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Methodology
CFSR4: Permanency Performance Area 5
Placement Stability

Notes on Source Data

IMPORTANT NOTE: The following methodology may include references to report features not available on the public site version. On the public site, masking is performed to protect the privacy of individuals served by CDSS and comply with CDSS data de-identification guidelines. Values of 1 to 10 and calculations based on values of 1 to 10 are masked ('M' or '*'). In stratified views of the data, additional values (the lowest available) are masked to prevent calculation of values 1 to 10.

Federal/CWS Outcomes Measure: Of all children who enter foster care in a 12-month period, what is the rate of placement moves per day of foster care?

Denominator: The denominator is, of children who enter foster care in a 12-month period, the total number of days these children were in foster care as of the end of the 12-month period. Children in care less that 8 days or who enter care at age 18 or more are excluded from the denominator. The days in care during the placement episodes are cumulative across episodes reported in the same year. Youth who turn 18 during the 12-month period do not have time in care beyond their 18th birthday counted.

Note: the count of placement days differs between the denominators of the federal measures 4-S1 and 4-P5 and the Placement Days report in several ways:

  1. 4-S1 includes placement episodes of 8 days or more. 4-P5 counts days for placement episodes that opened during the specified year (i.e., entries to care) and remained open for 8 days or more. The Placement Days report counts all days in care, regardless of time in care. Note: The Placement Days report can be filtered for entries during the year (In Placement before Period Start = 'No'), which approximates 4-P5, but counts placement days for entries, regardless of time in care.
  2. For all three reports, age is calculated at the beginning of the period or at entry (if the child enters during the period). 4-S1 and 4-P5 include children under age 18 while Placement Days includes children under age 21. *Note - for 4-S1 and 4-P5, a child's 18th birthday and following care days are not counted in the denominator. Therefore, for a child who turns 18 in care during the period and remains in care, additional days will be added to the count in the Placement Days report, but not in 4-S1 and 4-P5.
  3. The 4-S1 and 4-P5 denominators include Adoptive Placements, Trial Home Visits, and Runaways. Non foster care placements are also included if the placement episode includes other foster care placement types. The Placement Days report excludes Adoptive Placements, Trial Home Visits, Runaways and non foster care placements from the denominator.
Due to these differences in the count of placement days methodology, even when similar filters are applied, the reports will yield different results.

Numerator: The numerator is the total number of moves from one placement to another placement during the 12-month period for all children in the denominator. The initial placement in foster care (removal from home) is not counted nor are exits that do not lead to a subsequent placement (e.g., returns home or trial home visits). If the child leaves a placement temporarily, e.g., on a trial home visit or as a runaway, and returns to the same placement that event is not counted as a placement move. If a child had more than one placement episode during the 12-month period, moves in all episodes are counted. Moves after a youth’s 18th birthday are not counted. If the child is placed in respite care and that care is reported as a placement, both the move into and the move out of respite care are counted as moves.

Performance: Performance for this measure is the numerator divided by the denominator, expressed as a rate per 1,000 days. The rate is multiplied by 1,000 to produce a whole number which is easier to interpret. A decrease in the rate per 1,000 days indicates an improvement in performance. The days in care and moves during the placement episodes are cumulative across episodes reported in the same year. Youth who turn 18 during the 12-month period do not have time in care beyond their 18th birthday or moves after their 18th birthday counted.

National Performance: The National Performance for this measure is ≤ 4.48 per 1,000 days. For details, please see CFSR Technical Bulletin 13 (PDF).

Extension of Federal Measure: In the drill-down reports for this measure, days in care selections are available: in addition to the default of 'All', users may select children in care '8 days or more' or '7 days or less'.

Notes:
  • County is assigned in this analysis using the county specific code from the case assignment table (or, if this information is not available, using the county specific code from the referral table, or if this information is not available, using the government entity type from the state id table) active on the first placement episode start date during the time period.
  • Agency Type is assigned based on the responsible agency on the first placement episode start date during the time period.
  • Age is assigned based on how old a child is at the placement episode start date during the specified time period.

Cells containing a period (".") represent a value of zero. In cells representing quotients, a period may also indicate the indeterminate form 0/0.

Stratification and Filters: This measure may be run with filters to restrict the data to various subgroups of other variables (e.g., Black subgroup of the Ethnicity variable, <1 year old subgroup of the Age variable, etc.). Please see the links below for details:


Agency Type

Age Group

Ethnic Group

Sex at Birth