March 15 editorial.
Denver Human Services is the safety net for Denver’s most vulnerable, providing assistance, protection and prevention services to thousands, including children who suffer abuse or neglect at the hands of their caretakers.
Unfortunately, in 2014 alone, the DHS Child Welfare division investigated allegations of child abuse or neglect involving nearly 6,000 Denver children. We empower our child welfare employees to make decisions quickly in the interest of keeping these children safe. Each employee takes his charge to protect children seriously, and when process improvements are needed to support and protect children, we act quickly because lives are at risk.
It was DHS employees who uncovered inconsistent fingerprinting practices within our non-certified kinship providers, the family members who step forward to care for children when they are unable to safely stay in their own homes. DHS took immediate steps to improve the process and better monitor our practices.
All background checks and fingerprinting are up to date; we have resolved any outstanding cases; and we continue to look at ways to strengthen this process. DHS fully cooperated with the state’s review and has disciplined and terminated workers and supervisors who failed to follow the law.
When we discovered concerns with a fatality case, DHS took the unprecedented step of requesting an independent case review by the Colorado Child Protection Ombudsman and also turned the file over to Denver Police for investigation. We look forward to the results of a separate review by the state Department of Human Services, which has commended our actions in this case.
We are confident in our work but also recognize that even the best work can be made better.
At DHS, we have embraced a system of process improvement and have empowered our employees to drive those changes. In each instance cited above, we identified an issue and took swift action.
Recognizing potential problems and working to improve our processes to better serve our neighbors in their time of need are vital to our work, our success and the creation of a healthy community.
Penny May is executive director of Denver Human Services.
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