PIP Preparation & Planning (Jan 2026-June 2026)

What we've accomplished

• Used data and feedback to assess PIP Pilot opportunity
  • Continued our internal PIP planning meetings and weekly meetings with our federal partners
  • Reviewed the information we have gathered over the past several years through our data collection and community engagement events to determine how well our current needs align with the new pilot requirements
  • Shared what we know about the PIP Pilot with our partners, including MACSSA and our court partners, to hear any feedback or concerns they had with taking the pilot opportunity
  • Combined what we knew from our continuous quality improvement (CQI) processes, including CFSR case reviews, qualitative coding analysis, community engagement event feedback, and ongoing data collection to identify themes across performance and practice throughout the state
  • Held a statewide webinar on June 16, 2026, to provide internal and external partners with the available information regarding the PIP Pilot opportunity and our progress toward making a decision.
    
    
• Designed Minnesota's PIP goals that reflect the experiences and priorities shared by families, partners and stakeholders using our CQI processes, including case reviews, data collection and insights from community engagement events:
  • Improve caseworker practice and accountability
  • Enhance family engagement, relationships and shared decision-making
  • Improve permanency planning and placement stability
  • Advance an equitable, prevention-focused and culturally responsive system.
• Developed strategies that focus on a limited number of well-conceived, outcome-based strategies to achieve our goals:
  • Prevention and family preservation
  • Reentry reduction
  • Father engagement.
    
    
• Officially opted in to the PIP Pilot and Innovation Challenge on 6/29/26.

What we're working on

• Continue to meet with internal and external partners to explore additional strategies that align with our goals
• Determine chaser measures related to each of our strategies for inclusion in our PIP (monthly reporting)
• Prepare and submit a proposed PIP document to our federal partners.

What's next

• Prevention and family preservation
  • Evaluating the information currently being collected to determine the best way to measure progress in providing prevention services and preventing entry into the foster care system.
    
    
• Reentry reduction
  • Collecting and organizing information from two prior re-entry projects (one through the courts and one through the state) to assess what information is available and what information needs to be collected
  • Assess areas around the state that do well with reentry rates and examine what is going well
  • Conduct a gap analysis regarding reentry to determine what information we are missing.
    
    
• Father engagement
  • Creating the structure of innovation zones, including planning focus groups, reaching out to pilot sites and creating training for those interested in participation
  • Conduct focus groups with individuals with lived experience and frontline staff in pilot site counties
  • Conduct CQI trainings for individuals with lived experience, county/Tribal staff and DCYF staff
  • Launch innovation zones in pilot county/Tribal agencies.