Maine child protection officials failed to complete all requirements in 94% of abuse or neglect investigations between October 2021 and September 2022, according to a federal inspector general audit released this week.

The most common failures were not completing safety assessments within 72 hours, not completing investigations within 35 days, and not notifying parents or caregivers of a finding within 10 days.

Bobbi Johnson, Director of Maine’s Office of Child and Family Services Maine Department of Health and Human Services

Although the audit adds to what has been a series of critical reports about the Office of Child and Family Services, it has been two full years since the end of the audit period, so many of the problems cited have been remedied or are in the process of being addressed.

Bobbi Johnson, the office’s director, acknowledged the challenge of keeping morale high in an agency that has been scrutinized perhaps more than any other in state government.

“Just this morning, I met with staff in Rockland, and we talked about this,” she said in an interview Wednesday. “Our responsibility is to learn from these audits and reviews, to learn from all feedback we get from different stakeholders about how we can improve our systems in ways that result in really successful outcomes for children.”

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General launched the audit to help determine states’ compliance with the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA), which provides funding.

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Maine was chosen as the first state to be audited in part because of a report by Maine’s Child Welfare Ombudsman that identified a deviation from best practices. But Tammy Levesque, assistant regional inspector, said the federal agency also found that Maine ranked high in risk assessment categories, including poverty, percentage of reoccurrence of maltreatment and rate of child fatalities.

“We wanted to take a look at the process when someone calls to report child abuse or neglect to make sure it’s working as intended,” she said. “The bottom line here: We’ve conducted this work because this population is very vulnerable.”

Anytime a report of child abuse or neglect is made, it’s assigned to a staff member at the Office of Child and Family Services to determine whether the claim should be substantiated. If it is, a full investigation begins.

The audit reviewed more than 10,000 reports between October 2021 and September 2022 and then selected a random sample of 100 reports to review more closely.

Although Maine is required by law to operate a program that includes procedures for immediate screening, risk and safety assessment, and investigation of reports, the office only complied with all requirements in six of those 100 cases.

“Failure to comply with requirements places the children’s health and safety at risk,” the audit states.

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The most common failure – in 92 of 100 cases – was not sending a written notification letter to a parent or caregiver within 10 days of an investigation.

Perhaps the most consequential finding of the audit was that in 59 of 100 reports, supervisors did not complete a safety assessment within 72 hours of initial context with a caseworker. These assessments are used to determine whether a child can safely remain in a home.

“Having proper documentation is just as important as having made sure the steps of the process were completed,” Levesque said. “That helps supervisors make timely and informed decisions about keeping children safe.”

Johnson said some of those deficiencies were attributable to staff learning a new data input system.

Another area of concern was that 44 of 100 cases had investigations that were not completed within the 35 days outlined in law.

Johnson said that also was something that emerged during an internal department review and led the agency to extend the timeline from 35 to 45 days to reflect the complexities of child welfare investigations.

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Levesque said Maine’s Office of Child and Family Services cooperated throughout the audit.

“They were very forthcoming and concurred with all recommendations,” she said.

The audit suggests that Maine follows up with a progress report in six months.

“We hope Maine continues to improve by taking actions in response to our report and by implementing our recommendations. And we hope that other states take notice and take proactive steps,” Levesque said.

Recommendations include providing additional training for caseworkers and supervisors on the reporting requirements and developing written policies that require supervisors to review and approve documentation and more closely monitor caseworker reports.

Johnson said she’s confident that all those recommendations will be followed.

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PROBLEMS ARE NOT NEW

Maine’s child protection system has long been an area of concern for policymakers, but the current challenges can be traced to late 2017 and early 2018.

The deaths of 4-year-old Kendall Chick in Wiscasset and 10-year-old Marissa Kennedy in Stockton Springs prompted lawmakers and then-Gov. Paul LePage to institute reforms aimed at improving child safety.

Chick had been removed from her mother’s care and placed with her paternal grandfather and his partner, Shawna Gatto. But caseworkers failed to monitor the girl’s care, and she later died from abuse by Gatto, who is now serving 50 years in prison.

In Kennedy’s case, child protection officials had been to her home six times in the four months before her death to investigate claims of abuse. Two days before she died, a caseworker said she noticed bruises but believed the girl’s parents when they said they were self-inflicted.

Those two cases highlighted conflicting challenges for the Office of Child and Family Services: They didn’t have enough staff to deal with the volume of neglect and abuse reports, but they also struggled with inconsistent expectations on when children should be removed.

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The office was provided with more resources beginning in 2018 – new caseworker positions and an increase in pay for those already in place. Just as the agency was starting to implement more reforms, including better training, another spate of child deaths in 2021 – four in the span of a month – led to further internal and external investigations, some of which lasted into this year.

Additionally, the number of Maine children in state custody to protect them from suspected abuse or neglect has risen to its highest level in two decades, adding to the strain on caseworkers tasked with keeping children safe and on caregivers who take in the at-risk children.

But Johnson believes her agency is making improvements amid tough conditions, many of them outside her workers’ control.

“One of my responsibilities is to share positive work and we work with many more families where we have a positive impact on than negative outcomes,” she said.

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