Can Hawaiiʻs child welfare system be fixed?

Yahoo

08-04-2025

Attorney Laurie Tochiki joins producer/host Coralie Chun Matayoshi to discuss the Malama 'Ohana Working Group's recommendations to the Legislature to improve the child welfare system, and how we can and must do a better job in supporting families and preventing child abuse and deaths.
Laurie Tochiki is an attorney, mediator, consultant, and principal of Pilina Pathways. She previously served as Executive Director of Epic Ohana (a non-profit organization serving families in the child welfare system) and Associate Dean for Student Services at the William S. Richardson School of Law. She currently serves as Vice-Chair of the University of Hawaii Board of Regents and Co-Chaired the Mālama 'Ohana Working Group, established by the legislature in 2023 to recommend improvements to the child welfare system.
In the last fiscal year (July 1, 2023, through June 30, 2024), five Hawaii children including Ariel Kalua, Geanna Gradley, Sarai Perez and Azaeliyah Pili-Ah You have tragically died due to abuse and neglect at the hands of their parents, relatives or legal guardians. All but one were known to the Child Welfare Services (CWS).
Q. First, what is Child Welfare Service and when do they get involved?
The 'child welfare system' is broad and ill-defined. Child Welfare Services (CWS) is an agency, not a system. In Hawaii, CWS is the branch of the Department of Human Services (DHS) responsible for the protection, care, and permanency of abused and neglected children. The broader child welfare system includes CWS, family courts, the Department of the Attorney General, law enforcement officers, and nonprofit service providers. It intersects with the education system, criminal justice system, healthcare systems, crisis response systems, and many other systems. In all our community meetings and working group meetings, we emphasized that our hope is for shared kuleana in the child welfare system for our families and children. In this report, 'child welfare system' refers to the broader system, while 'CWS' refers to the state agency. Malama 'Ohana Working Group Report, December 2024.
These are all such sad situations, and it is the responsibility of all of us to keep children safe. Government and the Family Court steps in to protect children when the actions of parents are deemed to be unsafe. CWS is a branch of the DHS with offices on every island. Government becomes involved when there is harm or threat of harm either because of abuse or neglect – most cases that CWS handles are neglect rather than abuse.
Q. How does CWS find out about problems?
Hotline: [phone]
There is a mandatory reporting requirement for teachers, doctors, military, etc. and failure to report can result in criminal liability
Anyone who is concerned about something they see should make a report. For those who are not mandatory reporters, reports can be made confidentially.
If the report requires an investigation, then an investigator will go out to the home to investigate.
Q. What if a child is harmed or in imminent danger of being harmed? Can they be removed from their home?
Hawaii Revised Statutes Section 587A – children are removed when children are harmed or are in danger of imminent harm. Police will remove or assist CWS with the removal. If CWS is doing an investigation without the police there, the parent does not have to let the investigator in, but if they don't cooperate and CWS is concerned about the safety of the children then they can call the police, and the police have the right to remove without notice or a court order.
No prior notice is required because police are using their police power at that point.
Most are neglect cases but there are cases of physical, sexual or psychological harm.
Most cases involve substance use disorder, domestic violence and/or mental health issues. Poverty is also a factor that makes families unstable.
Children should not be removed if the only problem is that the family is houseless but securing a safe and stable place for the children is a factor in reunification.
Q. What did the Malama 'Ohana Working Group recommend to the Legislature?
Transforming Hawaii's child welfare system requires deep, systemic change across three levels:
• Commitment, values, and mindset: The foundations of our work
• Policies, laws, and resources: The fundamental structures that govern our system
• Practice and relationships: How we work with and support families and system partners
This transformation must rest on three foundational elements:
A system grounded in traditional Hawaiian values
A trauma-informed and culturally responsive approach
Excellent workforce, sustainable funding and modern data systems
Recommendation 1: Address Historical Trauma and Persistent Disproportionality
System Critique: State and social services systems, particularly those involving CWS, lack adequate awareness of historical contributors to current situations and appropriate trauma informed responses to both historical and present trauma.
Full Recommendation: Acknowledge and address historical and present conditions and barriers that perpetuate the overrepresentation of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Island people in categories of need or distress.
Path Forward:
• Ground child welfare work in the values and culture of Hawaii.
• Incorporate traditional Hawaiian practices into the system.
• Support collaborative innovation with the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander organizations.
• Provide comprehensive cultural competency training.
• Improve outcomes for all families through culturally responsive approaches.
Recommendation 2: Build Family Resilience
System Critique: Hawaii has a shortage of resources dedicated to prevention, especially primary prevention and universal supports. Many struggling individuals are unaware of available services or how to access them.
Full Recommendation: Prioritize thriving families above all other commitments by providing universal family supports aimed at ensuring a stable foundation and opportunities for growth.
Path Forward:
• Shift our mindset and value to prioritize 'mandatory supporting.'
• Create accessible pathways to concrete supports like food and shelter.
• Establish community-based resource centers (Ka Piko) staffed by individuals with lived experience.
• Meet families' basic needs for housing, childcare, and physical and mental healthcare.
• Expand Family First Hawaii services.
Recommendation 3: Provide Comprehensive Specialized Support Services
System Critique: Seeking help for substance use disorders, mental health issues, domestic violence, and even basic supports feels too risky due to mistrust of systems and fear of CWS involvement. The process of accessing these services is often overly complicated.
Full Recommendation: Provide accessible, trauma-responsive, specialized supports and interventions outside the child welfare system for parents facing intense challenges.
Path Forward:
• Create accessible pathways to services that minimize the risk of family separation when parents are facing challenges or crises such as: severe poverty, substance use disorders, domestic violence, serious mental and physical health conditions.
