part I and part II DCFS B-35504ehd.pdf

Sole Source Justification Form

Version 7.01 Page 1 of 9

Bulletin Reference Number 24-418DCFS-PROCU-B-35504

Requesting Agency/University Department of Children and Family Services

Sole Source Justification Form - Part I Section I - General Information

Department/Bureau/Section: Division of Quality Enhancement

Need Identified Date: 2/1/2023 Supply/Service Need By Date: 07/01/2023

Project Title: DCFS Multiple Research Projects

Vendor: Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago

Provide a description of the supplies or services required:

Chapin Hall is an independent research center at the University of Chicago.

DCFS uses their services to evaluate pilots under the BH consent decree and other auspices, and to provide data analytics to support the Agency's efforts to improve safety, permanence, intact services and well-being for youth in care.

Value: Estimated Value of Initial Term, this Change Order or Amendment: 4,635,737

Will this Sole Source amend a Professional or Artistic Services contract? Yes No

*Sole Source may not be used for amendments for Professional or Artistic Services if the amendment would increase the value by more than 5% of the initial award or extend the term by more than 60 days.

Type: New Sole Source

Section II - Proposed Term

One-Time Purchase Term Contract

Estimated Contract Begin Date: 07/01/2023

Estimated Contract End Date: 06/30/2024

Number of Potential Renewals: 0

Length of Each Renewal in Months: 0

Total Value of All Renewals: 0

If a Term Contract, does the term, including renewals, exceed 12 months? Yes No

Section III - Funding Source Select the type of funding to be used (Check all that apply): State Appropriate Funds Federal Funds Other (Explain):

Section IV - Sole Source Justification

This purchase is economically only available from a single source primarily because it is: (If "Other" explain in one sentence)

Items are Required for Research and No Other Source is Able to Meet the Researcher's Documented Need

Are there secondary justification(s) for this sole source? Yes No

Version 7.01 Page 2 of 9

Bulletin Reference Number 24-418DCFS-PROCU-B-35504

Requesting Agency/University Department of Children and Family Services

Section V - Purchase History

Has the Agency or University Purchased these supplies or services in the past? Yes No

Term Term From Term To Value Description Contract Number Type

1 07/01/2022 06/30/2023 4,259,039.77 Continue research to enhance the safety and well being of children 3012009013 Sole Source

2 07/01/2021 06/30/2022 3,176,235.9 Continue research to enhance the safety and well being of children 3012009012 Sole Source

3 07/01/2020 06/30/2021 2,771,373.7 Continue research to enhance the safety and well being of children 3012009011 Sole Source

4 07/01/2019 06/30/2020 2,549,266.57 Continue research to enhance the safety and well being of children 3012009010 Sole Source

5 07/01/2018 06/30/2019 1,922,215 Continue research to enhance the safety and well being of children 3012009019 Sole Source

6 07/01/2017 06/30/2018 2,054,358 Continue research to enhance the safety and well being of children 3012009018 Sole Source

7 07/01/2016 06/30/2017 2,092,870 Continue research to enhance the safety and well being of children 3012009017 - grant Exemption

8 07/01/2015 06/30/2016 1,208,197 Continue research to enhance the safety and well being of children 3012009016 - grant Exemption

9 07/01/2014 06/30/2015 591,808 Continue research to enhance the safety and well being of children 3012009015 - grant Exemption

10 07/01/2013 06/30/2014 560,951 Continue research to enhance the safety and well being of children 3012009014 - grant Exemption

If more than 10, or if other comments, explain:

-Contract was awarded to provider as a result of a sole-source procurement in FY06, FY07, FY08, FY09, FY10, FY11, FY12, FY18, FY19, FY20, FY 21, FY22, and FY23. Only Chapin Hall possesses the existing Illinois data from the multi-state study. Transferring data and knowledge of data would be detrimental to the time frame and cost effectiveness.

Section VI - Business Rationale

Version 7.01 Page 3 of 9

Bulletin Reference Number 24-418DCFS-PROCU-B-35504

Requesting Agency/University Department of Children and Family Services

1. Provide a detailed explanation of the need for the supplies or services:

See attached Scope of Work for additional explanation of the need for each program.

