Partnership advances Safety Science implementation and plan to keep children safe by keeping families strong
AUGUSTA– The Maine Department of Health and Human Services' (DHHS) Office of Child and Family Services (OCFS) announced today that it has joined the National Partnership for Child Safety (NPCS), a quality improvement collaborative with a mission to improve child safety and prevent child maltreatment fatalities.
NPCS shares with its members efforts to support families and promote Safety Science, a model to improve child welfare practices that OCFS has adopted and continues to fully implement. Maine joins 38 state, county and tribal child and family-serving child welfare jurisdictions who are part of NPCS and assessing and applying Safety Science principles in their agencies, representing nearly 70 percent of families involved with the child welfare system nationally.
“As we recognize this final day of child abuse prevention month in April, we’re pleased to announce Maine’s partnership with the National Partnership for Child Safety," said Bobbi Johnson, Director of OCFS. “It offers an opportunity to expand our work with Collaborative Safety to develop and implement Maine’s Safety Science Model. We look forward to the opportunity to work across child welfare jurisdictions nationwide to build on the gold standard of evidence-based, quality improvement efforts to reduce child maltreatment and improve outcomes for children and families involved with child welfare.”
As part of joining the NPCS, OCFS will participate in the Partnership’s data warehouse, the National Center for Fatality Review and Prevention’s (NCFRP) Case Reporting System. This system for child fatality reporting will allow for enhanced collection and storage of data, improving Maine’s ability to identify trends and major risk factors so OCFS can develop plans for policy and practice improvements. Joining the NFR-CRS has been a recommendation of several partners over the last year and Maine will join the majority of the country’s other child welfare jurisdictions in participating.
“On behalf of Maine’s Child Death and Serious Injury Review Panel, I applaud OCFS' decision to join the National Center for Fatality Review and Prevention’s Case Reporting System," said Mark Moran, chair of the panel. “The Panel has formally and informally advocated for this move over the past several years and sees it as another potential tool to enhance our collective understanding of the factors that contribute to and the causes that underlie children’s serious injuries and deaths. Cases in which kids are seriously injured or die unexpectedly are most often incredibly complex, as is child welfare work in general. Enhancing our capacity to analyze data, review trends and themes, and choose interventions that are evidence-informed will only benefit the children we all seek to protect from serious harm. We are hopeful that Maine’s ongoing efforts to prevent such harm to our kids will be bolstered by this partnership with the NCFRP and the Panel is grateful for Director Johnson’s leadership on this issue.”
The partnership is part of OCFS' ongoing work to seek resources to strengthen Maine families and promote better short and long-term outcomes for Maine’s children. OCFS' work to strengthen the child welfare system includes reducing caseworker vacancies, which have dropped 25 percent since January 2024, to 55 as of April 22, 2024.
Governor Mills proposed and the Legislature approved significant investments in child welfare in the recently passed supplemental budget, including:
- Increased pay for child welfare staff in recognition of the difficulty of their work;
- Additional staff support for legal administrative tasks with three new Legal Secretary positions so there is one in every District Office;
- Establishment of new onboarding and training coordination positions in each District to mentor new caseworkers and support ongoing training;
- Establishment of an additional leadership position to support the Lewiston District Office; and
- Dedicated funding to increase the availability of services for children and families living in rural areas who are involved with the child welfare system, among other investments in children’s behavioral health services.
These actions to support child welfare staff are expected to further reduce caseworker vacancies and help give teams led by caseworkers the time and expertise for investigations, reunification, and support for children and families. They add to the recruitment and retention payments for child welfare caseworkers the Department announced in February.