Social workers are doing incredibly challenging work in child protection. The trauma they witness takes a serious toll on their mental health and well‑being. Secondary trauma is part of the job, turnover is high, and good results are hard to come by. More institutional transparency could make a real difference—for the workers on the front lines and for the children they are trying to protect.
The public knows almost nothing about the true depth and scope of child abuse in our communities or about the underlying child‑outcome metrics of Child Protection Services (CPS). While we can see the dysfunction created by under‑informed policymakers, we cannot tell lawmakers what needs to be fixed. This is not because the public does not care or want to know. It is because child‑serving institutions do not make critical metrics or child‑based outcomes available.
Program managers often use the HIPPA laws and Human Resources policy to defend their lack of information sharing. In the Casey Foundation review of Hennepin County CPS a few years ago, Dee Wilson delivered the report to County Commissioners telling them that the HIPPA law defense for not sharing information is a “red herring” in most cases. Too often, information that could be shared is not being shared. We do not want names; we need data and descriptions to make informed decisions about policy.
For instance,
In the recent Safe Passage for Children of Minnesota’s investigative report of children killed while in CPS at the hands of their caregivers, four counties refused to participate, and no county offered up any information not already made public.
A few years before, Governor Dayton called out the “catastrophic failure” of CPS in the tortured death of 4-year-old Eric Dean. Even after 14 reports of abuse made by mandated reporters, Eric was never seen by a social worker. At the time, 4 counties were screening out 90% of child abuse calls, social workers were forbidden to review prior histories of a family’s child abuse when reviewing new cases, and the reporter who broke the story told this interviewer how impossibly hard it was getting information from the County about how the boy died.
If it were not for the tenacious reporting of Star Tribune’s Brandon Stahl (video), Jessie Van Berkel, and the serious investigative reporting of MN’s Safe Passage For Children, we would know nothing about children murdered by their caregivers in CPS. No accounting for what happened, how they died, and how the system failed them.
Similarly, if not for the efforts of CASAMN and KARA tattling to the Star Tribune, we would know nothing about the misguided recent two-year battle by GAL program management to kick the CASA volunteer Guardian ad Litem program out of MN.
Had that happened, MN would have been only one of two states, without a CASA volunteer Guardian ad Litem program.
All this to say that informed decisions require child outcomes-based data and information. Until we have systemic CPS reform, schools, teachers, health social workers, law enforcement, our communities, and thousands of abused and neglected children will continue to suffer.
WHEN YOU Share KARA’s reporting with FRIENDS, INSTAGRAM & FACEBOOK
and most of all, your State Representative
(find them here)
change will come a little bit faster.
Small efforts = real results.
When enough of us become informed and
speak up for abused and neglected children,
we will improve their lives and our communities!
Please support KARA’s work with a small monthly donation
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