Specifications include, but are not limited to: The purpose of the RFP is to obtain proposals to assist the Department for Children and Families (DCF) with responding to the legislation. Specifically, DCF seeks proposals that will describe how the contractor will work with DCF to design a project plan of action to achieve the outcomes of Act 201 including the development of an operations plan, identifying needed policy adjustments and resource (re)allocation. We are looking for assistance in mapping out solutions that take into account the current pressures in our combined child welfare and youth justice system including those experienced by DCF-FSD and the family court stakeholders including prosecutors, public defenders and judges. We recognize that this change is transformative and are seeking expertise that will help guide this transformation so that it is consistent with best practices and fits within the limited resources of DCF and its stakeholder partners. Starting from the premise that we want to divert many cases that would be filed in criminal court, the system transformation will need to build upon the robust network of community based restorative justice programs that already siphon cases from aspects of the criminal and juvenile justice systems. The former administrative trial court judge is working with the courts and stakeholders to map the available data regarding the trends for 18 and 19-year-olds currently. This means that DCF is not seeking assistance with a data project for this RFP. DCF seeks responses from outside consultants to assist DCF with developing an operations plan, assessing resources and recommending policies and practices to enable DCF to expand juvenile court jurisdiction including milestones to allow us to do so within the time frame proposed by Act 201, Section 20.
