Safeguarding Our Children: 2006 Action Plan

New York City's Administration of Children's Services (ACS) has released this action plan to inform the public about how the City plans to improve children's protective services.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced in January 2006 an investment of $16 million and a series of initiatives to strengthen child safety in New York City. Complete with timelines and benchmarks for achieving this progress, Safeguarding Our Children lays out how Children's Services will strategically invest these funds and take critical action to produce better results for New York City's children. A key component of the new system will involve quantitative assessments of child safety and ACS effectiveness. Accountability for child safety will be instituted into all phases of ACS functioning. Improved assessments and accountability data will be enabled by ChildStat, which is a data base similar to the New York City Police Department CompStat investigations database.

CHILDSTAT time line:

• April 2006: Provide timely monthly caseload data by worker, unit and managerial area, to pinpoint areas with problematic caseload sizes. Commence CHILDSTAT accountability meetings between central and field office staff.
  
   
• December 2006: Commence use of initial performance data.
  
   
• March 2007: Complete intake, caseload and case processing related indicators.
  
   
• Other initiatives to improve ACS center on increased managerial, supervisory, caseworker, and investigative staffs.