1) By continuing to utilize Chapin Hall the Department is able to leverage the numerous systems and proprietary programs built over a decade of this contract and used by the 21 DCFS programs listed above without having to replicate the systems and severely disrupt the treatment and decision making data analysis, and reporting required by the program(s) involved.

2) All projects are continuations from existing years and to transfer to another provider or set of providers would 1) delay the delivery of research and evaluation necessary to the operations of the department and its obligations; 2) require the re-creation of complex longitudinal datasets and analysis; and 3) duplicate expenditures for work already paid for by DCFS. It is estimated that a new vendor would cost approximately 11 to 13 million dollars (which is approximately 3 to 4 times the amount paid to Chapin Hall) while it recreates and makes fully operational required data and processes.

3) Permission to change Chapin Hall’s role in B.H. initiatives must be secured from the Federal district court (B.H. v. Walker) and the Federal Children’s Bureau, respectively.

4) Chapin Halls's staff is unsurpassed mental health, trauma, training, and policy experience with the programs and subject matter are required to provide useful analysis, reporting, and training for DCFS and private agency staff to provide the most effective care for DCFS youth.

5) With a staff of researchers expert in the use of the Department’s administrative data and a staff with experience working within Federal and state child welfare agencies (including Illinois DCFS), Chapin Hall is uniquely positioned assist the Department conducting research required by the included programs.

6) The Data Center is a partnership of state child welfare agencies, Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, the American Public Human Services Association, and the Center for Social Services Research at the University of California at Berkeley. It is the only such child welfare database in the country.

Version 7.01 Page 4 of 9

Bulletin Reference Number 24-418DCFS-PROCU-B-35504

Requesting Agency/University Department of Children and Family Services

2. Provide a list and describe in detail the specifications required to satisfy the need:

This procurement is required to provide research, reporting, training, data collection and analysis, and other services to the Department directly affecting placement of youth in care. Fourteen projects are directly supported by the Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago. Please see attached Scope of Work for the specifications of each program listed below.

1. Meta Model Evaluation/Core Practice Model Roll-out (previously Immersion Sites Evaluation)

2. Families Together Evaluation (previously Therapeutic Foster Care Evaluation [TFC])

3. Residential Monitoring CQI

4. Regenerations /RUR Support/CQI

5. Residential Care Research

6. Strategic Implementation Support

7. Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) Framework

8. Early Childhood Court Team (ECCT) Evaluation

9. Home Visiting Evaluation

10. Intact Family Services

11. Youth Experiences Survey Support (YES)

12. Center for State Foster Care and Adoption Data (FCDA)

13. Data Support

14. Safety Assessment

15. Family First

16. YV Life Set Evaluation

17. Motivational Interviewing (MI) CQI

18. Multisystemic Therapy (MST) CQI

19. Trauma-focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) Evaluation

20. Children's Behavioral Health Transformation

21. Wraparound Evaluation

Travel 22,500.00

Total 4,635,737.00

3. Provide detail explaining the justification selected in Section IV to explain why the requested supplies or services are the only ones available that can satisfy the agency or university requirements?

Chapin Hall, a unit of the University of Chicago, has been a national leader in child welfare for over thirty years. Chapin Hall has substantial child welfare data holdings and actionable research and policy solutions for public benefit. Chapin Hall’s work include the Foster Care Data Archive, a longitudinal data warehouse that contains decades of data from over twenty-seven states on approximately 3 million children, and the Family Self-Sufficiency Data Center, built to enhance the use of administrative and survey data to answer policy-relevant questions surrounding family self-sufficiency and well-being. Chapin Hall has maintained DCFS longitudinal administrative data since the 1980’s and been a thought partner and research collaborator in Illinois since the onset of the child welfare reforms following the entry of the BH consent decree in the 1990’s.

More than 85 research and policy staff work at Chapin Hall, coming from a variety of academic and professional disciplines including child welfare, early childhood, economics, education, law, public policy, and sociology. Chapin Hall is optimally poised to successfully and consistently manage the tasks, activities, demands and reporting requirements on behalf of Illinois DCFS.

