The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Ossoff panel issues report describing systemic failures in child welfare agency
Mismanagement blamed in children’s deaths.
Systemic failures and mismanagement within the Division of Family and Children Services contributed to the deaths of children, according to a report U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff released this past week in his role as head of a Senate Judiciary subcommittee.
The state Department of Human Services, which oversees DFCS, took issue with many of the report’s findings and said it omitted improvements at the agency, such as those addressing the issue of housing children in hotels and strengthening safeguards for children in its care.
The 64-page report by Ossoff’s Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law describes how DFCS has identified “significant shortcomings,” such as staffing shortages and insufficient training, that contribute to death and serious injuries among children it is responsible for.
Ossoff’s panel reviewed thousands of pages of nonpublic DHS documents and reports from the state’s child welfare watchdog, the Office of the Child Advocate. It also conducted four public hearings and interviewed more than 100 witnesses, including DHS Commissioner Candice Broce and other top officials.
The DHS said in response that Ossoff’s report falsely claims that DFCS failed to keep children safe from physical and sexual abuse, and that those failures contributed to the deaths of children.
“The report relies on various reviews and audits conducted by DFCS itself,” the DHS said. “Those reviews, however, do not support the report’s conclusions.”
The subcommittee’s investigation was prompted by a monthslong review The Atlanta Journal-Constitution conducted in 2022 that obtained hundreds of pages of public documents and spoke with experts who described a child welfare system in turmoil. Caseworkers at DFCS were leaving their jobs in droves, fueled by low pay, frustration with leadership and exhaustion from increased workloads, according to state human resources reports.