February 2023

Benchmarks would like to draw attention to the phenomenal work being done by the Cabarrus County DSS Prevention Team. The Prevention Team was established in 2018 with two social workers on a mission: ensuring families were connected to needed community resources resulting in no further referrals for mandatory services (services mandated by the state to families when Child Protective Service reports meet the general statue definition of abuse, neglect, or dependency). By focusing on the...

Since 2021 Benchmarks has been consulting with Vaya Health on a project called Pathways to Permanency . This project aims to coordinate efforts between Vaya, County DSS offices, and mental health providers to ensure youth in foster care have access to high quality behavioral health services. To better understand the needs of children, families, and professionals within Vaya’s catchment, landscape analyses and several focus groups were conducted. Main themes from initial discoveries were then...

Benchmarks has implemented 2 projects across the state over the past 12 years, Partnering for Excellence (PFE) and the Standardized Assessment Protocol (SAP). Both projects are implemented within County DSS offices with a goal of ensuring children and families in child welfare have access to trauma screening and subsequent Trauma-intensive Comprehensive Clinical Assessments (TiCCAs). Having access to TiCCAs provides an opportunity for the child and family to receive holistic recommendations...