DFCS RESPONSE TO OSSOFF REPORT

Executive Summary

• The Georgia Division of Child and Family Services (DFCS) is charged with a difficult, often
heartbreaking responsibility—protecting children from adults who are unable to care for them
safely, while working as hard as possible to keep families intact and reunify children in a safe
environment. DFCS takes this responsibility seriously and acknowledges the challenges
inherent in trying to fulfill this mission.

• DFCS performs its mission well and has improved in recent years, especially when compared
to other states.
o Georgia’s rate for recurrence of maltreatment—meaning the number of children who
are the subject of second credible maltreatment report within a 12-month period—is
4.5%, well below the national average of 9.7%.1
o Georgia’s maltreatment in care (for children under court jurisdiction) similarly
outperforms other states, coming in at less than half the national average.2
o Georgia’s performance is statistically better for placement stability than the national
average, with children in foster care experiencing fewer moves in their placement
settings (4.07 moves per 1,000 days in care) compared to national performance (4.48).
o The Ossoff report acknowledges (at p. 4) that the “the challenges and failures identified
in this report are not unique to Georgia DFCS or to the State of Georgia” but unfairly
excludes context and information about DFCS performance to support its biased
review.

• The Ossoff report began as an investigation into the use of temporary facilities, such as hotels
and DHS offices, to house foster children who could not be placed in other settings. This is a
recurring issue for many child welfare agencies. DFCS provided information to Ossoff’s office
showing their success in addressing that problem. When Commissioner Broce took office in
July 2021, there were 60-80 children being kept in hotels or DHS offices on any given night;
by September 2023, it was down to zero. Despite this original focus, the Ossoff report does
not mention or recognize DFCS staff for this success.

• Instead, the Ossoff report repackages a grab bag of issues, many of which arose long before
the current DFCS administration was in place, and almost all of which have previously been
reported and addressed by DFCS itself. The Ossoff report then makes numerous unfounded,
speculative claims about DFCS and, in some cases, irresponsible assertions about the cause of
children’s deaths and injuries that omit or mischaracterize important data and context
provided by DFCS. It also both confuses and misuses statistics DFCS has reported to the
federal government to misrepresent the safety of children in DFCS’s care. And it wrongly
denigrates the work of the DHS Office of Inspector General and other personnel.

• DFCS welcomes a neutral and unbiased approach in reviewing child welfare and family
services in Georgia. However, although initially billed as a nonpartisan investigation, not a
single Republican signed on to the Ossoff report. For this particular review, all interviews of

1 Georgia Division of Family and Children Services FY 2024 Annual Progress and Services Report, at p. 38

(June 2023), available at https://dfcs.georgia.gov/data/federal-reviews-and-plans.

2 Id.

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DFCS personnel were conducted entirely by staffers from Senator Ossoff’s office who have
little or no apparent expertise in child welfare and family services investigations, who then
wrote the report. At no time did Ossoff’s staff ask how the federal government could partner
with DFCS, improve the agency’s operations, or assist in greater federal funding. The review
is a myopic focus on Georgia alone—despite the state’s relatively strong performance among
its peers, even though substantial state comparative data was provided by DFCS. And Ossoff’s
staff withheld significant portions of the report from DFCS before its release, preventing it
from investigating and responding to numerous anonymous and unverified accusations.

• The lack of professionalism and transparency in the Ossoff report is concerning and
disheartening. Some data included in the report are inaccurate and incomplete, and allegations
are made without vital context that was provided by DFCS. In fact, DFCS provided substantial
data detailing improvement initiatives and success metrics; however, this information was
omitted from the final report. The information included in this response will provide that
missing context that represents vital information for understanding the issues DFCS has faced
and how it has worked diligently on improvement.

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Specific Responses to the Ossoff Report

DFCS fully cooperated with the investigation for more than a year. Despite the biased and
partisan nature of the report, DFCS worked diligently to respond to requests from Ossoff’s office.
Over the course of a year, DFCS produced more than 11,000 pages of documents, produced eight
current or former employees for more than 35 hours of interview time, and provided numerous
narrative responses to the Senator’s various written requests. Following press events where Ossoff’s
team shared false information which could have been corrected with a simple inquiry in advance,
DFCS declined to provide more interview requests but offered and did provide written responses to
any further questions Ossoff staffers had.

