Why we may never know of child-welfare workers fatal mistakes

Looks like a lot of CYA going on at ACS.That’s the conclusion of a new report by the Department of Investigation detailing how the Administration for Children’s Services withholds important records from New York’s watchdog agency.The report, “Access Denied: Challenges to DOI’s Oversight of the Child Welfare System,” explains that the department has repeatedly been denied the ability to look into allegations of misconduct and sexual abuse by caseworkers as well as the ability to see records of ACS involvement with families of children who subsequently died.Take the case of Brian Santiago and his mother, who were found dead in their apartment in August 2024.Per The Post, Brian’s mother was “investigated by the ACS and even had her son temporarily removed from her care at some point before she died, leaving her special-needs boy, who used a feeding tube, to likely starve to death.”This seems like a case that would have been important for DOI to investigate, but the agency says it “has been unable to assess whether those earlier interactions could have led to interventions that may have saved Brian’s life.”It also can’t review the case of 5-year-old De’Neil Timberlake, who died the month before Brian, after ingesting his father’s methadone.The NYPD told news outlets that the family had a long history of child neglect cases.What was done in those investigations? We may never know.In 2023, there were 45 fatalities with prior ACS involvement, but DOI could only see the records in 25 of the cases.

Why can’t the Department of Investigations, um, investigate?State law prohibits DOI from accessing two categories of records.The first are those where reports of child abuse were investigated and determined to be unfounded.To understand the insanity of this policy, let’s compare it to law enforcement.Let’s say police were searching for a murderer and they questioned the perpetrator, but he lied and they never checked his alibi.Later, when he w...