More accountability coming for the Department of Children and Families

On Thursday, changes are coming for a program that protects nearly 20,000 Florida Kids, and lawmakers want more accountability for the Florida Department of Children and Families.

The DCF Accountability Act is 57 pages long, and here is the gist of it:

If passed, DCF would create an office of quality assurance managed by an appointed chief.

Annual reports would be published, and sent to the governor and would be posted online. That also includes documenting persistent failures and fixing them.

We would see developed performance standards for service providers and law enforcement to protect children.

A local foster parent who has opened up her home to nearly 40 foster kids in the last 18 years says she is critical of the bill and says she would like to see an outside agency step in to ensure that accountability.

“I see in this bill a lot of effort being made for checks and balances and reports, but I don’t see accountability. I see it being done internally and that would be like asking high school students to grade themselves. Where’s the transparency?,” said foster parent and Executive Director of KKids inc., Karen Scott.

The bill would also allow more discretion in investigating certain child abuse cases.

DCF said in an emailed statement:

“The safety of Florida’s children has always been the Department of Children and Families’ highest priority. When a child’s immediate or imminent safety is being threatened, the Florida Abuse Hotline assigns an “Immediate Response” priority to the investigation, and in most cases, law enforcement accompanies the child protective investigator (CPI) to the home.

However, Immediate Response allows minimal, if any, time for pre-commencement activities to be completed, including reviewing prior child welfare reports, speaking with other CPIs or case managers who may have worked with the family in the past, and structuring the investigative activities to obtain the most reliable and relevant information from multiple interview subjects.

Introducing an up to 72-hour commencement will enable CPIs to complete more of these information-gathering activities when it will not result in the endangerment of a child. For instance, reports made to the Florida Abuse Hotline often do not involve abuse or a child being hurt, but rather, indicate that a family is in need of services. With this extended timeframe, the CPI will begin working on the case (pre-commencement) as soon as he or she receives the report –holding a multidisciplinary team meeting to review the family’s needs or arranging for services with partner organizations – and then make face-to-face contact with the child when complete information about the situation has been obtained.

Ultimately, extending commencement time, whenever it is safe to do so, allows CPI to develop a comprehensive understanding of the family’s history and focus solely on assessing child safety.”