Documents were redacted only when required by state law. Although the report sometimes
suggests that redactions included in the documents were improper, they are required by state law to
protect the privacy of children and families who come into contact with DFCS. DHS spent substantial
time reviewing documents to determine what could be lawfully released, and informed Ossoff’s
staffers of its legal obligations from the beginning. During the entire timeline of the investigation,
Ossoff’s staffers never challenged the legal basis for the redactions.

Addressing the use of hotels and temporary housing facilities. Although the Ossoff report omits
entirely DFCS’s efforts to eliminate and reduce the temporary “hoteling” of children in its custody,
this success is worth sharing. Hoteling arose out of unfortunate necessity many years ago due to a
combination of provider shortages, worsened by the pandemic, and denials of insurance coverage.
Long before the start of this investigation, DHS leadership decided to inform the public of this
controversial problem to secure more resources and end the practice for good. The issue was
exacerbated by some juvenile courts ordering high-needs children into foster care without evidence
of abuse or neglect (an ongoing problem).

DFCS developed incentives like increased per diems, emergency staffing, and $5,000 grants to get
children out of hotels or to prevent them from entering hotels in the first place. DFCS has engaged
in aggressive recruitment and retention of top-quality foster homes, congregate care, and service
providers. DFCS leadership even created a dedicated role solely focused on reducing the practice of
hoteling. Further, DFCS now appeals almost every insurance denial and often pays outright for
residential treatment for a child while it appeals the coverage denials, spending tens of millions of state
dollars in stop-gap healthcare all to make sure children get the care they deserve and stay out of
temporary housing solutions.

All of this information was shared with Ossoff’s staff in response to their numerous inquiries about
this practice at the start of this investigation. It is disappointing that the Ossoff report declined to
include any of this information.

The Ossoff report includes potentially irresponsible and misleading claims based on DFCS
self-assessments and audits. The Ossoff report repeatedly claims that DFCS failed to keep children
safe from physical and sexual abuse—going so far as to claim that the failures contributed to the
deaths of children. These allegations are unfounded and irresponsible. The report relies on various
reviews and audits conducted by DFCS itself. Those reviews, however, do not support the report’s
conclusions. The report’s mischaracterization, cherry-picking, and misuse of the DFCS data has the
potential to discourage Georgia and other states from engaging in critical self-reviews in the future,

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putting at risk the accountability and improvements that DFCS has prioritized for several years, as
well as acting as a deterrent to workforce recruitment and retention efforts.

The sources the Senator relies on include the DFCS Child and Family Services Review (CFSR) Self-
Assessment and the DFCS Annual Progress and Services Reports (APSR), both of which are
submitted to HHS, as well as audits performed by the DFCS Quality Assurance Unit (QA Audits). All
the results in these documents (CFSR Self-Assessment, APSR, and QA Audit) reflect the ongoing
work of the DFCS Quality Assurance team. DFCS reports the same findings in multiple federal
reports. The APSR is a report that captures all DFCS’s activities completed to make progress towards
DFCS’s goals outlined in the Child and Family Services Plan, which is updated every five years.

Misleading Use of Statistics

The Ossoff report claims that DFCS’s performance in assessing and addressing safety risks relating to
children was the worst it has been in the last seven years as of the first quarter of 2023, and the report
contains a chart that claims to reflect that trend. The report mischaracterizes what the documents
say and the chart is not an accurate portrayal of the DFCS data, for several reasons:

• Some of the reviews included on the chart covered a 12-month period while others covered
only three to four months. Despite the percentages reflecting varying periods, the report
treats them as if they are uniform samples when they are not fit for comparison.
• Further complicating matters is the fact that the Period Under Review (PUR) changed
multiple times over the course of the years reflected in the chart. For example, DFCS used
a 12-month PUR, then moved to a six-month PUR in 2022 and went back to a 12-month
PUR in 2023 as required by the CFSR Self-Assessment, which may have contributed to the
temporary drop in 2023 that followed periods of high performance.
• Moreover, the CFSRs use a small sample size that is not representative of the complete
universe of cases being reviewed. The Children’s Bureau of HHS relies on a sample of only
65 cases to determine a state’s compliance with each of the 18 Items found in the 7
Outcomes reviewed as part of the CFSR. For Georgia, that means that to be within the
normal 5% margin of error for the review, the confidence rate is less than 60% rather than
the usual confidence rate of 95%. Using the usual 95% confidence rate results in the margin
of error rising to 12% when only 65 cases are sampled. In other words, the CFSRs are
informative but not necessarily accurate.

Because the Senator’s report focuses on the single worst review outcome and ignores the high
outcomes of the previous years, the report misrepresents the overall trend of the state for
Outcome 2. Further, preliminary data from the CFSR that ended in March 2024 suggests that Georgia
most likely will have a score of 30% if not better for Outcome 2. And the most recent Statewide
Data Indicator (SWDI) from the Children’s Bureau lists Georgia as one of the national leaders
for its low rate of maltreatment in foster care, which is roughly half of the national
performance of all states. That clearly would not be true if the 84% rating cherry-picked from a
single sample by the Ossoff report was an accurate indicator of child safety in Georgia.

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Safety Metrics

Even if the report did not suffer from the above defects, it still would be a mischaracterization of
DFCS data. That is because CFSR Items, except for Item 1, are quality of work ratings and do
not measure the percentage of children who are safe. The CFSR is an assessment of DFCS’s
overall child welfare practice. There are several instances where the safety items (Items 2 and 3) might
rate as an area needing improvement (ANI) without meaning that a child currently is unsafe. Part of
the CFSR process includes interviews with case managers. DFCS uses the information gathered during
those interviews to supplement case documentation. If a case manager has left the agency and is unable
to be interviewed, gaps in documentation may not be filled. This frequently leads to ANI ratings for
Items 2 and 3 due to missing information related to efforts to engage parents in safety services,
collateral contacts, or diligent efforts to locate parents. In some cases, Items 2 and 3 could rate as an
ANI due to lack of timely services or lack of contact with parents, even if the child is in a voluntary
kin placement and the child is safe. It is possible that a case manager did not complete a specific task
in a timely manner and received an ANI because of it. That ANI is not an indication of immediate
child safety issues. That is especially true for longer Periods Under Review when a child might have
multiple case managers. The times of transition between case managers might result in an ANI even
when the safety of the child was never in doubt. The Ossoff report fails to accurately explain the data
or account for the practical realities of child welfare management.

The Ossoff report notes that the Commissioner of the Administration for Children, Youth, and
Families at HHS testified that Georgia failed to complete its Program Improvement Plan (PIP) and
was subsequently fined. The report failed to note that Gaston also testified that every state that has
participated in a CFSR has had a PIP, meaning that not one state has met federal standards. In any
event, DFCS has appealed the fine.

Healthcare Metrics

Senator Ossoff’s report claims that DFCS fails to meet children’s physical and mental health needs.
That statement is untrue. As explained in previous communications with the Senator, Georgia Families
360° Medicaid is administered by Amerigroup, not DFCS. Senator Ossoff’s report emphasizes the low
percentage of children in DFCS custody who received adequate services for mental and behavioral
health. As noted above, the report mischaracterizes the CFSR data. The CFSR is about quality of work
and not outcomes. The data does not support the conclusion that children in DFCS custody did not
receive adequate healthcare. Instead, the data shows that certain metrics or quality control areas did
not meet federal standards—standards that have been incredibly difficult for other states to meet.3 For
example, the CFSR data shows that a child might not have received care within the prescribed period
because a mental health provider was not available in the area. Concluding that this means that a
percentage of children did not receive adequate healthcare is misleading.

Importantly, the report makes no mention of the nationwide mental-health provider crisis or what
Senator Ossoff intends to do to help bridge the gap while children are suffering. DFCS leadership has
advocated for reforms to the provision of Medicaid coverage for children in DFCS custody in an
effort to get children the care they need and deserve.

