RELEASE: February 3, 2005

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STATEMENT FROM COMMISSIONER JAMES M. DAVY

The Child Advocate, his staff, and Rutgers University provided a valuable service with this evaluation of cases investigated by our Institutional Abuse Investigations Unit in 2003 and 2004. The report notes progress from a prior audit of cases – most significantly an improvement in the professional judgment of our investigators. But, overall, the report documents case practice issues in IAIU that need to be improved. This unit is critical to our mission of protecting children, and we must get better.

We will use this report as a snapshot of how the IAIU was functioning before the child welfare reform plan was implemented so that we can measure our progress as we move forward.

It is important to remember that we are only a half-year into a five-year process to reform this system. These conditions didn't develop overnight, and it will take some time to correct them.

But we will correct them.

Many of the recommendations in the Child Advocate's report are things that we plan to do, or already are doing. For example, the report notes that IAIU investigators documented child abuse record checks on less than half of the alleged perpetrators in the audited cases.

These checks must be conducted and documented 100 percent of the time. Since July, when the central hotline for abuse-neglect allegations opened, these background checks have been handled by the call screeners before cases are referred to IAIU. This is a significant improvement.

By April, we will eliminate the “Not Substantiated” finding for IAIU investigations. This will help ensure that cases are investigated fully and that our findings are definitive.

We also have hired 14 new investigators this year, and another two will be added by March 30. The increase in staff will help reduce the workload and ensure that we correct the concerns cited in the report about the timeliness and the quality of the IAIU's investigations.

In addition, we will undertake a special project to eliminate a backlog of several hundred cases that have remained open past the required 60-day timeframe.

Details of the project are still being worked out, but it will be much like the ongoing initiative that successfully closed thousands of backlogged cases for the Division of Youth and Family Services. As part of that initiative, retirees and teams of experienced DYFS workers were assigned to various offices statewide to review and safely close old cases while the workers in the local office concentrated on investigating new cases.

By creating similar impact teams for IAIU, we will be able to clear the backlog. At the same time, IAIU will be committed to completing all new investigations within the required 60 days.

As required by law, we will respond in writing to the Child Advocate's report within the next 30 days. Again, many of the recommendations in the report are things that we already plan to do, but we will review them again to see if there are any further actions that we should consider.

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