Federal Transcript of June 8 2017 Hearing On Michigan Child Welfare System

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN

SOUTHERN DIVISION
DWAYNE B., a minor, by his

Next Friend, John Stempfle, et al,
for themselves and others
similarly situated,
Plaintiffs,
Hon. Nancy G. Edmunds
v.
No. 06-CV-13548
RICK SNYDER, in his official
capacity as Governor of the
State of Michigan, et al,
Defendants.
________________________________/
STATUS CONFERENCE
Detroit, Michigan - Thursday, June 8, 2017
APPEARANCES:
Sara M. Bartosz
Elizabeth Gretter
Children's Rights
330 Seventh Avenue
New York, NY 10001
On behalf of Plaintiffs
John J. Bursch
Bursch Law PLLC
9339 Cherry Valley Ave SE, #78
Caledonia, MI 49316
616-450-4235
Email: jbursch@burschlaw.com
On behalf of Defendants
- - -
Suzanne Jacques, Official Court Reporter

email: jacques@transcriptorders.com
2
APPEARANCES(Continued)
Kristin M. Heyse
Michigan Department of the Attorney General
525 W Ottawa St.
3rd Floor
P.O. Box 30758
Lansing, MI 48909
517-373-7700
Email: heysek@michigan.gov
ALSO PRESENT:
Monitors Kevin Ryan, Eileen Crummy, Pamela Murray
State of Michigan DHHS: Nick Lyon, Herman McCall,

Debora Buchanan
- - -
3
I N D E X
- - -
Proceeding Page
Status Conference
Comments by Mr. Lyon 5
Comments by Mr. Ryan 7
Comments by Ms. Crummy 10
Comments by Dr. McCall 21
Comments by Mr. Bursch 23
Comments by The Court 41
Certificate of Court Reporter 44
Case No. 06-CV-13548

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1 Detroit, Michigan
2 Thursday, June 8, 2017
3 2:07 p.m.
4 - - -
5 LAW CLERK: Case number 06-13548, Dwayne B.
6 versus Snyder. Appearances, please.
7 MR. BURSCH: John Bursch on behalf of the
8 Department.
9 MR. LYON: Nick Lyon, director of Michigan
10 Department of Health and Human Services.
11 MR. McCALL: Herman McCall, executive director
12 of Children's Services.
13 MS. HEYSE: Kristin Heyse on behalf of the
14 defendants.
15 MS. BUCHANAN: Debora Buchanan, Department of
16 Health and Human Services.
17 MS. BARTOSZ: Sara Bartosz on behalf of the
18 plaintiffs, Children's Rights.
19 MS. GRETTER: Elizabeth Gretter from Children's
20 Rights for the plaintiff.
21 MR. RYAN: Kevin Ryan, monitoring team.
22 MS. CRUMMY: Eileen Crummy, monitoring team.
23 MS. MURRAY: Pamela Murray with the monitoring
24 team.
25 THE COURT: Like old friends week. I was

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1 chatting with the monitors before we convened in here, and
2 Mr. Ryan reminded me it's been close to nine years that I've
3 had supervision of this case. It's been a pleasure working
4 with everybody here.
5 Mr. Lyon, I understand that you have some
6 remarks that you're going to make, and you have to leave
7 fairly soon. And then I'm going to ask the monitors to
8 speak before the parties speak. So go ahead.
9 MR. LYON: Thank you for the opportunity to
10 address the Court.
11 In a minute, I want to introduce the new leader
12 of our Children's Services Agency, but first I want to
13 comment about the importance of the exit plan, as directer
14 of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.
15 As you know, improving our child welfare system
16 to better protect children and to meet the benchmarks was a
17 top priority for my predecessor, Maura Corrigan. I'm here
18 today to reiterate what an important priority this is for
19 me, and also is a top priority for my boss.
20 What our Children's Services Agency does is a
21 critically important part of the MDHHS mission; to provide
22 opportunities, services, and programs, to promote a healthy,
23 safe and stable environment for residents to be self
24 sufficient.
25 And I also want to thank those behind me from

