Reforms could prevent ‘traumatic’ CPS investigations, according to the New York City Family Policy Project.
Reports of child abuse and neglect to state hotlines tend to sound urgent and frightening. Kids are going hungry, they’ve been mistreated, or they’re living with ongoing safety threats. Some callers are anonymous, though most give their names — teachers, doctors and neighbors describing alarming sets of circumstances.
In New York, it falls to screeners at the Statewide Central Register of Abuse and Maltreatment, or SCR, to decide whether to dispatch a child protection worker to investigate.
According to a report released yesterday, hotline calls in New York — far more often than in other states — result in an unannounced knock on a family’s door. These social worker visits can instill terror in the many residents whose homes are later determined to be safe. Some call it “doorbell trauma.”
“The consequences are serious,” the report by The New York City Family Policy Project states. “Families under investigation endure two months of inspections of their homes and bodies, demands for medical and school records, and intrusive interviews with their neighbors, doctors and teachers that can damage their reputation, all while holding their breath, not knowing if their children may be taken.”
The policy group provides research and analysis to the public, and is headed by Nora McCarthy, who was the founder and director for 16 years of Rise, a New York City parent advocacy organization. McCarthy’s Upstream City column for The Imprint’s editorial pages focused on the future of family support in the city.
In her recent report, McCarthy found that nationwide, half of all hotline calls are “screened out,” or determined to fall short of requiring CPS follow-up. But in New York State, that number is just one-quarter, meaning that 75% of calls are passed along to local child welfare agencies for a home investigation.
Of those calls — nearly 80% in New York City alone — most turn out to be unfounded or false, according to city data.
The judgment calls are made by staff at the state’s Office of Children and Family Services, which runs the hotline in a converted warehouse outside of Albany. Mandated reporters of child abuse and neglect operate under legal requirements, as do call screeners. But “once a reporter picks up the phone, SCR staff are the only bulwark standing between an allegation and an investigation” McCarthy’s report states. And those decisions are under growing scrutiny.
“The amount of calls accepted by the SCR that are ultimately unfounded clearly show a problem in our systems and approach to child welfare,” Queens Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi said in a statement to The Imprint. “Even when a case is unfounded, the damage has already been done for families that have experienced the trauma of an investigation — which go on for two months with the constant threat of removal and family separation.”
The Office of Children and Family Services did not respond by publication time to a request for comment sent on March 4.
Leaders of local child welfare agencies, such as New York City’s Administration for Children and Families, say they can’t legally reject reports once they are received by the hotline — unless they take the rare step of sending it back to the state for a review.
But even some child welfare officials appear to be dissatisfied.
In an interview with The Imprint, James Czarniak, former deputy commissioner at the Onondaga County Department of Children and Family Services, said “there is definitely a less traumatic way and the system tries to handle that, but the bottom line is we are infiltrating people’s lives unnecessarily through this work.” Czarniak also described an oft-noted position within local agencies: “We don’t have that luxury as a local jurisdiction — we have to go through the investigative process.”
At a public hearing last fall, the head of New York City’s children’s services agency, Jess Dannhauser, said state leaders should conduct a “full review and assessment” of the Statewide Central Register of Abuse and Maltreatment, including a potential overhaul of the relevant statutes.
“We cannot make sufficient progress within the current laws that were written over 50 years ago,” Dannhauser said.
A wide open ‘front door’
The Family Policy Project released its report amid heightened attention to the investigations that characterize the “front door” of the child welfare system, where racial disparities are stark.
“Across the state, these investigations leave their mark primarily on Black and Latino families, which make up 88% of investigated families,” the report states.
“One of the biggest disservices we do to families is put them through that — just to get to ‘Oh, nothing was wrong,’ or ‘Nothing was there to indicate that you are actually doing anything wrong with your children.’”
— James Czarniak, former Child Welfare official, Onondaga County
The percentage of households investigated in New York City is roughly 7% lower than in the rest of the state. But the numbers in the city show persistently deep racial disparities. Home investigations are far more likely in communities with the highest concentration of Black and Latino residents. In the Brownsville neighborhood alone, for example, an astounding 1 in 5 children’s families were investigated for maltreatment in 2019.
These numbers are all the more dire when contrasted with the percentage of investigations that result in a “substantiation,” or finding of child abuse or neglect. Last year, more than 40,000 New York City families “experienced state intrusion in their lives last year for allegations that were not substantiated,” the report states.