• Enhance CWS workers' abilities to properly understand and address these issues and support families with a trauma-responsive and culturally informed approach.
Recommendation 4: Develop a Trauma-Informed System
System Critique: Families involved with CWS find it challenging to navigate the complicated system and related services. The experience often feels adversarial, confusing, secretive, and isolating for both children and parents, causing further trauma.
Full Recommendation: When CWS intervenes in a family, ensure that the intervention is respectful and supportive, minimizes trauma, and does not create more harm than the original issue they hoped to address.
Path Forward:
• Create a comprehensive trauma-informed culture throughout CWS.
• Build expertise in trauma-informed care and cultural competence throughout the child welfare system from front-line staff to top leaders, including in CWS, courts, and service providers.
• Transform policies and procedures to prioritize family support and communications.
• Address secondary trauma among helping professionals.
Recommendation 5: Build Excellence Through Accountability
System Critique: The child welfare system and related systems are not user-friendly for staff or families, lack sufficient accountability measures, and suffer from fragmentation and isolation between different components.
Full Recommendation: Ensure that systems, services, processes, and procedures are coordinated, accountable, and efficient with robust oversight, adequate funding, appropriate staffing, and high operational standards.
Path Forward:
• Improve core CWS processes, staffing, training, supervision, data systems, and technology.
• Ensure a commitment to excellence from the legislature, the Governor and Lt. Governor, and the DHS Director.
• Prioritize supporting the child welfare system through the Departments of the Attorney General, Accounting and General Services, and Human Resources Development office.
• Maximize state and federal resources and eliminate waste.
• Establish independent oversight mechanisms, such as an independent ombudsperson, Child Advocate, or grievance office.
• Create robust advocacy systems for children, parents, and families.
Q. What bills recommended by the Working Group are still alive at the Legislature?
There were more than 15 bills introduced relating to various aspects of the Malama Ohana report. Bills ranged from training for domestic violence and trauma informed care, a pilot project to test some of the ideas for community based prevention and community collaboration, the definition of child abuse and neglect, and a bill that would work to develop a program where children in child welfare cases would have an attorney representing them. A few bills await either final committee, or possible conference committee decisions. Eliminating poverty from the definition of abuse and neglect was scheduled for a final committee hearing on April 3. The pilot project was passed by the finance committee and will not head to conference. Trauma informed care training is still working through the legislature with a decision from the Senate Ways & Means Committee. We are grateful for the support of Representative Lisa Marten and Senator San Buenaventura. The Legislature is very concerned about the negative effect of federal executive orders on child welfare funding. Senator San Buenaventura has scheduled another information briefing on the issues on April 9.
The working group is not able to address the legislature because sunshine law prohibits members of the group from discussing the issues outside public meetings, and the group itself completed its work when the report was published. Therefore, co-chair Venus Rosete Medeiros and I, as well as other individual members of the working group, and community members who were very active in the working group process, have been testifying as individuals.
Q. Could the 5 recent child abuse deaths have been prevented? Most of these children were known to CWS and some had come through the foster system. Weren't there red flags that should have been prioritized for intervention?
Ariel Kalua (6 years old) – was in foster care then got adopted by foster parents who are accused of starving and abusing her. Known to CWS.
Geanna Bradley (10 years old) – foster parents and grandmother accused of starving and physically abusing her. Known to CWS.
Azaeliyah Pili-Ah You (11 years old) – was in foster care then got adopted by foster parents, mother accused of beating her and father is under investigation. Known to CWS.
Sarai Perez-Rivera (3 years old) – biological mother and her girlfriend accused of starving and beating her. Grandmother reported suspected abuse to CWS.
3 year old boy- no prior reports to CWS.
To some extent, tragedies like these might be avoided with a child welfare services agency that is well trained, adequately staffed, and where accountability processes are in place. Many of our recommendations address the culture of CWS, and the imperative need for training, staffing and accountability. For instance, there are requirements for regular face-to-face visits with children and resource caregivers. But if staff members are so stretched that they have to address crisis after crisis, they cannot keep up. Our report suggests that solutions need to address root causes of the many concerns raised. There are no simple solutions. There are many administrative barriers for nonprofit organizations working with CWS as well including contract delays, late payments, and contracts that do not cover the cost of the work performed. There are some bills that are still alive in the Legislature to address this, as supported by a coalition of nonprofit organizations called the True Cost Coalition. And we do not have a good process for addressing grievances and concerns. So, the heart breaking stories of family members who begged for help but did not receive it are not adequately addressed. We also do not have a good process for death reviews. But even with these interventions, there will still be situations we do not address in time, people who disappear from the safety net of school, medical care, or community.
The tragedy of those deaths at the hands of who were entrusted with the children after CWS involvement does put a light on many places where CWS practice needs improvement. But I want to end this segment with an emphasis that our community meetings and interviews and conversations included many stories of individual heroes. Social workers who go above and beyond and continue to work in excruciatingly difficult situations. Foster parents who year after year open their hearts and homes to children and become loving forever family. Birth parents, grandparents, aunties and uncles who keep showing up and are doing the best they can to protect their children. So much more could be done with prevention. Families want help and they need specialized services. It is our kuleana that all children in Hawaii can be safe and healthy.
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