3 Only one state met the standard for adequate behavioral health care in the last CFSR round. See Table 1. Total

Number of States Achieving “Substantial Conformity” or “Strength” in the U.S., available at

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/figure/10.1080/15548732.2021.1957067?scroll=top&needAccess=true

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DFCS management and leadership improved staffing and outcomes for children in Georgia.
The work of DFCS is naturally stressful and difficult; frontline staffers confront difficult situations
and are asked to make judgment calls that affect vulnerable children, siblings, parents, and families.
Like all states, Georgia has challenges recruiting employees. DFCS leadership has taken numerous
steps to address this problem:
• Since the start of FY2022, Georgia’s annual budget for at-risk families and child welfare-related
state funding alone has increased by over $110 million dollars.
• That money covers technology upgrades, efforts to find safe alternatives to entry into foster
care, provider rate increases, pilot programs for at-risk youth, additional staff, funding for
exploited and trafficked children, expanded access to court-appointed special advocates and
children’s advocacy centers, and autism respite care, among other things.
• DFCS leadership implemented the Argo system to improve the way service providers match
with vulnerable families and placement providers match with foster children. Communicare is
another new technology platform to allow birth parents, foster parents, and court-appointed
special advocates to access a child’s case records on demand and ensure better communication
throughout dependency proceedings.
• The dollar amount listed above ($110 million+) does not include employee raises, benefit
increases, and last year’s bonus, which constitutes tens of millions of dollars more.
• Under the current administration, employee pay has increased $7,000. Employees also saw a
$1,000 bonus this January, with a proposed 4% (capped at $3,000) increase in the FY2025
budget pending the Governor’s signature. On top of that, child welfare case managers and
supervisors stand to receive an additional $3,000 salary increase. If the Governor signs the
budget proposal, child welfare case managers and supervisor pay will have increased $13,000
during Commissioner Broce’s tenure.
• DFCS also ended the agency’s reliance on hoteling, which means fewer burdens on frontline
staff and safer placements for children.
• DFCS cannot comment on specific personnel issues, but employees with concerns have
numerous channels to report them and cannot engage in activities that place children at risk.
Employees who refuse to use those channels and potentially put children at risk by ignoring
their responsibilities are subject to discipline and termination.

Improper use of OCA and DFCS reviews of child fatality and injury cases. As noted in the
report, Critical Incident Reviews (CIRs) are internal reports completed by DFCS after an incident that
results in a child’s death or serious injury. CIRs are a crucial tool that are meant to promote learning,
through transparency, with the goal of preventing further incidents. In order to encourage candor and
critical self-assessment, it is important that they not be misused or misrepresented. The Ossoff report
does just that.

Most specifically, the Ossoff report repeatedly concludes that any shortcoming identified by DFCS in
the CIRs necessarily contributed to a child’s death or serious injury. That is not true. A causal effect
based on limited facts and a misreading of the data, the Senator’s use of the CIRs in this way
undermines the entire point of engaging in CIRs.

The section of the report concerning OCA fatality reports was not made available to DFCS before
release. In a number of those cases those reports acknowledge a significant gap in time between DFCS
alleged contact with the family and merely speculate what might have happened under a different

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approach. In such cases, it is irresponsible and counterproductive to suggest the DFCS frontline
response “contributed” to the tragic deaths of those children.

Misuse of missing children data. Federal law requires DFCS to report to the National Center for
Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) children who go missing from care. But state law currently
limits the information that DFCS can share. DFCS leadership was instrumental in the drafting and
working to support passage of Senate Bill 342 that specifically authorizes NCMEC to receive
confidential child welfare information directly from DFCS. The state legislature passed the bill on
March 13, 2024, and the Governor signed it into law on Monday.

Without the law in place, DFCS reports a missing child to local law enforcement in accordance with
existing policy, and law enforcement makes the report to NCMEC on DFCS’s behalf. DFCS keeps
the case open, with ongoing efforts to locate the child and thorough documentation. The child’s
attorney, guardian ad litem, any court-appointed special advocate, legal caretakers, and of course the
juvenile court overseeing the dependency case are regularly apprised of these efforts. They wield
considerable authority to challenge DFCS’s efforts, or alleged lack thereof, while the child is missing.
Moreover, the case manager works closely with law enforcement along the way, and the State Office’s
Missing Children’s Unit assists local staff with case review. Additionally, the Commissioner’s new
Special Victims Unit utilizes new software and investigative tactics to find these children, recently
resulting in locating several, long-time missing foster youth and multi-agency planning underway for
a larger-scale recovery effort in coming months.

