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Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2018
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The State Assembly holds a hearing Oct. 9 that could be a
first step in the right direction
Last March, the New
York City Family Policy Project, an essential resource, and not just for
New Yorkers, published
a comprehensive report on the harm done by the state’s child abuse hotline,
which is run by the state Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS). The report found that New York screens out
false reports at a far lower rate than most states. That causes havoc for
families wrongly investigated, and deluges workers with so many false reports
they have less time to find the few children in real danger.
Responding to the Family Policy Project report, the State
Assembly Committee on Children and Families announced it will
hold a hearing on the issue on Oct. 9.
I hope they will zero-in on one nearly unique element in the
New York system that makes it particularly destructive: a built-in incentive
for what should be called mutually-assured buck-passing. Only one other state
has the structural problem New York has built into its process. I also hope the legislature will take a look
at some relevant history, both recent and ancient.
The structural problem
In most states, the family police agency (a more accurate
term than “child welfare” agency) is a state agency. That state agency runs the hotline and that
state agency does the investigations and takes away the children. In
10 states,* the investigating and family-separating is a local government
function. But in five of those states,
including California and Minnesota, the localities typically run the hotline as
well, while in three more, localities can screen most or all reports sent from
the state hotline.
Only one other state, North Dakota, does it in the awful way
New York does it:
In New York, all calls alleging child abuse and neglect go
to the statewide hotline run by OCFS.
They then send the reports they screen-in to localities to
investigate. The
localities have no choice – if the state hotline sends it, the locality must
investigate it.
And it sure seems like, at least in New York City, they want
to keep it that way. The reason for that
has to do with safety – no, no,
not safety for the children, safety for
the city family police agency, the Administration for Children’s Services
(ACS).
Over and over again, when ACS needlessly investigates and
traumatizes an innocent family, the
agency’s commissioner, Jess Dannhauser,
says something like: We didn’t want to wreak havoc on this family; the state
made us do it!
The state, for its part, has an incentive to send huge
numbers of reports to the localities. After
all, if the hotline wrongly screens out a report and later there’s a
tragedy, the state agency gets the blame.
This may well be a key reason the New York hotline wrongly screens in
so many cases.
Meanwhile, ACS speaks often of the
need for better training so mandatory reporters don’t phone in false reports, (but
since they’re mandatory reporters, they still may be afraid not to
report) and ACS is piloting some supports in schools to encourage those reporters to
seek alternatives to calling the hotline.
But Commissioner Dannhauser has never publicly called for the
Legislature to simply give ACS the power to screen out false reports sent to
his agency by the OCFS hotline.
And no wonder: If ACS were to get that power, screen out a
report, and then there’s a tragedy –
well, you know.
Hence, mutually-assured buck-passing.
I figure Dannhouser is likely to testify at the Oct. 9
hearing. I hope
one of the lawmakers asks him this question: You keep blaming the state hotline
for forcing you to investigate reports you know are b.s. Why have you never asked us for a law
allowing you to screen out those reports yourself? (And if the legislators don’t, I hope a
reporter covering the hearing will.)
UPDATE, OCT 10. WHAT HAPPENED AT THE HEARING:
On the one hand, for the first time I know of, Dannhauser made
some noises about wanting some power to screen calls after they are
received from the hotline.
However, Dannhauser is a master of calculated ambiguity.
All he really said in his prepared testimony is that the
state should consider creating a system in which localities would submit
a plan that OCFS would then have to approve which would allow ACS
to "conduct an expedited and less intrusive review of the allegations." He seemed to go a little further in answer
to questions – or did he? But
this is certain: At no time did he call for simply giving his own agency the
power to screen out reports it deems to be false. It doesn’t sound like he wants to give up the
power ACS truly covets: the power to pass the buck.
As I said, only North Dakota does it the way New York does
it. There also are two hybrid
states. In Colorado, there’s a state
hotline and local hotlines. Most calls go
directly to the local hotlines which, of course, can screen reports. Pennsylvania
has a state hotline that passes on calls to local family police agencies. But, unlike New York, those local agencies
have discretion to screen out almost all reports alleging “neglect” – which
are, of course, the overwhelming majority of reports. Pennsylvania localities
are not allowed to screen out reports alleging abuse or “severe neglect” – but
this still is an improvement over New York’s approach.
Pennsylvania also teaches something else: Giving localities
the authority to screen won’t work miracles. Both Philadelphia and Pittsburgh
take away proportionately far more children than New York City – and Pittsburgh
decided to screen in the worst possible way – using “predictive analytics.”
So why make the change? For starters, just taking away ACS’
excuse and making localities accountable for launching needless, harrowing
investigations of families would be worth it.
But also: right now, New York localities have to investigate
100% of the reports sent to them by the hotline. If they get the authority to screen and wind
up investigating 90% of the reports instead of 100% that’s still an improvement.
And there’s nothing to stop OCFS from using predictive analytics at the state
level should it so choose.
Even without a law,
it is possible to change regulations to allow for a kind of “circuit breaker”
in which localities would have the authority to stop an investigation at a very
early stage if the report never should have been sent to them in the first place.
Also, there’s a more encouraging lesson from a county in
Upstate New York.
The relatively recent history
At one time, two Upstate counties, Monroe (metropolitan
Rochester) and Onondaga (metropolitan Syracuse) ran their own hotlines. In Monroe County that was true until 2015
when, in the wake of a child abuse death, the state took that authority
away. Showing notably more courage than their
New York City counterparts, Monroe County officials actually
asked for that authority back. But, in a remarkably nasty response, the
state OFCS said no – because, they said, when Monroe had its own hotline they
screened out too many calls.
Well, OCFS sure “fixed” that problem! Once the state took
over, the number of screened-in calls skyrocketed.
The ancient history
All the way back in 1987, the (long-since defunct) New York
State Legislative Commission on Expenditure Review gave hypotheticals to 23
hotline operators, 12 at the state hotline in Albany, eight in Onondaga County
and three in Monroe County. In each
case, they asked: Screen-in or screen-out?
The results: Big differences between Monroe County, Onondaga
County and state hotline screeners (at that time the Monroe County operators
were far more likely to screen-in reports) and no consistency among the state
hotline operators.
In one case, for example, all the Monroe County operators
said screen it in, almost all the Onondaga County operators said screen it out,
and the 12 operators at the state hotline split: 8 yes, 4 no.
There is no reason to think the hotline
is any less arbitrary, less capricious or less cruel today.
Improving that will
require a better screening tool and yes, operators will have to be trained in
how to use it, and others will have to be trained to be sure they are using it
correctly. But beware of the use of
“training” as a copout. Because in addition to being invoked when it’s needed,
it’s also invoked – endlessly – as a way to avoid real change. Training is no substitute for due process.
So if you’re in
Albany on Oct. 9, please be extra careful on the roads. Because if anyone suggests a drinking game
based on how often some family police official at the hearing uses the word
“training,” you can expect a lot of drunk driving.
*-Nine
states are fully local. I also count Wisconsin, since the state runs child
welfare in only one county, albeit the largest, Milwaukee. I do not count Nevada, where the state runs
the system everywhere except the largest county Clark County
(metropolitan Las Vegas)