Version 7.01 Page 5 of 9

Bulletin Reference Number 24-418DCFS-PROCU-B-35504

Requesting Agency/University Department of Children and Family Services

4. What are the unique features of the supplies or services that are not available in any other product or by any other vendor? Provide specific quantifiable factors/qualifications:

The provider has collected the data necessary for this research over several decades. Another provider would not have the critical data collected during prior research and would have to begin the research from scratch which would cause the State to incur considerable expense to repeat the interview process and develop databases for the data collected. The Department has spent over $20M during the last five years alone to create these programs and data sets that are invaluable to the work the Department is required to do by law.

Any effort to change vendors at this point would severely disrupt these critical programs and jeopardise the monies spent building these programs and the youth in the Departments care.

Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago is the only organization that maintains the necessary data and database to conduct the research. It would be time and cost prohibitive to consider working with another organization who would have to start from scratch in securing the data and building an extremely complex and sophisticated database.

The new provider would need to replicate prior Chapin Hall work which included the creation of models and would encounter severe learning curve issues; design and create data system and duplicates Chapin capacity which is the only one in the nation; enter and implement data sharing agreements with multiple parties, which includes other States. The replication costs to the Department would be $5-6 million. During this replication period of the Department would be at risk of not providing appropriate services and mental health needs to our youth in care.

In order to properly meet policy and program development requirements mandated by the Program Improvement plan of the U.S.

Department of Health and Human Services, DCFS needs to undertake research in the areas of placement stability, education and behavior, worker assessment of foster homes, foster child characteristics, and foster parent experiences and perspectives.

These studies require the use of integrated administrative data and Chapin Hall Center at the University of Chicago is the only organization that a). maintains the necessary data and b) had developed a database for the purpose of conducting such studies.

5. Has the Agency or University considered alternative supplies or services to satisfy their need? Yes No

5a. If no, why weren't alternatives evaluated?

The provider has collected the data necessary for this research over several decades Another provider does not have the critical data collected during prior research and would have to begin the research which would cause the state to incur considerable expenses to repeat the interview process and develop database for the data collected. Only Chapin Hall possesses the existing Illinois data from the multi-state study. Transferring data and knowledge of data would be detrimental to both time frame and cost effectiveness. The Department has spent over $20M during the last five years alone to create these programs and data sets that are invaluable to the work the Department is required to do by law. Any effort to change vendors at this point would severely disrupt these critical programs and jeopardise the monies spent building these programs and the youth in the Departments care. A change would also subject the agency and State of Illinois to contempt of court, including fines.

6. Are there resellers or distributors?

Yes No N/A

Version 7.01 Page 6 of 9

Bulletin Reference Number 24-418DCFS-PROCU-B-35504

Requesting Agency/University Department of Children and Family Services

7. What efforts were made to get the best possible price (i.e. did the agency/university negotiate) and how did you determine the price for this purchase is considered fair and reasonable?

The Department has spent over $20 million dollars over in the last five years of experience with this vendor on this contract building the fundamental components for the 21 projects listed above. Several years of which were under a grant agreement which requires a detailed breakdown of both direct and indirect labor cost which makes up the majority of this contract. All additional expenditures are required to be broken out under a grant agreement and are audited on a annual basis. The Department estimates a change in vendors would cost $11-13 million to redevelop and an estimated 24-48 month transition time. Some programs can never be replicated because of the nearly 3 decades of data Chapin Hall has amassed from around the country.

In FY19 the agency conducted a thorough review of the scope and budget of this contract and spent nearly 100 employee hours reviewing the individual programs represented on this contract to determine if there was a more cost effective solution or other vendors capable of providing the same or better services. The agency reviewed the past history with this vendor, the cost and viability to replicate these programs through a competitive bid, and found there no other vendors with the requisite data. Given the money spent building these programs, the court order requiring DCFS to maintain these programs, a new vendor would be cost prohibitive would not be able to replicate the services provided by this vendor. The agency is satisfied that the cost provided for in this contract are reasonable and represent the best value to the state for the services provided.

8. Will this purchase obligate the State to this vendor for future purchases such as maintenance, licensing or continuing need?