The great number of unnecessary investigations leave CPS workers unable “to focus their attention on children who are actually in danger,” the report notes.
Investigated parents have increasingly raised the alarm in New York, amid a string of recent lawsuits describing the trauma caused by unwarranted CPS investigations. In a class-action suit filed Feb. 20 against New York City’s child welfare agency, the plaintiffs accuse caseworkers of using “highly coercive tactics to illegally search tens of thousands of families’ homes every year.”
At a state Assembly hearing last September, Davene Roseborough said investigators searched her Bronx home after her son arrived at school in what a hotline caller described as dirty clothes. Roseborough told lawmakers that it took 90 days to close the case, although no child welfare concerns were ever found.
“It’s messed me up,” she said in a recent interview.
Similar investigations of her home have saddled Roseborough with depression and severe anxiety, and her family has developed a deep mistrust of authorities; she says her son panics around mandated reporters such as doctors and teachers who may make reports on his household.
“The harm doesn’t stop when you reunite the families, it continues forever,” said Roseborough, who advocates for other parents in similar situations as a member of the group JMACForFamilies.
Former deputy commissioner Czarniak described the stakes.
“Removal is the ultimate harm that you can do in child welfare, but the investigation itself is extremely traumatic and horrifying for families to go through,” Czarniak said.
He described how invasive CPS searches can include exposing private medical records, interviews with neighbors and the possibility of strained relations with employers due to the intense nature of CPS investigations.
“One of the biggest disservices we do to families is put them through that,” Czarniak said, “just to get to ‘Oh, nothing was wrong,’ or ‘Nothing was there to indicate that you are actually doing anything wrong with your children.’”
Years of research, activism by impacted parents and civil rights attorneys, and targeted reforms by child welfare officials have contributed to a significant decrease in the number of children in New York’s foster care system. Despite that trend, investigation rates have remained largely stagnant since the 1990s.
“There has to be some mechanism put in place so you’re not destroying families.”
— Ruth, mother under investigation
The new report drew on previously unreleased state data that focuses on the years 2018 through 2022. The figures showed that while New York receives child maltreatment reports at a lower rate than is typical across the country, hotline workers called for investigations at a higher rate than the national average.
The report quotes several parents by first name. Cynthia said that as her CPS investigation dragged on, she couldn’t concentrate at work and eventually lost her job. Her 3-year-old daughter “was so nervous being interrogated by strangers so many times that she started behaving irregularly.” A mom identified as Ruth said she went through five years of “malicious calls,” leaving her anxious and depressed.
“My daughter wet the bed for three years straight,” she stated. “There has to be some mechanism put in place so you’re not destroying families.”
Changes in the works
State and city officials have implemented some reforms to the system through improved training for mandated reporters, curbs on mandatory drug-testing of moms and babies in public hospitals, and legislative reforms that steer families away from the child welfare system whenever possible. Anonymous callers — considered the least credible — are also reportedly on the decline, due to a tightening of restrictions.
Report author McCarthy pointed out that much of the needed reforms are already within the state’s power.
“The SCR has the power to eliminate an investigation simply by applying state law,” McCarthy said. Her report uncovered examples of “the kind of discretion they actually do have — and the impact that they could have if they were more rigorous.”
Narrowing the front door
There is a growing movement for laws to “narrow the front door” of the child welfare system by barring anonymous hotline calls and ending mandated reporting as it currently exists. To date the reforms have failed to become law.
In the meantime, ramping up data collection and public transparency may help, the Family Policy Project report states. It makes numerous recommendations to improve the system. They include: holding a state legislative hearing to examine training and performance of hotline staff; requiring more transparency and data on hotline calls and — perhaps most significantly — allowing local child welfare agencies to screen out calls referred to them, or to “hold low-contact check-ins with parents when case reviews show that a report is likely malicious.”
Postscript, March 8: One day after this article was published, state officials at the Office of Children and Family services emailed The Imprint a statement defending the decision-making process of its hotline staff.
“Our Statewide Central Register (SCR) staff are trained to evaluate concerns of suspected abuse or maltreatment with intake standards in accordance with NYS Social Services Law and the Family Court Act,” said Karen Male, a spokesperson for the agency.
Male said the state agency “fully acknowledges that disparities continue to exist within the child welfare system” and has taken steps in recent years to reduce the number of reports coming into the hotline, including new mandated reporter training and the creation of another hotline that can route families directly to culturally responsive, community-based programs.
