NYCs child services agency keeps cases secret due to state loophole, but investigators say its time for a change

The Big Apple’s beleaguered child service agency is able to keep its records secret because of a state loophole — but fed-up city investigators are now backing a bill that would force them to loosen their grip on their closely guarded books.Department of Investigation officials said they have been blocked from reviewing at least a dozen child neglect or abuse cases handled by the Administration for Children’s Services since 2023 that raised “red flags,” all because state law keeps the files sealed — regardless of the consequences for battered children.Most troubling are abuse claims deemed “unfounded” by ACS with no explanation or scrutiny.“If one of the unfounded rulings was flawed in some way, we have no insight into that whatsoever,” DOI Commissioner Jocelyn Strauber told The Post.“We need [the state Office of Children and Family Services] to get approval, so we have to tell them what it is we want and if they ask why we want them, we have to tell them.

“That is not typically how independent oversight works,” she said.“You don’t typically want the entities that you are overseeing [to have] access into what you are investigating.”The Post reported earlier this month that at least seven children died under the lax supervision of ACS caseworkers in the past year, with staffers encouraged to keep children in potentially abusive homes and offer troubled families services rather than launching investigations that could save young lives.The tragic tots were as young as one month when they met horrific ends.

Cases included several kids who starved to death inside homes where ACS either returned them to their parents or were allowed to remain despite allegations of mistreatment, the report found.The soft approach by ACS is based on an initiative adopted by the agency in recent years known as CARES, or Collaborative Assessment, Response, Engagement and Support.“There’s been a lot about this program called CARES,” Strauber said, “bu...