Yes No

9. What will be the financial or other impact to the State if this sole source is not approved and a competitive bid is required?

If this procurement is not approved, the agency would lose decades of valuable data that helps determine how to meet the needs of children and families. At this time no other provider in the state has the experience, capacity or ability to perform the services required under this contract at a comparable price. Any change would result in a loss of services for DCFS staff and youth in care and would require a new vendor recreate and reproduce a decades of data and methodology already created by Chapin Hall at a tremendous cost to the state.

The Department has spent over $20M during the last five years alone to create these programs and datasets that are invaluable to the work the Department is required to do by law. Any effort to change vendors at this point would severely disrupt these critical programs and jeopardise the monies spent building these programs and the youth in the Departments care.

Failure to approve this procurement would also guarantee that the agency is not in compliance with the BH Consent Decree. The BH Consent Decree is an omnibus consent decree that governs all areas of the Department's practices, including the provision of services to DCFS youth in care and families, the monitoring of those services and research and evaluation of those services and the monitoring of those services. Contracts with universities that provide monitoring of services are essential to the requirements of the BH Consent Decree since they assist the Department in evaluating the services provision to youth in care. In June 2009, the district court entered a supplemental order in light of proposed budget cuts which requires maintenance of university contracts. The supplemental order is attached. Failure to comply with the consent decree and the supplemental order may subject to the Director and State of Illinois to contempt of court, including fines. If this request is denied, the Department will not have the information needed to make essential policy and programmatic decisions relative to the federally mandated Program Improvement Plan for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. This would have significant negative budgetary implications as well as potential harmful outcomes for the clients of the Department.

Please see attached BH Court Order for additional information.

Risk Assessment:

Failure on the Departments part to meet the mental health needs of Youth in Care moving to independence. Failure results in higher rates of incarceration and future dependency upon State funded services.

Potential loss of federal funding to support mental health services to children transiting to independence.

Loss of existing services for independent living programs.

Failure on the Departments part to develop preventive services and meets the service needs of our youth results in greater use of State funds and services.

Version 7.01 Page 7 of 9

Bulletin Reference Number 24-418DCFS-PROCU-B-35504

Requesting Agency/University Department of Children and Family Services

10. Is there any additional information you would like to add to justify this sole source?

This service provides the Department with research that will assist in the response to the Final Report of the Illinois Child and Family Service Review. This service provides research that will allow the Department to improve programs for foster children and families.

Research will determine success diverting families reported for maltreatment from the abuse and neglect investigation to appropriate services and avert future reports. Research leads to the appropriate development of services to youth that will improve their development outcome, resulting in less youth in care. Research on how all social services agencies can work together for what is best of the children and families. Chapin Hall created several of the program included in this procurement.

Version 7.01 Page 8 of 9

Bulletin Reference Number 24-418DCFS-PROCU-B-35504

Requesting Agency/University Department of Children and Family Services

Section VII

Requesting Department Representative

Requesting Department Signature Required

I know and understand the contents of this Sole Source Justification and attest that all statements are true and correct and the fairness and reasonableness of the price was adequately confirmed.

Date Mar 14, 2023

Printed Name Jennifer Manning E-mail Address Jennifer.Eblen-Manning@illinois.gov

Phone Number (708) 338-6618

State Agency Bureau/Division Head or University Purchasing Director Approval and Signature Required

I know and understand the contents of this Sole Source Justification and attest that all statements are true and correct and the fairness and reasonableness of the price was adequately confirmed. (All prior form fields will lock once this e-signature is completed)

E-mail Address william.blount-stephens@illinois.gov

Phone Number 217-558-0011 Date Mar 15, 2023

Printed Name Will Blount-Stephens

Agency Bureau/Division Head or University Purchasing Director and Not a Designee

SPO Approval and Signature Required

I have reviewed and understand the contents of this Sole Source Justification and agree with the State Agency or University determination.

I have reviewed and understand the contents of this Sole Source Justification and do not agree with the State Agency or University determination. As a result, the State Agency or University must explore other sourcing methods to satisfy their need.

