Over the past few years, Maine’s child welfare system has come under fire for its failure to protect the state’s most vulnerable children. The Child Welfare Ombudsman’s 2024 Annual Report describes these continued shortcomings and offers recommendations for improvement.
Contracted with the Governor’s Office and overseen by the Department of Administrative and Financial Services, the Child Welfare Ombudsman is responsible for assisting Mainers in resolving “concerns and complaints” with Maine’s Child Protective Services Department of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).
The Ombudsman also publishes an annual report that details the findings of their investigations, as well as any specific recommendations they may have to offer the Department.
The Ombudsman reported that over the past several months, there were continued “significant struggles” in the state’s “child welfare practice, especially during initial investigations and reunification of families, negatively impacting child safety.”
The report also suggests that “child welfare staff continue to operate under enormous pressure.”
“The systems that surround child welfare are currently unable to support children and families in the way that they should,” the Ombudsman states. “Most urgently, finding a safe place for a child who is unsafe with parents is an unsustainable drain on staff resources.”
Additionally, the report highlights the shortcomings of the state’s child welfare database, Katahdin.
“Despite ongoing fixes and enhancements, the system is still inefficient both when reviewing a family’s history, and when entering information,” the report explains.
The Ombudsman further notes that “mental and behavioral health resources” are not readily available to children who need them.
On a more positive note, the Ombudsman does highlight that 2024 “featured a reset of the relationship” between the Maine DHHS and the Ombudsman “featuring an increase in collaboration and cooperation between our two offices.”
“The Department has implemented a number of structural changes in upper management and added important positions to the districts. Work continues to effectively implement safety science, and policy work is ongoing,” the report says. “The Department has been receptive to recommendations from stakeholders and staff and has a clear idea what practice and policy issues need to be addressed. The work of improvement is difficult and will not happen overnight, but currently appears to be started on the right path.”
Over the past year, two major officials within the Department resigned, including former DHHS Commissioner Jeanne Lambrew, who stepped down in May, and DHHS’ child welfare director, Todd Landry, who stepped down in November 2023.
The Ombudsman then delves into greater detail concerning the 80 cases reviewed over the past year, outlining the issues that arose and issuing recommendations accordingly.
More than half of the cases reviewed by the Ombudsman this past year were found to have “substantial issues,” understood as cases where “there was a deviation from best practices, adherence to policy, or both that had a material effect on the safety and best interests of the children, or rights of the parents.”
Of the 44 cases found to have “substantial issues,” 21 primarily involved investigations, while 17 surrounded reunification. The 6 remaining cases had varying issues.
Similar to 2023, the Ombudsman found that the “Department continues to struggle predominantly in two areas: 1) during initial investigations to collect sufficient information to determine whether children are safe and to recognize risk to children, and 2) during reunification to collect sufficient information when making safety decisions on whether to send a child home.”
[RELATED: Child Welfare Ombudsman Reports Continued ‘Decline in Child Welfare Practice’ for 2023]
The Ombudsman’s findings with respect to the Department’s investigation-related failures in particular mirrored those of 2023, noting in the report that the Department “has struggled with practice issues during initial investigations of child abuse and neglect.”
“Either sufficient investigation activities were not completed to determine whether a child was safe, or enough information was gathered, but the risk to the child was not recognized and protective action was not taken,” the report explained. “Safety plans that were not sufficiently monitored or did not ensure child safety were at issue.”
Concerns were also raised by the Ombudsman regarding the Department’s reunification practices, often resulting in decisions that “were not supported by enough information to make informed [reunification] decisions.”
DHHS has also struggled with finding appropriate placements for children in safe kinship homes or foster homes, evidenced by eight of the cases reviewed by the Ombudsman this year.
The report suggests that a lack of places for children in unsafe situations “may be contributing to this year’s issues with out-of-home placements.”
Concerns over the Department’s child welfare database Katahdin also featured prominently in the Ombudsman’s report this year.
