave McGeary has given a
brief summary of what the GAL sub-committee had accomplished (Please see handout). This
along with the sub-committee membership will be forwarded to Dennis.
ICWA Sub-Committee - Dennis Herbeck, chair. The ND ICWA audit final report was
distributed. The working group for this audit was Vance Gillette, Karen Kringlie, Judge
Christofferson, Connie Portscheller, Louie Hentzen, and Julie Bruns.
Louie Hentzen thanked Dennis Herbeck for chairing the ICWA sub-committee. Louie also
requested Connie Portscheller and Judge Cresap to chair the ICWA sub-committee due to Dennis
stepping down and taking over the GAL sub-committee. Connie and Judge Cresap both agreed
to chair the ICWA subcommittee.
Education Sub-Committee - Robin Huseby, chair. The sub-committee discussed the use of CIP
training and education funds during the next federal fiscal year. There is an anticipated excess of
funds that will need to be spent by September 30, 2011 or they will have to be turned back.
Suggestions that were made are to sponsor a session at in-state training’s for state’s attorney’s
and defense attorney’s, to sponsor a session at the 2011 CFS conference in July 2011.
A sponsor letter has been sent to the Native American Training Institute for the 2011 ICWA
conference. CIP will be donating $10,000 toward faculty expenses. The conference is scheduled
for February 2-4, 2011. A save the date notice has been sent to court personnel. Registration
information will be sent out in the next few weeks. CIP funds will cover registration for court
staff, judges, and lay Guardians ad litem.
The court is sponsoring the North Dakota Conference on Juvenile Justice June 7-9, 2011, in
Bismarck. Workshops related to child welfare will be planned. CIP funds could be used to
support the workshops as well.
Data Collection and Analysis Sub-committee - Julie Bruns reported on performance measures.
She pulled information from Odyssey and looked at specific measures to complete. In order to
pull the data that was needed for some of the measures, DHS will need to make some changes.
In October, Lee Ann Barnhardt, Louie Hentzen, and Julie Bruns met with the I.T. Director of
child welfare management, and Tara Mulhauser to talk about various issues that needed to be
worked through. Changes to improve the data quality are, correct spelling of names in the child
welfare FRAME system, CMS, and Odyssey. DHS uses the master client index to make sure
juveniles are linked through various programs.
Social workers in the counties will update their affidavit’s to include date-of-birth, race, and if
any siblings are involved. Tara Mulhauser will send out a mock example of the affidavit to the
counties so they can look at the correct way it should be displayed in the future.
Another area to improve is court notification of change of placements. This is occurring in all
counties, but is happening in a paper hard copy format. The future notification is going to occur
in an email form from the computer application system, which will email the notification out to
the juvenile court directors. Lee Ann Barnhardt was involved with getting in touch with DHS
I.T. to make sure all juvenile court directors are receiving the information in order for the
notification to go out to the correct individuals. A work order from DHS was put in place to
make sure this will happen. Other elements added are the child’s name, date of birth, primary
worker signed, administrative county, custodial county, placement start/end date, placement type,
placement setting, and non foster care placement. These will appear on the notification changes.
Monitoring the timeliness of court dates was also discussed. Social workers received ticklers in
their application system in order to get the paper work out to the state’s attorney’s to start the
process. Permanency hearings are not being set by the court in all instances. Louie will bring
this up with the Juvenile Policy Board.
Discussion of future meetings require a common interest and collaboration and particular
performance measures that work specifically with some data that is needed from DHS. The
possibility of having a committee and the topic came of whether it would be part of the data
collection and analysis committee, but because there are other pieces of information that is
needed from the court for their PIP, it was decided there should be a separate committee and not
directly under CIP Data Collection and Analysis sub-committee.
2011 Meeting Dates March 10, 2011 1:00 p.m. Bismarck June 13, 2011 1:00 p.m.Fargo September 6, 2011 1:00 p.m.Grand Forks
Dennis Herbeck moved to adjourn; Robin Huseby seconded. Meeting adjourned.