State Purchasing Officer Signature Phone Number 217-993-1719 Date 3/15/303

Printed Name Jennifer Klein E-mail Address jennifer.klein@illinois.gov

Version 7.01 Page 9 of 9

Bulletin Reference Number 24-418DCFS-PROCU-B-35504

Requesting Agency/University Department of Children and Family Services

Sole Source Justification Form - Part II Section I - General Information

Project Title DCFS Multiple Research Projects

Vendor Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago

Initial Date of Procurement Bulletin Posting 3/15/2023

Was a Sole Source hearing held per 30 ILCS 500/20-25?

Yes - Complete Section II and III below (Section II will only be visible when this option is selected)

No - Section II not required, go to Section III below Section III - CPO Approval and Signature Required

Based on my review, I authorize the Agency/University to proceed in accordance with the published Notice referenced above.

Based upon my review, I authorize the Agency/University to proceed with the following Changes.

Based on my review, the Agency/University is not authorized to proceed with this sole source as presented and my recommendation is that it be cancelled.

Other

CPO Signature CPO Phone 217-558-6897

Printed Name Ellen H. Daley Date

CPO E-mail ellen.h.daley@illinois.gov

Version 7.01 Page of Sole Source Justification Form - Part I Section I - General Information Will this Sole Source amend a Professional or Artistic Services contract?

If yes, what was the original contract value?

*Sole Source may not be used for amendments for Professional or Artistic Services if the amendment would increase the value by more than 5% of the initial award or extend the term by more than 60 days.

Section II - Proposed Term If a Term Contract, does the term, including renewals, exceed 12 months?

If yes, provide a detailed justification including any economic benefit received for agreeing to a multi-year term:

Section III - Funding Source Select the type of funding to be used (Check all that apply):

Section IV - Sole Source Justification Are there secondary justification(s) for this sole source?

Section V - Purchase History Has the Agency or University Purchased these supplies or services in the past?

Term Term From Term To Value Description Contract Number Type Section VI - Business Rationale

1. Provide a detailed explanation of the need for the supplies or services:

2. Provide a list and describe in detail the specifications required to satisfy the need:

3. Provide detail explaining the justification selected in Section IV to explain why the requested supplies or services are the only ones available that can satisfy the agency or university requirements?

4. What are the unique features of the supplies or services that are not available in any other product or by any other vendor? Provide specific quantifiable factors/qualifications:

5. Has the Agency or University considered alternative supplies or services to satisfy their need?

5a. If yes, name the alternative vendors whose supplies or services were evaluated:

5b. If yes, what were the alternatives for each vendor and why were they unacceptable? Be specific with regard to features, characteristics, requirements, capabilities and compatibility:

5c. Explain how the market evaluation was conducted?

*This evaluation is to determine available options within a market. If the evaluation is to determine quality or best suited option, this is not the appropriate source selection. Under no circumstances shall the evaluation consist of testing alternative options. These activities must be conducted in a competitive transparent environment (i.e. IFB or RFP).

5a. If no, why weren't alternatives evaluated?

6. Are there resellers or distributors?

7. What efforts were made to get the best possible price (i.e. did the agency/university negotiate) and how did you determine the price for this purchase is considered fair and reasonable?

8. Will this purchase obligate the State to this vendor for future purchases such as maintenance, licensing or continuing need?

8a. If yes, please provide details regarding future obligations and/or needs:

9. What will be the financial or other impact to the State if this sole source is not approved and a competitive bid is required?

10. Is there any additional information you would like to add to justify this sole source?

Section VII Requesting Department Signature Required I know and understand the contents of this Sole Source Justification and attest that all statements are true and correct and the fairness and reasonableness of the price was adequately confirmed.

State Agency Bureau/Division Head or University Purchasing Director Approval and Signature Required I know and understand the contents of this Sole Source Justification and attest that all statements are true and correct and the fairness and reasonableness of the price was adequately confirmed. (All prior form fields will lock once this e-signature is completed) SPO Approval and Signature Required Sole Source Justification Form - Part II Section I - General Information Was a Sole Source hearing held per 30 ILCS 500/20-25?

