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Child Abuse in Minnesota: A New Approach
Every year Minnesota’s child protection staff screen in approximately 18,000 reports of child maltreatment for review. Nearly 70% of these are assigned to the state’s voluntary Family Assessment program. Though the purpose of the program is to promote family stability and child safety, recent data indicates that few families receive any services.
Family Assessment has been in place in Minnesota for 10 years. It’s the state’s name for a national trend in child protection practices called ‘Differential Response.’ These programs offer families the opportunity to work voluntarily with child protection to avoid the court process and keep their records clean of any child maltreatment reports.
Like similar programs in other states, Family Assessment is based on research by the American Humane Association and others showing that families are more receptive to child protection staff when offered an assessment rather than being confronted with an investigation. It also recognizes that the formal child welfare system can become more burden than support, since the requirements imposed by both the courts and the social services department – therapy, anger management programs, caseworker visits, parenting skills training – typically add up to a part-time job.
But what happens if parents fail to cooperate while their children remain at high risk? In some counties, a parent can simply say, “No, thank you.” and the case is closed. And what if there are no services? Available data indicates that perhaps only 15% of families assigned to Family Assessment statewide actually receive services. In Hennepin County an appointed Citizen’s Review Panel found that three out of four families aren’t even offered services.
So in a very high percentage of cases the promise of Differential Response is unrealized in Minnesota. While the traditional court process has its problems, at least in that system someone is aware of these children and has the authority to protect them. Now most of them are on no one’s radar.
Family Assessment is still the better option for most children, but only if it is implemented as designed. That takes resources. It is difficult to trace the history of child welfare funding in Minnesota, but our estimates are that state contributions to child protection and foster care have been cut from over $100 million in 2002 to approximately $38 million today. It’s unrealistic to expect counties to implement Family Assessment effectively if they have to cut corners at every turn. Children in high risk situations cannot afford to be compromised by an ineffective system, which is why it’s time for Minnesota to reinvest in child welfare.
Rich Gehrman is Executive Director at Safe Passage for Children of Minnesota, a citizen group advocating for improvements to Minnesota’s child welfare system. James Parkington is a writer and researcher with the organization.
Posted in Health Care | Related Topics: Social Services Children's Health Community Safety
3 Comments
December 7, 2012 at 4:33 pm
As a long-time volunteer guardian ad-Litem I am convinced that children that receive timely and sufficient services can break the cycle of violence and human destruction that has filled our prisons, damaged our schools, and make it dangerous to live in parts of our city.
Every child wants to be normal. No child should be denied the skills to cope with school & life, yet we continue to deny even basic safety to 4 year olds.
Denying children a family assessment has created horrid conditions and ruined any chance for my caseload kids to lead a normal life;
My 1st guardian ad-Litem visit to a 4 year old was at the suicide ward of Fairview hospital. Her 7 year old sister had been kicked so hard by her abuser she went into convulsions. She had a vocabulary of less than 50 words when I met her (seven years old).
There were 49 police calls to another home where the 7 year old had been prostituted (police only removed the kids when the 7 year old tried to kill her younger sister in front of the officers).
7 year old Andy had been tied to a bed, sexually abused, and starved over a 4 year period. His biological father had a court order restraining him from being around young boys yet dad was still awarded custody of his son.
Dad had spent most of his adult life in prison. In Andy’s case, he was not worth the cost of investigating an imprisoned father. Andy has cost the county well over 5 million dollars to this point, not including the people he has stabbed, the teacher he beat up, or the property damage he has done.
The 2 prior cases have the same economics (more kids, more dysfunction & higher costs).
Unsound economics, unethical public policies, & horrid outcomes.
Art Rolnick and the Federal Reserve board make a bulletproof argument for investing in children. www.avahealth.org proves the health and mental health argument for taking care of children. www.invisiblechildren.org expands on the issues impacting abused & neglected children.
December 6, 2012 at 12:56 pm
Everywhere you turn, it seems conservatives are unwilling to provide money for our children and young people. From the colleges and universities to good daycare (which costs on average over $13,000 a year, stopping many people from being able to hold a job or go to school) the conservatives have been unwilling to invest in our children.
What if we decided that our children and young people were our future? And how many times have we heard that?
We need to follow up with real project and promotion. Minimum wage is just one aspect. So is affordable childcare (subsidized or whatever it takes). Early Childhood education. Good schools—really good schools that start with respecting teachers, principals, and the students. Funding this program to help stop abusing children. Finding ways to close the achievement gap.
We KNOW how to do many of these things already. But too many conservatives will not support providing enough money to accomplish all these objectives.
Even though we know that funding our schools and early childhood and closing the gap are cost-efficient. Every one of them have a good return on our money. We have plenty of evidence of this, from our own state history, to national history, to the history of other countries.
Ginny says:
December 7, 2012 at 8:39 pm
Mike
Your stories are horrifying and make me despair when I read them here and in the newspapers. These actions seem so far out of my experience—it’s hard to find words. Art Rolnick has been fighting for years to try to help children at an early age.
Did you know that 47% of Detroit residents are functionally illiterate? Think what that means? That explains Detroit’s high crime rate. I don’t know why we can’t see that in terms of lost lives and lost money in hundreds of different ways.
We need a Marshall Plan for children. And another for the environment.