Minnesota Statute 257.0725 requires the Department of Human Services to make available annually a report on child maltreatment and children in out-of-home placement. This report for the year 2012 is now available online.
Federal Safety Measures
In terms of Federal Safety Measures, Minnesota did better than the national standard for:
- absence of repeat maltreatment
- time to reunification (within 12 months)
- median months to reunification
- reunification within 12 months after first removal
- adoption in less than 24 months for those who had adoption as permanency plan
- median months to adoption
- permanency for children legally free for adoption prior to 18th birthday
- children who were in care for three years or longer
Key Findings (with 2011 comparisons)
In 2012, 18,284 reports of maltreatment involving 25,839 children were assessed, with 13,007 reports assigned to the Family Assessment track. These statistics are slightly higher than those in the 2011 report, which showed almost 600 fewer reports assessed and nearly 900 fewer children involved. Both the 2012 and 2011 reports cited neglect as the most common allegation of maltreatment in both Family Assessments and Family Investigations.
In 2012, American Indian children were 6 times more likely to be a child subject of a report than White children, and African American/Black children three times more likely. This statistic is similar to 2011, which stated that they were “more than six and three times more likely.”
In 2012, 11,453 children spent some time in out-of-home care, compared to 11,368 in 2011. Nine percent were adopted from out-of-home care.
Racial disparities are apparent here as well: “American Indian, African American/Black, and children of two or more races are respectively 14.3, 4.4 and 3.6 times more likely than a White child to be placed out-of-home.” In 2011 the respective statistics were 13, 5, and 4 times more likely, meaning that disparities for American Indian children increased in 2012 while there was a slight reduction in disparities for African American/Black children and children of 2 or more races.
503 children became state wards in 2012 as a result of court terminations of parental rights, and 524 state wards were adopted from foster care, the majority of whom were under age 12. In addition, African American/Black and American Indian children were, respectively, 3.3 and 4.7 times more likely to enter state guardianship than White children. All of these statistics were nearly identical for 2011.
What stood out to you in the 2012 child welfare report for Minnesota? Leave a comment!