The Administrations for Children Services New York City Essay

The Administrations for Children Services New York City - Essay Example The organization is currently in the process of implementing innovative procedures that should optimistically show its effect on the organization's work. Will this be sufficient to addressing the problem How efficient will the organization be after all the changes The paper will in detail confer the potential positive outcome of the restructured organization. The paper will also analyze the media's effect on the expedited renovations to the system. In order to more fully understand the current status of the ACS, a brief synopsis of its history is necessary. On January 10, 1996, for the first time in New York City history, an agency "devoted solely to serving children and their families" was established.1 The ACS mission is to "ensure the safety, permanency and well-being of the 1.8 million children in New York City and to strengthen families."2 In order to achieve this, several key areas of responsibility were established by Nicholas Scoppetta the agency's first commissioner. These include: In order to achieve these aims the agency put several processes in place including: reduced caseloads for workers, increased training and compensation packages, fostered improved interagency cooperation between various government agencies including Family court, the Department of Education and the various police agencies within the city and streamlined the record keeping system and automated it into a streamlined mode using latest technology. Additionally the ACS established in 2001 an intake facility solely dedicated to those children entering the foster care system, initiated a clinical consultation team to specifically work on cases involving physical abuse, substance abuse and mental health services and developed an intricate system to measure level and quality of services provided to children and their families. This system known as EQUIP (the Evaluation and Quality Improvement Protocol) was designed to evaluate all phases of the ACS system including: "processes, outcomes and quality."4 Finally, ACS instituted a comprehensive service review plan to ensure timely meetings within required time frames are conducted for each case. Yet, with all the innovative programs purported to be instituted children are still 'slipping through the cracks' - too often with deadly