Updated Jan. 5, 2015, to reflect the Initial Recommendations report, released December 31, 2014. Changes and additions are

highlighted yellow, and deletions are marked as strikethroughs.

The Family Assessment & Adequacy of Resources Workgroup preliminary initial recommendations are listed below, grouped under general themes (which are found in the light gray boxes). Each of these recommendations are taken from the draft of the Initial Recommendations document that was made available at the December 12 meeting of the Governor’s Task Force on the Protection of Children (CPS Task Force). Some of the recommendations have italicized notes underneath, which come directly from the CPS Task Force’s discussion during the December 12 meeting. The recommendations listed below may or may not be in the final draft of the preliminary recommendations that are due today (Wednesday, December 31).

These recommendations were included in the December 31, 2014 Initial Recommendations report; changes are noted below.

Please note that the Family Assessment & Adequacy of Resources Workgroup has until February to submit their recommendations. Final recommendations for this legislative session are due in March of 2015.

Workgroup Recommendations: Family Assessment & Adequacy of Resources

Require track assignment to be based on child’s best interests.
Make child safety the focus of any assessment or investigation.
Remove Family Assessment (FA) as the statutorily preferred child protection response.
Explore and develop comprehensive screening and track assignment tools to guide decision making.

Ensure that both FA and FI include comprehensive fact-finding.
Require that child interviews be conducted individually during the FA fact-finding process.

  • During a workgroup meeting held on December 4, MayKao Y. Hang, Amherst H. Wilder Foundation President and CEO, mentioned that in some cultures, children may not be willing to talk to individuals outside of their community without a parent present, and that requiring separate child interviews may not always be the best option.

Strengthen language to address the gap between when CPS services are needed and the legal threshold for filing a CHIPS petition.
Decide whether to 1) keep all services voluntary but require a county attorney consultation if services are declined, or 2) change statute to mandate services and, if a family fails to cooperate, require Require a county attorney consultation to determine if a CHIPS
[Child in Need of Protection or Services] petition can be filed if services and recommendations are not followed.

  • This was highly contentious. Several task force members were concerned that mandating voluntary services would create bigger issues. Dr. Mark Hudson said that sometimes services are offered that aren’t truly needed (in terms of child safety), and that should remain voluntary. Stacy Hennen of MACSSAwas concerned about the availability of resources to enforce this. In the end, members decided to save this recommendation for a later report, in order to allow more discussion.
Require that CPS workers consult with their county attorneys about whether to file a CHIPS petition prior to FA cases closing.

Ensure child safety in FA.
Require at least monthly face-to-face contacts with CPS-involved children who remain in their homes.
Use multi-disciplinary teams in FA.

Be cognizant of the impact of trauma on children during service delivery.
Include trauma assessment referrals and screenings for both maltreatment determinations and findings of services needed. The legislature must consider available resources and infrastructure needed in order to support his recommendation.
  • Nicollet County Attorney Michelle Zehnder Fischer emphasized the importance of considering out-state Minnesota in making these recommendations—one cannot mandate services that are unavailable. Additionally, Family Services Director of Greater Minneapolis Crisis Nursery, Molly Kenney, said that unless the county attorney gets involved, workers cannot mandate anything, including trauma assessments. Hennen said that DHS is already looking into adding trauma screening to FA and FI [Family Investigation].

Measure efficacy of current practices and determine data needs.
Develop indicators and outcome measures to inform practice and measure effectiveness of service delivery.
Review research on protective factors and predictive analytics to determine how to reduce or eliminate risk factors.
Analyze the current SDM [Structured Decision making] tools and update them as best practices change or emerge.
(This recommendation was moved to Screening & Transparency recommendations.) Add a section in the annual Child Welfare report that identifies themes in data, including where CPS is improving and potential areas of concern.

  • This seems to be related to an earlier concern brought up at the December 4 CPS Task Force meeting regarding assignment of child sexual abuse cases to FA, which the most recent Child Welfare report showed had happened quite a few times. The Director of Child Safety and Permanency at DHS, Jamie Sorenson, indicated his concern that this was happening and stated that DHS would be sending out a bulletin to all counties to reiterate that cases involving child sexual abuse were not to be assigned to FA.

Critically examine how Minnesota’s CPS system is funded.

  • Over the last decade or so, state funding for CPS in Minnesota has declined considerably, resulting in counties relying more on local property tax dollars to fund their child protection systems.