Structured Decision Making Overview Structured

Structured Decision Making (SDM) defines a household as a collection of  persons who have significant in home contact with a child(ren).  There is a possibility that more than one household can exist for a case.

The SDM Household identifies the family group that is being assessed .The SDM Household is not equivalent to the CFS Program Case.  One CFS Program Case will frequently contain more than one household.  Here are some examples that demonstrate common situations in which there is more than one household in a CFS Case.

•  Parents who do not live together- the mother and the children would constitute one household and the father and the children would be a separate household.  We do not want to create two (2) CFS cases because the children in common would need to be in two cases which creates numerous problems.  It is acceptable for a person to be a member of different households at the same time.
• Intergenerational families who live together - the minor parent and her children would be a household and the minor parent would be considered a child in her parents household.
• Situations where boyfriends, relatives and possibly others move in and out as caregivers.

The SDM Household concepts allows multiple assessments of the same type to occur simultaneously and groups the assessments together so users can see which Safety Assessments, Safety Plans, Risk Assessment, Reunification Assessments, etc are related to each other.  Persons will be added and removed from the household instead of each individual assessment.  This eliminates the need for the users to select the participants for each individual assessment while clearly showing the group of people who were being assessed.

The SDM Assessment process normally starts with the receipt of a report of Abuse/Neglect (Intake).

SDM also includes a process to assess foster homes that have an intake report or a complaint that indicates the home is unsafe or unsuitable. In this case the worker would initiate an SDM Assessment of Placement Safety and Suitability. This assessment is about the organization or foster home so this assessment will be documented from the Organization Detail.  

(03-2012)