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Q&A
Safeguards for reassessing cases and revising investigative thresholds
1:22:09
·
3 min
Council Member Salaam inquires about safeguards for reassessing cases when new community reports emerge and if ACS plans to review or revise its care program criteria and investigative thresholds. Commissioner Dannhauser provides a comprehensive response about ACS's processes and ongoing improvements.
- ACS responds to every report within 24-48 hours
- The agency employs various consultants including former detectives and experts in substance abuse, mental health, and domestic violence
- ACS is revising its clinical consultation program
- Weekly Childstat meetings review key data and case assessments
- The CARES program includes safety assessments and can escalate cases to full investigations if needed
Yusef Salaam
1:22:09
And just a just a follow-up, are there any safeguards in place in addition to what you mentioned to reassess cases when new community reports emerge?
1:22:20
And also does ACS plan to publicly review or revise its care program criteria and investigative thresholds following
Darryl Rattray
1:22:28
thresholds
Jess Dannhauser
1:22:29
So CARES program is a different rental response program.
1:22:35
This is unrelated to this tragedy I will say.
1:22:39
And some of the public reporting that CARES has been associated is not accurate.
1:22:44
This is why we're bringing in the panel to have conversations around this.
1:22:48
But we, on every single case, every single report, ACS is responding within twenty four to forty eight hours.
1:22:56
We're making sure we have consultants in law enforcement.
1:23:00
We have about 120 investigative consultants that are former detectives.
1:23:04
We have consultants in substance abuse, mental health, domestic violence, and intimate partner violence.
1:23:11
So we're looking at all of those protocols.
1:23:13
We put out an RFP recently to revise our clinical consultation program because we want those consultants going out with CPS.
1:23:22
We want our investigative consultants engaged with CPS every single day.
1:23:26
And so we are refining those programs as well.
1:23:31
So everything gets looked at every Thursday.
1:23:33
We are in Childstat where we look at all the key data, not only around caseloads but timely responsiveness.
1:23:40
We review a case together to make sure that our assessments are excellent and up to date.
1:23:48
This work is deeply important and we're going to continue to refine everything we can and now with the help of outside experts to make sure that this is strong.
1:23:56
For every CARES case there's an assessment by not only what we call our applications staff who receive all of the cases 20 fourseven and making sure that we are responding immediately.
1:24:10
They assess if there's any issue during that time, during the CARES case, it can be retracted an investigation.
1:24:17
This happens in about ten percent of cases.
1:24:20
And the CARES staff does a full safety assessment as we do in investigations.
1:24:26
And so we're always looking at everything but don't see a reason to change that at this moment.
1:24:34
But we are looking at, we've added cares.
1:24:36
We have a intensive coaching for expert CPS, experienced CPS who coach staff on the highest risk cases.
1:24:45
We have added CARES into that protocol to make sure that they get the intensive coaching as well.
1:24:52
So lots of incremental changes to make sure we are continuing this trajectory of reduced fatalities, but accelerating it because we're not gonna be satisfied until it's zero.
Yusef Salaam
1:25:02
Thank you.
1:25:02
And you know, just echoing it, you know, wanna make sure that we don't have any more deaths.
1:25:07
You know, that to me is the most paramount and important thing, of course, as as you all are are mandated, but I definitely appreciate that.
1:25:14
Thank you.
Jess Dannhauser
1:25:15
Thank you council member.