RELEASE: August 4, 2005

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SRC Response Time

The Department of Human Services today announced that it plans to require that any allegation of child maltreatment be investigated by the Division of Youth and Family Services (DYFS) within 24 hours and will suspend the practice of coding some less serious child maltreatment allegations as "child welfare assessments" which currently allows workers up to three days to visit the child.

"A growing chorus of concerns, input from our workers and key advocates, an independent evaluation, as well as our own administrative review suggests that we need to step back and review how we make decisions at the very critical front end of our system," said Kathi Way, DHS Deputy Commissioner for the Office of Children's Services, which is implementing a massive reform effort.

“In order to continue to improve the child welfare system, we need to be flexible and be willing to make adjustments in mid-stream,” said Commissioner James M. Davy, of the 24-hour response time adjustment. “While we do not take this step lightly, we will always make the safety of children our first priority.”

Way said DHS has been in discussions with the court-appointed Child Welfare Panel on this topic since last week and worked out the framework for the change during a lengthy meeting in Trenton yesterday. Staff was notified of the impending change today and was informed that a start date for the new policy will be established within a week to 10 days.

“The Panel supports the state's decisions and their willingness to revisit this critical aspect of the reform implementation and to make changes in response to identified problems," said Judith Meltzer, who is acting chair of the Child Welfare Panel. "The ability to make adjustments along the road to reform is absolutely vital. The state's decision to err on the side of safety and require quicker face-to-face contact with children as they review screening protocols and retrain hotline staff is a step in the right direction."

In addition to the new response time guidelines for all reports, several categories of child maltreatment allegations -- which previously could have been considered child welfare assessments -- will now be classified by the State Central Registry (SCR) as investigations. The SCR is the toll-free hotline for reporting child abuse and neglect.

In addition, allegations of any kind involving a family already known to DYFS will no longer be classified as “information and referral” and will require a face-to-face response.

The state will continue to require an immediate response on the most serious allegations involving risk to children including physical and sexual abuse.

In July, DHS completed the first full year of a multi-million dollar reform effort that has resulted in a 30 percent reduction in caseload averages statewide, a 600-home increase in resource families, a reduction of adjudicated youth in juvenile detention awaiting behavioral health placements, a dramatic expansion of community behavioral health services for children and the establishment of the state's first centrally-located child abuse reporting hotline, and a gradual phase-down of the state's only psychiatric institution for children.

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