The First Lady and several state agencies, including DFCS, recently opened Grace’s Place, a twenty-
four bed, secure facility for exploited and trafficked children with on-site clinical, dental, education,
therapeutic, counseling, and forensic interview capabilities. Currently, thirteen DFCS youth are placed
at the facility—all recently recovered by law enforcement except for one child who proactively
contacted her case manager for assistance.

DFCS is committed to ensuring accurate and timely sharing of information to effectuate the quick
return of missing children. In the aftermath of Senator Ossoff’s November 2023 hearing, where he
first aired this assessment (without contacting DFCS in advance) NCMEC and DFCS leadership
communicated about NCMEC’s findings so that DFCS could compare NCMEC’s data to its own
records. Prior to that discussion—and contrary to the Ossoff report’s insinuations—DFCS had no
insight into the sources of NCMEC’s data. Although DFCS reports to NCMEC, it is not the only
entity that does. NCMEC also receives data on missing children from the Georgia Department of
Juvenile Justice. Those children are not in DFCS custody. NCMEC also separately receives
information from victim families and CACs, to which DFCS may or may not be privy.

Despite robust reporting requirements and good-faith efforts among state, local, and federal partners,
the available data from NCMEC presents analytical shortcomings. For example, NCMEC reported to
Senator Ossoff that 1,790 children were reported missing from care of DFCS during the five-year
period between 2018 and 2022. NCMEC reported that 410 of those children were likely sex trafficked,
based on national figures and projections, not evidence specific to any case from Georgia. While
certain factors may indicate a child could be a victim of sex trafficking, and reporting numbers of likely
victims raises awareness of the risk of victimization, DFCS works with Child Advocacy Centers to
make case referrals and to confirm the status of potential victims. Moreover, it is possible (and indeed
likely) that NCMEC’s data on missing children may include children who were located after they aged
out of custody and who declined to sign back in to DFCS custody. In such cases, the child has been

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found, but cannot be reported as back in DFCS care. DFCS maintains point-in-time data for current
missing foster youth and does not take a person off the list, even if they technically age out of state
custody and remain missing. Senator Ossoff chose not to include NCMEC data that shows that, from
2013 to 2022, 99% of all missing children cases were resolved—meaning that the child either returned
home, remained in the custody of law enforcement, or was in contact with their parent or legal
guardian but would not be returning home and the parents/legal guardian and law enforcement were
satisfied with the situation.4

Mischaracterization of Commissioner’s comments to juvenile court judges. The Ossoff report

states that Commissioner Broce spoke at an August 2023 meeting of juvenile court judges to request
that judges consider detaining children with “special needs in juvenile detention centers” while DFCS
sought an appropriate placement. The report misstates what Commissioner’s Broce said and
mischaracterizes the entire conversation. First, Commissioner Broce did not make a request of any
judge related to the detention of children. Second, the conversation was not about special needs
children. It was about children in need of supervision (CHINS) and delinquent youth. This
conversation was the product of genuine concern amongst participants about what the law allowed
and what was in the best interest of a child and what should happen if those two things ever are at
odds. And while Senator Ossoff cites one judge as having said that extended detention for lack of
suitable placement would be unlawful, another judge in attendance urged that existing law already
allows for extension of detention in limited circumstances if it keeps a child safe. The difference in
views represented at the meeting is exactly why the conversation was valuable. To again criticize an
open exchange, months after the fact, as a means of calling into question the Commissioner’s
motivations when there is no evidence to suggest that she wants anything other than the best for
children in DFCS’s custody is unwarranted and unfair. Moreover, the comments from anonymous
judges have never been provided to DFCS and cannot be verified without specific case information
or numbers—which even the Ossoff team does not appear to have requested. Unsurprisingly, the
Ossoff report minimizes and mischaracterizes the letter it received from the Council of Juvenile Court
Judges of Georgia (CJCJ) regarding the hearing on October 30, 2023. The letter did not merely state
that Judges Altman and Simms testified before the Subcommittee in their private capacities, as the
report claims. Signed by officers of CJCJ, the letter said that “we think it is imperative to state on the
record that the statements made and opinions expressed do not represent those of CJCJ, were not
offered on behalf of CJCJ, and should not be broadly construed as representative of the entire
membership.”5

