“This new division is crucial to meeting the growing demands in our state,” says Amanda Whittle, state child advocate and executive director of the DCA. “By building this additional capacity, we will be better equipped to handle the influx of calls more quickly and efficiently and provide better services and care to our youngest citizens.”
In 2019, the DCA was formed in part to respond to a wide range of concerns raised by the public against nine child-serving state agencies. Those complaints were handled by the Investigations Unit, composed of a small team of investigators, including Whittle and Kayla Capps, the deputy child advocate. As the number of complaints grew, so did the number of investigators in the unit.
Throughout this time, a second category of notifications—known as "critical incidents"—were also being fielded. Those notifications came directly from the nine agencies and involved fatal, near-fatal, or serious bodily or emotional injuries to a child in the care of, or receiving services from, the state.
Because of their sensitivity, critical incidents were only handled by Whittle and Capps, and initially, the caseload was relatively small and manageable, with 30 in the first year (FY20). However, as the DCA strengthened its relationship with reporting agencies, the number quickly began to snowball. Year two (FY21) saw a notable increase to 77 cases, setting the stage for 417 cases in year three (FY22). The number of cases had passed 500 in just the first six months of FY23, ending at a staggering 1,519.
Whittle believes that the increase is attributable to heightened awareness of the statutory requirement to report these incidents to the DCA, as well as potential differences in the definitions of what must be reported—not necessarily an equivalent uptick in incidents.
Still, she recognized the current path was unsustainable, and began working with Capps in early 2023 towards establishing the new division. The first step was creating the Critical Investigations Unit, which is solely dedicated to reviewing and investigating critical incident notifications.
“We hired an assistant child advocate in January who has been instrumental in working through and resolving incidents promptly, as well as created new systems and protocols to streamline the reporting process,” says Whittle. “We also developed new reporting mechanisms that will work in tandem with the Investigations Unit’s system and help us really sharpen our overall focus and measure how well children are being served by the state.”
Whittle says the goal for the new Investigations Division—which rolled out in October and encompasses both the Investigations and Critical Investigations units—is to allow the DCA to take a holistic view of the services children receive, discover and analyze where shortfalls exist and why, and have the ability to address them through policy changes.
“This strategic shift to our organization’s structure has the potential to drastically improve how we can best serve and safeguard the children in our state, so they have the best chance for a happy, healthy, and productive life.”