Section II - Sole Source Hearing Details The State posted to the Illinois Procurement Bulletin a description of the State's need, the justification for the sole source decision, and information regarding the opportunity to submit comments and testify at a public hearing. Notice of the hearing was also posted outside of the hearing room 48 hours prior to the hearing.

The public hearing was conducted for the purpose of receiving testimony regarding the sole source determination. The Hearing Officer recommends the following:

The following relevant documents are attached:

Section III - CPO Approval and Signature Required 9.0.0.2.20101008.1.734229 ellen.h.daley@illinois.gov

1) By continuing to utilize Chapin Hall the Department is able to leverage the numerous systems and proprietary programs built over a decade of this contract and used by the 21 DCFS programs listed above without having to replicate the systems and severely disrupt the treatment and decision making data analysis, and reporting required by the program(s) involved.

2) All projects are continuations from existing years and to transfer to another provider or set of providers would 1) delay the delivery of research and evaluation necessary to the operations of the department and its obligations; 2) require the re-creation of complex longitudinal datasets and analysis; and 3) duplicate expenditures for work already paid for by DCFS. It is estimated that a new vendor would cost approximately 11 to 13 million dollars (which is approximately 3 to 4 times the amount paid to Chapin Hall) while it recreates and makes fully operational required data and processes.

3) Permission to change Chapin Hall’s role in B.H. initiatives must be secured from the Federal district court (B.H. v. Walker) and the Federal Children’s Bureau, respectively.

4) Chapin Halls's staff is unsurpassed mental health, trauma, training, and policy experience with the programs and subject matter are required to provide useful analysis, reporting, and training for DCFS and private agency staff to provide the most effective care for DCFS youth.

5) With a staff of researchers expert in the use of the Department’s administrative data and a staff with experience working within Federal and state child welfare agencies (including Illinois DCFS), Chapin Hall is uniquely positioned assist the Department conducting research required by the included programs.

6) The Data Center is a partnership of state child welfare agencies, Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, the American Public Human Services Association, and the Center for Social Services Research at the University of California at Berkeley. It is the only such child welfare database in the country.

Q2Answer: This procurement is required to provide research, reporting, training, data collection and analysis, and other services to the Department directly affecting placement of youth in care. Fourteen projects are directly supported by the Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago. Please see attached Scope of Work for the specifications of each program listed below.

1. Meta Model Evaluation/Core Practice Model Roll-out (previously Immersion Sites Evaluation)

2. Families Together Evaluation (previously Therapeutic Foster Care Evaluation [TFC])

3. Residential Monitoring CQI

4. Regenerations /RUR Support/CQI

5. Residential Care Research

6. Strategic Implementation Support

7. Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) Framework

8. Early Childhood Court Team (ECCT) Evaluation

9. Home Visiting Evaluation

10. Intact Family Services

11. Youth Experiences Survey Support (YES)

12. Center for State Foster Care and Adoption Data (FCDA)

13. Data Support

14. Safety Assessment

15. Family First

16. YV Life Set Evaluation

17. Motivational Interviewing (MI) CQI

18. Multisystemic Therapy (MST) CQI

19. Trauma-focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) Evaluation

20. Children's Behavioral Health Transformation

21. Wraparound Evaluation

Travel 22,500.00

Total 4,635,737.00 Q3Answer: Chapin Hall, a unit of the University of Chicago, has been a national leader in child welfare for over thirty years. Chapin Hall has substantial child welfare data holdings and actionable research and policy solutions for public benefit. Chapin Hall’s work include the Foster Care Data Archive, a longitudinal data warehouse that contains decades of data from over twenty-seven states on approximately 3 million children, and the Family Self-Sufficiency Data Center, built to enhance the use of administrative and survey data to answer policy-relevant questions surrounding family self-sufficiency and well-being. Chapin Hall has maintained DCFS longitudinal administrative data since the 1980’s and been a thought partner and research collaborator in Illinois since the onset of the child welfare reforms following the entry of the BH consent decree in the 1990’s.

More than 85 research and policy staff work at Chapin Hall, coming from a variety of academic and professional disciplines including child welfare, early childhood, economics, education, law, public policy, and sociology. Chapin Hall is optimally poised to successfully and consistently manage the tasks, activities, demands and reporting requirements on behalf of Illinois DCFS.