DFCS has extensive policies regarding the administration of psychotropic drugs. The
overmedication of children is a national concern among child welfare agencies, and again is not unique
to Georgia. DFCS maintains a policy specifically related to the oversight of the treatment of
psychotropic medication. The policy outlines a robust process of consent and authorization related to
the administration of psychotropic medication that involves the foster parent, the case manager, the
county director, the court, and medical professionals. The policy provides that informed consent must
be obtained prior to administering psychotropic medication except when dealing with emergency

4 Analysis of Children Missing From Care Reported to NCMEC 2013–2022,

https://www.missingkids.org/content/dam/missingkids/pdfs/analysis-of-children-missing-from-care-reported-to-
ncmec-2013-2022.pdf.
5 Letter from the Council of Juvenile Court Judges of Georgia to Chairman Ossoff and Ranking Member

Blackburn, Re: Testimony Before the United States Senate Subcommittee on Human Rights on October 30, 2023 (Nov.
1, 2023).

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circumstances such as suicidal ideation, severe psychosis, self-injurious behavior, physical aggression
that is dangerous to self or others, or severe impulsivity that endangers self or others.

DFCS also takes significant steps to monitor compliance with the policy; DFCS has a dedicated unit
at the state office, the Well-Being Programming, Assessment and Consultation (WPAC) team. One of
their primary functions is supporting the county staff with monitoring the use of psychotropic
medication. They track any child in foster care who is prescribed two or more psychotropic drugs and
any child aged four or under who is prescribed psychotropic medication.

Mischaracterization and second-guessing of investigations by the Office of Inspector

General. Senator Ossoff’s report criticizes DFCS’s handling of concerns shared by the Children’s
Advocacy Centers of Georgia in January and May 2022, and subsequent overlapping concerns shared
by OCA in July 2022. DFCS leadership prioritized the agency’s inquiry into these complaints and
dedicated substantial time and resources to verifying and responding to them. The concerns received
attention from the highest levels at the Department and prompted significant efforts to address
concerns, including the use and communication of multi-disciplinary teams and greater
communications with local law enforcement agencies. The Ossoff report wrongly suggests that DFCS
dismissed the concerns, misstates OIG’s role, and leaves out evidence supporting DFCS efforts to
address the complaints.

To begin, the Ossoff report wrongly describes the OIG as an entity tasked with handling cases of
waste, fraud, and abuse. OIG’s responsibilities and expertise are much broader. They include
background investigations, benefits integrity and recovery, internal audits and investigations,
residential childcare licensing, and special projects. Although the DHS OIG answers to the General
Counsel of the agency, the OIG functions independently and has never been pressured to respond to
any inquiry in a specific way. DHS leadership tasked OIG with responding to the CACGA and OCA
complaints because otherwise they would have been reviewed by DFCS staff. Commissioner Broce
hoped that OIG review would offer a more independent review process. At no time did the
Commissioner direct the investigation or ask for a particular outcome, and the OIG personnel who
were interviewed by the Senate all testified that they undertook the investigation independently and
did not feel any pressure to reach a particular result.

Senator Ossoff’s report repeatedly omits information provided to his staff by DFCS during the
investigation. For example, in assessing DFCS’s response to the CAC concerns, the Ossoff report
omits DFCS’s conclusion that OIG found case decisions to be reasonable and justified. The report
also contains several inaccurate descriptions of cases, the outcomes of which Senator Ossoff suggests
are attributable to DFCS. For example, the report details one case involving commercial sexual
exploitation of children (CSEC) where the deceased child’s mother could not keep her safe. The report
claims that the case was screened out by DFCS, which is false. DFCS records show that the child was
tragically murdered by a non-relative/non-caretaker. DFCS’s prior history with the child primarily
involved the child running away without her diabetic medication, but with no caretaker
maltreatment—in other words, no child abuse or neglect. And there was no clear report or allegation
of CSEC.