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1 the Department, who work in other Children's Services
2 Agencies as well as some of our partners, private agencies
3 who provide services, for joining us here today.
4 I am pleased that we can now better focus on the
5 most important benchmark for improving the safety and
6 wellbeing of children under the Implementation
7 Sustainability and Exit Plan, and I'm happy that the
8 Department can report our progress during the early months
9 of this new agreement.
10 In a little bit, Dr. Herman McCall will have the
11 opportunity to talk to the Court. It's my honor to
12 introduce him to the Court. Dr. McCall is the executive
13 director of our Children's Agency.
14 THE COURT: The new Steve Yager?
15 MR. LYON: He replaced Steve Yager, yes.
16 Dr. McCall also has 35 years of experience
17 helping children and families in Michigan, working both in
18 the public and private sectors. Immediately prior to his
19 new role, he headed the State's Juvenile Justice Program,
20 MDHHS, and has dedicated his career to standing up for
21 children who need a voice. His previous state service
22 includes directing W.J. Maxey Boys Training School and
23 working for the former Bureau of Child and Adult Licensing.
24 In the private sector, he has held leadership and
25 executive-level posts overseeing a variety of child welfare,

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1 education, and community-based initiatives.
2 Dr. McCall has very impressive credentials. He
3 has a doctorate in education, a master's degree in
4 counseling, and a bachelor's degree in social work and
5 sociology. He has also had several articles published on
6 issues related to youth, including When Successful
7 Alternative Students Disengage from Regular School, and he
8 co-authored Deep Brain Learning: Pathways to Potential with
9 Challenging Youth. He's also given presentations on topics
10 such as Working with Children of Color.
11 Needless to say, Steve Yager's retirement was
12 something that caused me stress as we looked for a
13 replacement, and I'm very fortunate, humbled, and lucky that
14 Dr. McCall agreed to replace him, and in a little bit, he'll
15 get to present to the Court, as well.
16 Thank you for the privilege of doing this.
17 THE COURT: Mr. Ryan, Ms. Crummy.
18 MR. RYAN: This is a monitoring report on the
19 matter of Dwayne B. v. Snyder. The report covers
20 performance by the Michigan Department of Health and Human
21 Services between January and June 2016, known as Period 10.
22 On February 2nd, 2016, counsel for the State of
23 Michigan and the Michigan Department of Health and Human
24 Services(DHHS), and counsel for the plaintiffs, Children's
25 Rights, concluded months of negotiations, and filed with the

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1 Court a new agreement known as the Implementation
2 Sustainability and Exit Plan, called the ISEP for short,
3 that establishes performance standards for the improvement
4 of Michigan's Child Welfare System.
5 The ISEP focuses primarily on areas where the
6 State experiences challenges serving children in foster
7 care, and it xx includes areas such as worker training,
8 where the parties agreed Michigan demonstrated substantial
9 improvement since the onset of this case. The ISEP also
10 includes a number of new provisions that examine the
11 condition and the essence of the Child Welfare System's work
12 for children.
13 So, in short, the new agreement brings into
14 focus what have been the most difficult commitments for
15 Michigan to achieve, with a particular emphasis on
16 children's safety when they're in the state's custody, and
17 ushers in a broad examination of the quality of public
18 services and practices for these children.
19 The ISEP permits certain commitments to end on a
20 rolling basis before the Court terminates the overall
21 agreement, subject to the Court's approval, based on the
22 State's performance and the criteria specified in the
23 agreement.
24 There are now several important commitments that
25 are eligible for exit from this agreement based on DHHS's

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1 performance during ISEP Period 10. Specifically, DHHS
2 achieved or exceeded the required performance for Caseload
3 Progression for New Employees in section 5.1; Permanency
4 indicator 2, for children who have been in foster care
5 between 12 and 23 months, Section 5.8; Permanency Indicator
6 3, for children who have been in foster care for 24 months
7 or more, Section 5.9; Permanency Indicator 4, tracking the
8 number of children who exit and then return to foster care,
9 Section 5.10; and Permanency Indicator 5, for children
10 tracking their placement moves in section 5.11.
11 These commitments are all eligible for rolling
12 permanent exit after a single period of compliance. We
13 verified both systemwide data, and reviewed hundreds of
14 individual children's outcomes and placements to confirm the
15 state's performance, which, in each area, exceeded the
16 standard established in the ISEP. Therefore, today, we
17 recommend to the Court that these provisions permanently
18 exit the ISEP.
19 Our findings confirm that, in general,
20 permanency has become a real strength of the Michigan Child
21 Welfare over the course of this case, and children who have
22 been in foster care for more than 12 months are much more
23 likely to leave Michigan's foster care system to a forever
24 family today than was true at the outset of this case.
25 The ISEP also captions provisions as To Be

