Audit finds Michigan's Child Protective Services still needs work; agency says review is flawed

Yahoo

15-04-2025

Yvonne Benn and Keith Edwards from the Office of the Auditor General testify to the House Child Welfare System Committee on April 15, 2025 | Screenshot
It's been more than six years since the Michigan Auditor General's office delivered a scathing evaluation of how the state health department conducts Child Protective Services investigations, and the department is maintaining that though improvements are necessary, the audit has always been flawed.
Members of the Office of the Auditor General, or OAG, testified before the Michigan state House's Child Welfare System Committee Tuesday to outline some of the findings from the 2018 report and a subsequent updated report from July 2024 that the office says the health department has still not addressed.
Those findings include the OAG's assertion that CPS is still failing to initiate investigations in a timely 24-hour manner, potentially leaving children in dangerous conditions for prolonged periods of time.
But the bulk of the remaining issues the updated audit found place more focus on documentation and less focus on what actually protects children from cycles of violence, Senior Deputy Director of Michigan's Children's Services Administration, or CSA, Demetrius Starling told lawmakers on the committee. CSA is housed in the state health department. Since the 2018 report, as confirmed by the updated audit, Michigan has made movement to improve Child Protective Services, with Starling crediting the department's Keep Kids Safe agenda, unveiled in 2023, for improvements.
'The [Michigan Department of Health and Human Services'] investigates approximately 70,000 referrals of potential abuse and neglect on an annual basis and uses comprehensive approaches to provide the necessary responses based on the risk of each child,' Starling said. 'Michigan kids are counting on us.'
Since 2018, the state health department has complied with several recommendations from the OAG, Yvonne Benn, an audit agency administrator with the OAG said. The updated audit found such improvements like improved timeliness for completing CPS investigations and referring cases to applicable prosecuting attorneys when appropriate.
Benn said after Tuesday, members from the OAG will return to the committee next week to continue presenting recommendations they say the health department has not addressed.
In regards to the specific issue of investigation initiation, Starling said the updated audit acknowledges that CPS since 2018 has firmed up its definition of what constitutes the commencement of an investigation as once an investigator gets face to face with a reported victim for a safety assessment.
But that face-to-face interaction is taking on-average 72 hours to occur, Keith Edwards, who oversaw the OAG's follow up told committee members Tuesday. Michigan law doesn't prescribe what defines the commencement of an investigation, but Edwards said auditors found that CPS's adopted policies fall short of other states' child safety standards.
CPS' current policy to start the clock at face-to-face intervention gives investigators and violence prevention stakeholders time to gain a solid understanding of a child's situation, Starling said.
'At the end of the day, all of these cases are important, so our staff are very diligent about the fact of trying to or at least attempting to make contact within 24 hours… we do a lot of background work with a lot of folks,' Starling said. 'So we're gathering evidence by looking at our own case history. We're doing case planning with our supervisors. We're making other successful investigative contexts before, in some instances, face-to-face is even attempted. So there's a lot of work that goes into preparing for an investigation and committing an investigation.'
As the state health department continues to disagree with several of the findings in the OAG's audit, Starling said the audits have not been without merit as auditors acknowledged several actions taken by the department to improve child welfare.
'We all have a common goal, which is to ensure that kids are safe. I think we can find some common ground,' Starling said. 'We want to make changes, whether it be policy or statutory changes to make sure that families and children are safe in our community, so there's no acrimony. There's no hard feelings, but however, I do stand by the fact that there are some things within this report that are inaccurate.'
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