Notably, the report is wrong to the extent it suggests any “screened out” report of child abuse or
neglect means complete inaction by DFCS. DFCS never ignores a claim of child abuse or neglect;
every intake is reviewed by staff and at least one supervisor, is documented in SHINES, and shared
with law enforcement. If an intake does not contain abuse or neglect allegations, or if it lacks enough

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information to identify a maltreater, it may be “screened out” such that no one is assigned for further
investigation, but the intake is still documented in the case management system and sent to law
enforcement for review. Some intakes might be “screened out” because an investigation or a case is
already open, and so that new intake is referred to the case manager already assigned to the matter.

The most important fact here is that OIG’s individual case reviews found the judgment calls made by
DFCS staff to be reasonable. DFCS took CACGA and OCA’s reported concerns seriously, as
evidenced by changes DFCS made to several aspects of its case management and information sharing.
The Ossoff report omits all these changes.

DFCS now meets regularly with CACGA to ensure DFCS does not close cases prematurely before
CACGA and local CACs can provide services and complete assessments. Likewise, DFCS reinstated
breakfasts with local law enforcement and hosts regular meet-and-greets to improve communication.
DFCS also has law enforcement liaisons in the current Missing Children’s Unit and the new Special
Victims Unit to function as direct points of contact in emergencies involving missing children and
CSEC cases. DFCS meets regularly with CACGA and the Commissioner or her designee participates
in statewide CSEC Multidisciplinary Team meetings. And DFCS has made huge improvements to the
SHINES database, including an interagency “data lake” for better Child Protective Services intake
screening and automation, with further plans to implement new keyword search functionality across
cases in July.

The Ossoff report is grossly unfair by suggesting that complaints arising mainly from a single locality—
the veracity of which are open to question—should be imputed the DFCS’s statewide operations and
leadership. The report suggests that OIG did not reach out to a representative of the CACs, despite
evidence provided to the Senator’s staff showing that OIG staff communicated with the CACGA
representative and even obtained additional information from the CACGA representative that
ultimately made its way into OIG’s report. Likewise, OIG contacted OCA on multiple occasions to
seek specific follow-up information that would inform OIG’s investigation, but OCA failed to provide
it. OIG told this to Ossoff’s staff, but he omits the fact from the report. OIG personnel also told Sen.
Ossoff that they do not conduct interviews in every investigation, and that OIG did not deviate from
its standard investigative practice. Again, Senator Ossoff’s report fails to include that point.

Reorganization of Citizen Review Panels. Contrary to the Ossoff report’s suggestion, the
reorganization of the state’s Citizen Review Panel process will not lessen oversight. Indeed, rather
than a single panel there will now be three regional panels, corresponding to DFCS Districts: North,
South, and Metro. Each DFCS District will have its own Citizen Review Panel comprised of
representatives from that District. This will allow panel members to focus their inquiries and
recommendations on areas that are most important to their communities. Each District panel will
meet quarterly, and there will be an annual meeting of all three District panels. And by bringing
coordination of the panels in house, DFCS can preserve state resources while ensuring that panel
members understand the child welfare system, as well as engage with stakeholders.

Rainbow House allegations. Contrary to the insinuation in the Ossoff report, DFCS acted promptly
to protect children in its care when it became aware of the law enforcement investigation at this facility.
Although DFCS cannot share more specifics due to state law confidentiality, we feel compelled to
plainly voice that it would be utterly false to allege that DFCS turned a blind eye to claims of sexual
misconduct at this facility. It would be improper for DFCS to further comment in light of the ongoing
legal investigation, in which DFCS is cooperating fully. The redactions referred to in the Ossoff report

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 DFCS RESPONSE TO OSSOFF REPORT

were required by law, and speculation as to what those redactions reveal is inappropriate and
irresponsible.

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