Adopted in January of 2022, Katahdin replaced the Maine Automated Child Welfare Information system (MACWIS).
“We are now approaching our third year with Karahdin, and the system continues to be a struggle to use, both for caseworkers entering information, and for Department staff and Ombudsman staff to review cases,” the report says.
Similar issues with Katahdin were also raised in the 2023 Ombudsman’s report, wherein it was suggested that the software was impeding the ability of staff to keep Maine’s most vulnerable children safe.
“Katahdin is negatively affecting the ability of child welfare staff to effectively do their work, and therefore keep children safe,” the Ombudsman stated in 2023. “The Department has been working to address amultiple issues within Katahdin, and has already implemented many fixes, but Katahdin continues to be a complex problem without an easy solution.”
“Katahdin has been in use for over a year. In any transition to such a complex database, there will be setbacks and training issues, and cultural adjustment to the change,” the 2023 report argued. “However, Katahdin’s issues go deeper than this.”
This problematic software was the work of Deloitte, a multi-billion dollar consulting firm that operates globally.
Although the Maine DHHS has paid millions to Deloitte since 2009, payments skyrocketed in 2021 when they were awarded the contract to develop the new child welfare software for the department.
Eight proposals were submitted in response to a request-for-proposals issued in 2019, and of the three finalists, Deloitte had the highest scoring and lowest-cost submission.
Records show a history of the state recuperating costs from Deloitte, but no refunded payments have been recorded since 2016.
Concerns over the Katahdin platform were also raised in a report published in late 2023 by Walk a Mile in Their Shoes (WAMITS), a non-profit founded by former Democratic state senator Bill Diamond.
This report was the culmination of a series of listening sessions held throughout the state in recent months with those know first hand what’s happening on the ground in these situations — including “current and former caseworkers, foster parents, childcare providers, educators, law enforcement officials, and others who interact with DHHS on a regular basis.”
Described as a “dysfunctional” computer system, the WAMITS report explains that Maine DHHS caseworkers depend upon Katahdin to “assess the risk to a child and make a decision about whether or not a child should remain in, or return to, their biological homes.”
“Leaving decisions about child safety to a computer program without the benefit of professional judgement by human caseworkers,” the report argues, “leaves cracks that vulnerable children can slip through, especially if the data being entered is incomplete or inaccurate.”
Caseworkers asserted in the report that “overriding Katahdin’s recommendations is discouraged by DHHS management.”
[RELATED: Ex-Dem Sen Diamond’s Report Details Mountain of Failures in Maine’s Child Welfare System]
To address the concerns raised in this report, the Ombudsman made several specific recommendations, including:
- Improving the behavioral and mental health services available to Maine children by introducing “substantial additional resources;”
- Continuing efforts to “improve practice and increase staff retention,” especially by providing additional training in the best practices for investigations and reunification;
- Making the Katahdin system “more streamlined and effective;”
- Reducing staffing shortages, including among “professional visit supervisors” and defense attornies; and
- Strengthening “prevention and community support services” to help prevent children from “becoming so unsafe that they need to enter state custody and to support families after reunification so that no further child welfare involvement is necessary.”
Click Here to Read the Full Report
Here’s a novel idea for the state bureaucrats and legislative hacks: put more resources into protecting these kids and much less into services for ILLEGAL ALIENS and ASYLEES.
“ Cracks that vulnerable children can slip through “
Not to worry .
We banned all those dangerous baby gates .
All is Well at HHS .
Keep up the great work there you dipshits
And AI wrote ALL that stuff for you didn’t it !
With leadership we have had in Augusta and DC for the last few years how could any go well. Angus, your are an independent, you can change groups, get smart!
Nothing says incompetence like a Democrat administration!
Sandy, the last thing Anus King will ever be is smart! He’s a weak follower, not a leader!
Jon, I Know.He hides in the coat of an Independent. To bad the Republican Party is so weak in Maine. At least the Republican senator go some of extra SS money before it all goes to Illegals.