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1 Achieved and To Be Maintained, and allows provisions to move
2 from one category to another based upon performance. Based
3 on our monitoring of the State's performance, we also
4 recommend today to the Court that the Court order certain
5 provisions to move from To Be Achieved to To Be Maintained
6 based on DHHS's meeting the required performance standard
7 during ISEP Period 10. These commitments are Licensing
8 Worker Qualifications and Training, Section 6.4; Treatment
9 Foster Homes, Section 6.11; CPS Investigations Commencement,
10 Section 6.20; Caseload for POS Workers, Section 6.28;
11 Caseload for Licensing Workers, Section 6.29; Seclusion and
12 Isolation, 6.35; Education and Attendance, Section 6.37; and
13 Psychotropic Medication and Diagnosis, Section 6.53.
14 MS. CRUMMY: Your Honor, we encountered several
15 data issues that delayed the analysis and verification work
16 necessary to complete this report. Those issues are
17 detailed in the report. The Department continues to work on
18 and make progress on these issues, many in consultation with
19 the monitoring team.
20 The issues identified during the verification
21 process led DHHS and the monitoring team to develop a new
22 tool, the ISEP Metrics Plan, which is currently under way
23 and will set forth in detail the methods, descriptions of
24 the data, and descriptions of the calculations to be
25 supplied by DHHS to the monitoring team to assess

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1 performance for many of the ISEP commitments. We will
2 append that plan to our next report.
3 In addition to the areas of strength we
4 described a moment ago, and detailed in our report, our
5 monitoring and verification work surfaced, for us, concerns
6 that DHHS at times has not accepted an allegation of
7 physical child abuse for investigation unless the allegation
8 affirmatively includes a specific reference to an observable
9 physical injury.
10 In some of the screening referrals we reviewed,
11 unless a physical injury was specifically alleged, DHHS did
12 not investigate the referral for child abuse and neglect,
13 even to assess whether such an injury resulted, and even if
14 the action hurt the child. The document justification for
15 not investigating these cases was frequently written as "no
16 injury." We include several examples in our report, and
17 plan to monitor this area even more closely going forward,
18 by substantially growing the number of referrals to the
19 hotline that we review.
20 As the Court is aware, published news reports in
21 the last month quoted former employees of DHHS alleging that
22 caseload data produced to the monitors by DHHS was
23 inaccurate because state officials assigned children's cases
24 to DHHS staff who were in fact on leave at the time. These
25 are serious allegations. As the Court is aware, our

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1 verification work includes an examination of data produced
2 by the Department as well as field interviews with staff and
3 supervisors across the state.
4 The Department has continued to make available
5 to us extensive data and information detailing the caseloads
6 for individual workers, as well as leave data for all
7 workers with any case assignments during any dates selected
8 for caseload analysis in the period under review.
9 Our field verification work has included
10 interviews with hundreds of individual social workers and
11 supervisors across the State of Michigan to confirm their
12 reported caseloads. Most recently, last month, we continued
13 our caseload verification activities by interviewing 50
14 randomly selected staff in Wayne County. Our caseload
15 verification work continues, and we are focusing, in
16 particular, on the counties identified in recent news
17 reports. We will report our findings to the Court after we
18 complete our review.
19 And finally, as Mr. Lyon said, we would like to
20 express, on behalf of the monitoring team, our appreciation
21 to Steve Yager for all the work that he did, certainly on
22 behalf of the kids of Michigan, but also with us. And
23 finally, we look very much forward to working with
24 Dr. McCall as we move forward.
25 THE COURT: Thank you.

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1 I would be happy to hear from Children's Rights,
2 and from the Department.
3 Ms. Bartosz.
4 MS. BARTOSZ: Thank you, Your Honor, and good
5 afternoon. It's nice to be here in Detroit today.
6 Your Honor, I'd like to start out by recognizing
7 an accomplishment, and the monitors have identified that
8 already. Today, we can say that certain provisions of the
9 settlement agreement have been met, and that the agency is
10 prepared, with the Court's approval, to exit on certain
11 measures, and they are about permanency.
12 The Court will recall when we filed this case
13 back in 2006, there were some 7,000 children waiting to be
14 adopted in a queue, and it was taking too long, and these
15 kids were stuck in the system. Today, we can proudly say
16 that that number of kids with a goal of adoption in the
17 system is down to 2,241. That's the number that's in the
18 monitor's report.
19 Great strides have been made in more timely
20 getting kids back into stable family homes where they can
21 thrive and develop the way we want them to. That's
22 terrific, and I congratulate the agency for the efforts
23 we're putting to get there, I congratulate the private
24 provider community that worked hand in hand with the agency
25 to make that happen, and, of course, am very grateful to the

