Boulder County Selected for Innovative Child Welfare Program
Feb 10th
State to provide substantial assistance for county’s preventive approach to child welfare
Boulder County, Colo. – Boulder County will soon join in an expansion of a visionary approach to child welfare that stabilizes families and helps keep children safe. The Colorado Department of Human Services (CDHS) sent notification this week that in spring 2013 the state will begin providing assistance to the county in the form of training, coaching, technical assistance, and meetings to enhance the quality of the county’s Differential Response (DR) initiative.
Differential Response is an evidence-based approach to child welfare that involves identifying cases that are lower risk and partnering with the families to get them the help they need, rather than treating all cases in the same way. Boulder County has been using a more collaborative approach with families since 2009, and has seen tremendous success in its child welfare outcomes as a result.
“Children do best with their families when appropriate safety exists,” said Kit Thompson, director of the Family and Children Services Division of the Boulder County Department of Housing and Human Services. “What we’ve found is that by strengthening families, we give them the best chance to provide a safe, stable home for their children.”
Research indicates the Differential Response approach leads to families receiving more help sooner, which results in sustained child safety and improved family engagement. DR also helps ensure that families who need much closer attention in cases of abuse or neglect have those resources available to them.
The Colorado Consortium on Differential Response, a group of five counties in partnership with CDHS, has been working to implement DR across the state since 2010.
“Studying and implementing Differential Response allowed us to redefine the values and mission of our child protection work and challenged us to alter our daily thinking about how to collaborate with families, our community, and one another,” said Angela Lytle, Children Youth and Family Services division manager for the Arapahoe County Department of Human Services. Arapahoe County has seen tremendous success with Differential Response, and Lytle has been a strong advocate for expanding the practice statewide. “Congratulations to Colorado for demonstrating the courage to take this innovative work and expand it with diligence and fidelity to best meet the needs of Colorado families,” she said.
Boulder County will develop its own implementation plan for the DR expansion in partnership with the state and other counties currently involved in the pilot. Other counties in the expansion include Adams, Chaffee, Denver, La Plata, San Juan, Lincoln, Mesa, and Otero. A second round of counties will join the expansion in fall 2013.
Boulder Channel 1 Presets at New Tech Meetup
Feb 10th
The Boulder Channel 1 crew present at Boulder New Tech Meetup. We talk about what we do, and what we would like to do as well as take questions from the 500 person crowd about how we manage our websites and who might be interested in looking at us for personal use or as a marketing tool for their business.
CU Women’s B-ball Team Beats Oregon St. Beavers in Annual Pink Game
Feb 9th
Story by Caryn Maconi, CUBuffs.com
University of Colorado senior guard Chucky Jeffery earned her 1,500th career point and 26th career double-double Friday night in a 61-47 win over Oregon State.
It was a long-awaited return to the Coors Events Center for the Buffs, who wrapped up a four-game California swing with a split against UCLA and USC last weekend.
Jeffery was high scorer with 22 points
The CU women wore pink-accented uniforms in honor of the annual “Play 4 Kay” game to support breast cancer awareness.
“It was breast cancer week, and coach talked about attacking because that’s what the women with breast cancer have to do,” said junior guard Brittany Wilson, who grabbed a game-high five steals. “They have to attack, they have to fight. So we came down, we attacked, we came after loose balls, and forced them into those (24) turnovers.”
CU put the heat on the visitors early on, going on a 9-0 run before OSU scored its first basket of the game with 14:09 left in the half.
Wilson said that solid start was crucial for the Buffs, as they were battling a strong defensive team ranked sixth in the nation in blocks at 6.1 per game.
“We knew we had to come out and set a statement or they would keep coming at us,” Wilson said, “and you can’t give a team like that confidence.”
But the Beavers answered back, hitting four three-pointers in five minutes to make it 21-16 with six minutes remaining.
Thanks to a solid 78.6 percent on 14 opportunities from the free throw line, CU was able to hold onto that narrow lead and enter intermission still up five (28-23).
Photo from Missy’s Blog
Freshman Jen Reese had another big night–scoring 10
“Oregon State is a good team, they hustle and they scrap the entire game,” Jeffery said. “They weren’t going away, so we knew we had to go on a run and we had to get it up a little bit … that was huge for us to get this win.”
The second half began in a similar fashion as the first, as the Buffs went on a 7-0 run with five straight points by Jeffery and two made free throws by forward Arielle Roberson.
This time, though, the momentum stuck.
Colorado built its largest lead of the game, 15, with eight minutes left on the clock. From there, the Ducks would not pull closer than eight.
Shooting 7-of-10 free throws to end the game, the Buffs widened the gap back to 14 and closed with a 61-47 victory.
Jeffery led the Buffs in scoring with 22 points, adding 11 rebounds and a season-high three blocks. Sophomore forward Jen Reese also scored in double figures with 10 points, while Roberson added nine.
Guard Jamie Weisner was the biggest force on the court for the Beavers, as the freshman scored 22 total points and added seven rebounds; she was the only OSU player with more than seven points.
“Weisner’s tough,” said Colorado head coach Linda Lappe. “She plays so hard, she’s physical, she never quits. She’s a tough matchup for anybody in the league, so you’ve got to give her a lot of credit. She kept them in the game.”
With the win, CU improves to 17-5 overall, 6-5 in the Pac-12 Conference, while OSU falls to 9-14 and 3-8 in conference play.
Colorado returns to the Coors Events Center Sunday at 1:30 p.m. to take on the University of Oregon. After falling to Utah 67-47 Friday night, the Ducks are ranked last in the Pac-12 with a 1-10 record in the conference.
In fact, the Buffs have just one opponent remaining in the regular season, Washington, that is currently ranked higher in the conference standings.
Wilson, however, said her team won’t get comfortable just yet.
“Being in the Pac-12, you never know what team is going to come out,” Wilson said. “You have to play every team and respect them. This is a bottom-to-top hard conference to play, and if you give a team confidence, they’ll keep shooting and keep coming back at you. You don’t want to relax too much.”
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