Hillsborough Kids, Inc.

Hillsborough Kids, Inc. (HKI) is a non-profit agency created out of a three year community planning process specifically to perform the duties of Lead Agency in the Community Based Care project in Hillsborough County. The HKI Mission is as follows:

To ensure the safety and permanency of abused and neglected children in Hillsborough County by providing comprehensive services that promote strong families.

HKI is governed by a Board of Directors specifically selected to represent the Hillsborough community in developing and overseeing the child protection system of care. A list of these Board members is attached.

As the Lead Agency HKI holds a single fixed price contract for all child protection services previously performed by the Department of Children and Families (DCF). The department will continue to provide child protection investigations and legal services through the Office of the Attorney General. HKI will perform administrative services including financial management, data services and communications, and quality assurance.

Services for the abused and neglected children and their families is performed by a network of local community based agencies (Devereux, Gulf Coast Jewish Family Services, Youth and Family Alternatives, Children’s Home Inc., Children’s Home Society, Camelot Community Care, Mental Health Corp.) that are also governed by community Boards of Directors. We have a total active caseload of approximately 4,100 with approximately 200 young adults ages 18 or older receiving services; 1,000 in their own homes under protective supervision, 3,500 in the care of relatives, foster care or other placement. We have 35 care teams working with this caseload.

Unique features of our community based care system of care include:

Established teams of workers including a senior/supervising worker and two care managers, having a caseload of approximately 100-125 children. Each team member will visit and be familiar with all the children on the team’s caseload with one of the team members being primarily responsible. This increases the checks and balances as well as the support for individual care managers, there will always be someone (usually 3) who is currently knowledgeable of the case.
We have established the Foster Home and Adoption Network of 7 agencies solely focused on the recruitment, licensure, and training of our foster and adoptive homes. This network of agencies will be visiting the homes monthly and working to support the foster and adoptive parents in providing quality care to our children.
With our network of agencies we have also established an internal quality review system where teams from different agencies staff cases together and professional staff from various agencies read case records for completeness and quality. This creates multiple sets of independent eyes and thoughts on our case records and practices.
This network of agencies also creates a shared risk and decision making model. We recognize that this enormous task and responsibility is too much for one agency to handle alone. We have a Leadership team that is responsible for the overall implementation and quality of our services that consists of representatives from the various participating agencies and community partners.
Our care managers are equipped with laptops and cell phones and are accessing a data base with these tools from anywhere in the state. This gives our care managers the ability to document their work and respond to calls in the most convenient and expedient manner.
Children First Response Team is a critical component we have established to respond immediately to crisis situations prior to a family needing to be opened for services. This team will work with the Child Protection Investigators and provide crisis services to families with the focus being to avoid needing to come into the formal system and if the family does come into the system to minimize the need for out of home placement.