Today is the fourth meeting of the Governor's Task Force on the Protection of Children. Before the meeting begins, here is a quick review of what happened at the last meeting, held on Wednesday, November 5. The agenda for this meeting involved workgroup updates, the development of a Vision Statement (meant to be finalized at [...]
Yesterday at 11 AM, Minnesota Public Radio's The Daily Circuit hosted a discussion of Minnesota's child protection system. Guests were Dr. Mark Hudson, Medical Director at the Midwest Children's Resource Center, Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota; and Lori Whittier, Managing attorney in the Child Protection Division, Hennepin County Attorney's Office. Dr. Hudson is also [...]
The third meeting of the Governor's Task Force on the Protection of Children is tomorrow (Wednesday), November 5, from 4:30 PM to 6:30 PM in Room 5 of the State Office Building. This is a public meeting. Additionally, the three workgroups will be meeting prior to the full task force meeting, from 3:00 PM to [...]
During the last legislative session in Minnesota, the legislature passed a bill that included provisions related to child protection screening. This bill was signed into law by Governor Mark Dayton on May 21, 2014. The screening provisions within this bill were a response to the Office of the Legislative Auditor (OLA) 2012 report on child [...]
Governor Mark Dayton announcing an executive order regarding Minnesota's child protection system. Source: Tom Scheck/MPR News Over the last few months the Star Tribune and other media outlets have put Minnesota's child protection system in the spotlight, highlighting concerns surrounding the low screen-in rates of reports of alleged child maltreatment as well as the death [...]
This post is in response to the Star Tribune opinion article written by Joanna Woolman and the comments that followed Ms. Woolman's article. A version of this blog post has been submitted to the Star Tribune as a commentary. This post was edited at 3:29 PM, 9/12/14, to clarify current DHS policy. I appreciate Joanna [...]
As mentioned in yesterday's post, Governor Dayton signed into law the omnibus Heath and Human Service Policy bill (H.F. 2402 / Chapter 291) on Wednesday, May 21. The new law includes language that will "require counties to maintain sufficient information to identify repeat reports alleging maltreatment of the same child for 365 days, for reports [...]
On Tuesday, February 21, the Office of the Legislative Auditor (OLA) released their evaluation report on Child Protection Screening. That same day,The Health and Human Services Reform Committee heard testimony from eight individuals representing agencies ranging from the Minnesota Department of Human Services to local nonprofits. The purpose of the Committee hearing was to present [...]
