Contact: Ed Rogan
Joe Delmar
              (609) 292-3703

NJ Department of Human Services Commissioner Gwendolyn L. Harris today declared a state of emergency in DYFS that places a moratorium on case closings in those cases where a child cannot be located by a caseworker.

As part of this emergency move, Harris has directed that effective immediately:

• Local caseworkers cannot, under any circumstances, close a case if there is an open allegation of abuse or neglect and the child has not been seen.

• Caseworkers must immediately establish face-to-face contact with the 280 cases statewide where an abuse allegation has been made but the child has not been seen and caseworkers must see those children by the end of the week or;

• In cases where those children cannot be found to be examined and/or interviewed, each district office is required to implement extraordinary investigative measures to find the children.

• On those rare circumstances where closing a case without finding the child might be indicated -- for instance, with teenage runaways who are considered missing persons cases or if a family has moved to another state -- only the DYFS director can approve the case closing.

Commissioner Harris also announced she was taking preliminary actions to suspend a DYFS supervisor who authorized the closing of the Melinda Williams case last February.

"The supervisor in question approved the closing of the Williams case when it was clearly noted in the case file by the caseworker that there was an open abuse allegation and the children had not been seen," said Harris, noting that the supervisor, a supervising family service specialist, did not properly follow policy by:

• Signing off on the case closing summary in February 7, 2002 though an open allegation of abuse from October 3, 2001 remained

• Signing off on the case closing summary when the safety assessment conducted by the caseworker noted that the children had not been seen in more than a year.

"While we continue to comb through the Williams family case file, it is crystal clear that this case was closed without a caseworker having recently seen the Williams children," said Harris. "This should never happen. My message today is: Do not, under any circumstances, close a case unless you have face-to-face contact with those children and have ensured their safety."

While it is sometimes necessary to close a case when a family moves or a teenage foster child runs away and is being pursued by law enforcement agencies, Harris said "this should never happen when there is an open allegation of abuse."

"I am not just looking to identify individual culpability here. I have dispatched a team of experts from my office to figure out how the system continually failed this family over an extended period of time," said Harris, noting that this analysis -- being compiled by a department assistant commissioner -- should be completed by Friday. "I want to know: Who participated in the decision-making in this case? Did we do every thing we could to help this family? Did the caseworkers involved with the Williams children have the training, support and supervision they needed to do their jobs properly?"

Commissioner Harris also noted that her team's investigation has revealed that the last caseworker to handle the Williams DYFS case, was carrying a caseload of 27 families, which involved the supervision of 53 children -- contrary to published reports that the caseworker was carrying 107 cases.

Harris said her team was also investigating the circumstances under which the Williams children ended up in the Murphy home. Harris noted that the children were apparently living with a number of relatives throughout the division's 10-year history with the family -- even though none of those arrangements were authorized by the agency or the courts.