Throughout the year we have been following the Governor’s Task Force on the Protection of Children from its creation through the debates and now to the final report and recommendations that were released in March. All of the recommendations have an impact on either statute, practice, training, the social service information system, the Department of Health and Human Services fiscal budget, and county budgets. Over the next few weeks we will release a series of blog posts covering the final recommendations. The recommendations provided here are suggestions for potential policy change and do not represent any actual changes to public policy. For now, enjoy this post on the screening recommendations and keep coming back for more!

Ensuring Child Safety

  • Change state statute on the Reporting of Maltreatment of Minors Act by incorporating child safety as the primary feature of decision making.

Screening Reports

  • Consider past screened out reports in making screening decisions.
  • Require all screened-out reports to be maintained for 5 years.
  • Make screening decisions in consultation with a multidisciplinary team or a supervisor if there is no team available; consult with the County Attorney’s Office for guidance if necessary.
  • Send all reports of child maltreatment to law enforcement regardless of whether the report is screened in or screened out.
    • This is already required by statute; however, testimony throughout the Task Force meetings indicated that not all counties adhere to this 100% of the time. The recommendation is to clarify and strengthen this language.
  • Allow screeners to seek collateral info (e.g. contact a medical provider or school staff person) from mandated reporters when making a screening decision.

Screening Guidelines (Intake, Screening, and Track Assignment)

  • Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) to review and revise the child maltreatment screening guidelines every year; must include best practices and input from multiple stakeholders.
  • Counties to implement guidelines and make revisions only with the approval of DHS.
  • DHS to provide further guidance on screening by setting a required standard for information initially obtained at screening; information must include (but is not limited to) the following: description of threats made to the child, presence of domestic violence, how the family may respond to the intervention, child injury, and more.
  • Include in guidelines “driving under the influence with a child present, medical neglect reports, and mental and emotional harm reports,” as well as a description of behavior, injuries, and state of the child as deduced by a “reasonable person” to be the result of maltreatment.
  • Amend educational neglect and truancy to show that school absences are linked to mental health, chemical use, physical or sexual abuse, and “other expressions of neglect.”
  • Require reporting of Orders for Protection and Harassment Restraining Orders where a child was present and develop practice models so these cases are not closed due to high number of dismissals of these actions that have resulted in reunification of the victim and perpetrator.
  • Ensure that both parents are notified when their children are involved in an investigation or assessment.

Acceptance of Report and Data Collection

  • Require counties and tribes to accept a report even when it is not within their jurisdiction; modify the Social Service Information System (SSIS) to include a dropdown selection for “transfer” to reflect these types of referrals.
  • Make narrative justification for screening decisions and other important records accessible across SSIS.
  • Complete a search at intake of a family’s pertinent child protection (CPS) and child welfare records, as well as CPS records of any person named in the report as a suspected offender.

Screener Qualifications

  • Require intake workers to have a bachelor’s degree and complete DHS training; allow counties to collaborate in case of lack of capacity.

Mandated Reporter Practices

  • Allow the release of relevant private data to mandated reporters making a report and encourage the provision of relevant information to any other mandated reporters in close contact with a child for whom they have a responsibility to care for their health, education, or welfare.
    • What remains unclear is whether or not the recommendation is geared toward mandated reporters working with the alleged victim or any child in the home, such as a sibling.

Amended Statutory Definitions

  • Substantial Child Endangerment:
    • Add any injury to the face, head, back, or abdomen to a child under age 6, and include bruising of the bottom of a child under age 3. The Task Force recommends that DHS consult with county, tribes, and stakeholders to develop proper responses to allegations involving injury to a child’s bottom to distinguish between “reasonable and moderate physical discipline of a child” and non-accidental physical injury by a caregiver.
    • Add neglect when it substantially endangers the child’s physical or mental health and growth.
    • Add withholding medical treatment from a child with a life threatening condition, abandonment, and behavior that constitutes a pattern of past child abuse (acts against a minor that violate state laws of assault, criminal sexual conduct, domestic assault, etc.).
    • Do not immediately add alleged domestic violence in the presence of a child to the definition; rather, require a face-to-face meeting with the child involved in the alleged domestic violence report within 24 hours and assign the track according to guidance from DHS based on a number of criteria.
  • Medical Neglect
    • Do not require a physician’s diagnosis for medical neglect; broaden it from medical neglect of an “infant” to medical neglect of a “child.”
  • Physical Abuse
    • Amend “that are done in anger or without regard to the safety of the child” to say “actions which are not reasonable and moderate include, but are not limited to, any of the following:
      [1-10 which includes throwing, kicking, burning, cutting, etc.].”
  • Threatened Injury
    • Add to this definition prenatal exposure to chemicals or alcohol (testing positive for any chemical or alcoholic substance not prescribed to the mother), cases of domestic violence in the presence of the child, and child exposure to an individual whose parental rights were terminated or transferred to another following an involuntary petition to terminate parental rights or transfer to another, regardless of whether the termination or custody
      transfer was deemed voluntary or involuntary.
  • Investigation
    • Clarify definition of “Investigation” to show that investigations must be used “for all cases that involve substantial child endangerment or high risk allegations of harm, neglect, or injury to the child”; rename Investigation to “Traditional Response.”
  • Reports
    • Change definition to mean information provided to a social services agency or law enforcement describing alleged child maltreatment and which includes enough information to identify the child victim and the child’s caretaker or the alleged offender.