Any conversation about Child Protective Services needs to include a deep dive into racial disparities, religious and parental rights, and common misconceptions about CPS and child abuse. These will be addressed in posts 2,3, and 4 in this series.
Today let’s consider what we don’t know about how Child Protective Services (CPS) are functioning across America. When we know how children passing through the system are succeeding or failing, policy decisions will be better, and children will be safer and healthier. Let’s begin with two examples of what we do know and could act on.
- For decades, about 80% of youth aging out of foster care go on to lead dysfunctional lives. Too many of them are young people of color, caught up in jail, and prison, unskilled, and often homeless.
- 200 children died at the hands of their caregivers while known to CPS from 204-2022.
This reflects badly on CPS. Suggesting results opposite the function this institution is chartered to obtain. Think about being 18/19, with a history of abuse, trauma, and mental health struggles, without family, unsupported by the community, and without resources. What options are there in your community to help this growing population of children and youth?
Children who experience abuse and neglect are about 9 times more likely to become involved in criminal activity. About 30% of abused and neglected children will later abuse their own children, continuing the cycle of abuse. About 80% of 21-year-olds who were abused as children met criteria for at least one psychological disorder.
Keep in mind, what we need to know about outcomes to make better decisions are metrics and not names. Tracking the metrics of success and failure shines a light on where change is needed.
Statistically, it would be helpful to know (as an example) how many families within the system are second/third/fourth generation’s passing through CPS. When we know a family has been involved over generations, we know that a bigger investment in breaking the cycle will be needed. The cost of even two generations of child abuse and trauma brings calculations of 80% recidivism at nine years in our prison systems and (in Hennepin County Child Protection Cases) almost 4 children per family (3.9). Hidden in the numbers is the reality that generational child abuse grows exponentially until the cycle is broken. 4*4 = 16 and the exponential reality that 4*16= 64 (third generation) should be alarming to policy makers.
A striking “opposite” of making public this kind information was discovered by Star Tribune reporter Brandon Stahl who when reporting on the death of 4 year-old Eric Dean at the hands of his mother after 15 ignored reports of child abuse, found a statute forbidding social workers from reviewing prior histories of abuse in a family when reviewing a new case. This statute’s hiding of family records of bad things done to children over time is a policy that delivers a result directly opposite CPS mission. In other words, demonstrating how an institution creates exactly what it was designed to stop.
Critical child intake (egregious incidents) and outcome (success and failure) metrics about the children passing through CPS are rarely kept and less often made public. There are reasons for withholding information, some valid, some misguided or deliberate.
It’s hard to find valid reasons for not wanting to know institutional child outcome metrics (numbers). Administrators and policy makers get results based on numbers or guesses. The public only knows what media report. Media only reports what institutions track and report. There is very little reporting on child self-harm, suicide attempts, school success/failure, physical and mental health, and host of other critical information that could help shape policy.
What child protection/child abuse information the public receives comes from reporting by other institutions like justice/courts, individual hospitals, and the rare and valuable reporting by investigative media reporters (TV/Newspapers). Keep in mind that media can only report on information made available to them. Brandon Stahl mentioned above, filed many Freedom of Information Act requests to find critical information. He complained about the lengths the County went through to make his requests difficult (Brandon interview).
A one of a kind INVESTIGATION OF MN CHILD FATALITIES (at the hands of their caregivers while in CPS) is instructive and a good place to start.
Key subject experts were involved in this research making clear and sensible observations about what failed to happen and what needed to happen to keep the child alive. If you are serious about better answers, look at a few pages in this report (in the link above).
From the report: “In our view, as well as that of the 2015 Task Force, Minnesota’s approach to Alternative Response promotes a number of practices that hinder the ability of child protection caseworkers to assess child safety, and therefore to protect children.
These practices include giving caregivers advance notice of the initial child protection caseworker visit, and interviewing children in the presence of caregivers. Fact-finding protocols are also inadequate: while the new Minnesota Child Welfare Training Academy currently provides some curriculum on fact-finding, we have not found any DHS directive that requires its use or recommends a standard protocol.
Other unsafe practices include that caregivers are assured at the outset that there will be no finding whether maltreatment occurred, before any information is known. In addition, the preferred Family Assessment practice historically has been for caseworkers not to document what they discovered in the case record, including whether they believe maltreatment occurred, or to identify the child victim or the perpetrator. This obviously limits the ability of caseworkers to see dangerous patterns over time.”
Top line facts from Safe Passages and the report:
Caregiver parental compliance to CPS was often based more on attendance than on changing problematic behaviors.
About one-third of children continued to be abused while under court supervision.
The average abused child is placed in four different homes.
26 children were killed due to maltreatment between June 1, 2022 and May 31, 2023 (approximately one child every two weeks). KARA note: 4 Counties opted out of participating, and no county provided any information that was not already public. Near death child abuse and child suicide and attempts were not included in this report. Arguably, these numbers would more than double if those
Almost half of the deaths were caused by fentanyl poisoning.
Racial disparities persist, especially for Black children, who make up 8% of the state population but accounted for 29% of the fatalities.
7 out of 21 cases reviewed had previous involvement with child protection.
Infants and toddlers made up the majority of deaths.
Half the cases involved caregivers with a history of domestic violence.
The research highlights that red flags that were ignored and cracks in the system that led to the death of these children.
This post invites you to start a conversation around understanding Child Protective Services in the hope that CPS can be made better where you live.
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. When enough of us become informed and speak up for abused and neglected children, we will improve their lives and our communities!
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