Q4Answer: The provider has collected the data necessary for this research over several decades. Another provider would not have the critical data collected during prior research and would have to begin the research from scratch which would cause the State to incur considerable expense to repeat the interview process and develop databases for the data collected. The Department has spent over $20M during the last five years alone to create these programs and data sets that are invaluable to the work the Department is required to do by law. Any effort to change vendors at this point would severely disrupt these critical programs and jeopardise the monies spent building these programs and the youth in the Departments care.

Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago is the only organization that maintains the necessary data and database to conduct the research. It would be time and cost prohibitive to consider working with another organization who would have to start from scratch in securing the data and building an extremely complex and sophisticated database.

The new provider would need to replicate prior Chapin Hall work which included the creation of models and would encounter severe learning curve issues; design and create data system and duplicates Chapin capacity which is the only one in the nation; enter and implement data sharing agreements with multiple parties, which includes other States. The replication costs to the Department would be $5-6 million. During this replication period of the Department would be at risk of not providing appropriate services and mental health needs to our youth in care.

In order to properly meet policy and program development requirements mandated by the Program Improvement plan of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, DCFS needs to undertake research in the areas of placement stability, education and behavior, worker assessment of foster homes, foster child characteristics, and foster parent experiences and perspectives.

These studies require the use of integrated administrative data and Chapin Hall Center at the University of Chicago is the only organization that a). maintains the necessary data and b) had developed a database for the purpose of conducting such studies.

In FY19 the agency conducted a thorough review of the scope and budget of this contract and spent nearly 100 employee hours reviewing the individual programs represented on this contract to determine if there was a more cost effective solution or other vendors capable of providing the same or better services. The agency reviewed the past history with this vendor, the cost and viability to replicate these programs through a competitive bid, and found there no other vendors with the requisite data. Given the money spent building these programs, the court order requiring DCFS to maintain these programs, a new vendor would be cost prohibitive would not be able to replicate the services provided by this vendor. The agency is satisfied that the cost provided for in this contract are reasonable and represent the best value to the state for the services provided.

The Department has spent over $20M during the last five years alone to create these programs and datasets that are invaluable to the work the Department is required to do by law. Any effort to change vendors at this point would severely disrupt these critical programs and jeopardise the monies spent building these programs and the youth in the Departments care.

Failure to approve this procurement would also guarantee that the agency is not in compliance with the BH Consent Decree. The BH Consent Decree is an omnibus consent decree that governs all areas of the Department's practices, including the provision of services to DCFS youth in care and families, the monitoring of those services and research and evaluation of those services and the monitoring of those services. Contracts with universities that provide monitoring of services are essential to the requirements of the BH Consent Decree since they assist the Department in evaluating the services provision to youth in care. In June 2009, the district court entered a supplemental order in light of proposed budget cuts which requires maintenance of university contracts. The supplemental order is attached. Failure to comply with the consent decree and the supplemental order may subject to the Director and State of Illinois to contempt of court, including fines. If this request is denied, the Department will not have the information needed to make essential policy and programmatic decisions relative to the federally mandated Program Improvement Plan for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. This would have significant negative budgetary implications as well as potential harmful outcomes for the clients of the Department.

Please see attached BH Court Order for additional information.

Risk Assessment:

Failure on the Departments part to meet the mental health needs of Youth in Care moving to independence. Failure results in higher rates of incarceration and future dependency upon State funded services.

Potential loss of federal funding to support mental health services to children transiting to independence.

Loss of existing services for independent living programs.

Failure on the Departments part to develop preventive services and meets the service needs of our youth results in greater use of State funds and services.

Q10Answer: This service provides the Department with research that will assist in the response to the Final Report of the Illinois Child and Family Service Review. This service provides research that will allow the Department to improve programs for foster children and families.

Research will determine success diverting families reported for maltreatment from the abuse and neglect investigation to appropriate services and avert future reports. Research leads to the appropriate development of services to youth that will improve their development outcome, resulting in less youth in care. Research on how all social services agencies can work together for what is best of the children and families. Chapin Hall created several of the program included in this procurement.