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1 monitors for the technical support and work they did hand in
2 hand with those players to make this happen. So that's a
3 happy event, Your Honor.
4 THE COURT: It is a happy event, and everyone
5 involved should feel proud of what's been accomplished. It
6 truly is amazing the reduction in children waiting for
7 permanent placement, particularly in the categories of 12 to
8 24 months, and beyond 24 months. I guess there's still some
9 work to be done on the short-stay kids, but I know that work
10 is being moved forward in that area, as well.
11 So congratulations to everybody who has worked
12 on that. And even though Maura is not here anymore, I'm
13 saying congratulations to her, too, because it was her
14 passion to move that in the right direction.
15 MS. BARTOSZ: And Your Honor, let me add my
16 praise to Mr. Yager, who worked very hard, and --
17 THE COURT: And Mr. Yager, I should have -- I
18 didn't mean to --
19 MS. BARTOSZ: And I will say he worked very hard
20 and helped move this permanency accomplishment forward, as
21 well, so we're glad to be able to speak to that today.
22 But, Your Honor, there are real, live, serious
23 challenges that lie ahead --
24 THE COURT: Yes.
25 MS. BARTOSZ: -- if this state is to meet its

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1 promise to keep children truly safe when they're taken into
2 state foster care custody.
3 So I'd like to address the issue of safety,
4 which is the primary thing we're trying to accomplish here.
5 Keep kids safe. If we're going to pull kids from their
6 family homes that are unsafe, by all means let's keep them
7 safe in foster care. That is fundamental.
8 And Your Honor, I won't address all the items in
9 the monitoring report. I'd like to address three items,
10 now, that plaintiffs are really quite disturbed about,
11 concerned about, frustrated that we find ourselves in the
12 position we do today.
13 First is the issue of kinship placements. When
14 this suit was brought, there were thousands of kinship
15 homes, hundreds of kinship homes being utilized without
16 licensure, and the parties got together and agreed that that
17 should be attended to, that safety and supports are as
18 important in kinship homes as they are in other foster
19 homes, and an agreement was reached to implement a process
20 to get more and more of these kinship homes licensed, and to
21 ensure their safety.
22 And Your Honor will recall that, historically,
23 kinship homes have disproportionately contributed to the
24 numbers of substantiated cases of abuse or neglect in care.
25 This is an area that really deserves focus and urgent

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1 attention.
2 And Your Honor, today we're here, the State
3 committed to ensure that at least 80 percent of kinship
4 providers, kinship homes with children in place either have
5 a live license, or have submitted an application for a
6 license timely, with a child in their home for less than 180
7 days, and, Your Honor, performance on that measure is at a
8 low 39 percent. Your Honor, eight years into a reform
9 process, that's eye popping. That is a far cry from
10 compliance.
11 Additionally, DHS committed in the ISEP, that
12 when a child is placed in a kinship home, certain safety
13 precaution safeguards would be taken right away. There
14 would be an initial visit in the home, there would be
15 criminal background checks and CORI checks to make sure the
16 home did not have adult perpetrators residing in the home,
17 and within 30 days, the State committed to do a full home
18 study. Again, Your Honor, the data or the performance
19 measures, or the data for this performance measure in the
20 monitoring period report shows only 44.7 percent compliance.
21 Very low, very concerning on essential safety.
22 And, Your Honor, it's not just a matter of
23 numbers. There are real dangers to children here, and the
24 monitors have reported on that. They looked at cases, they
25 looked at 50 sample cases to see what's going on here, and

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1 found kinship homes that had criminal and child welfare
2 history checks that were incomplete, they found insufficient
3 numbers of beds for the children in the home, they found
4 unsecured firearms and ammunition in these homes, they found
5 carbon monoxide detectors that were not working, and
6 unresolved substance abuse issues with adults living in the
7 home.
8 This is not the way to treat children in
9 Michigan, and this is not moving toward compliance with
10 these important kinship commitments. We're very concerned
11 about that.
12 Your Honor, next, on safety, I'd like to address
13 the issue, and Ms. Crummy, Monitor Crummy identified it:
14 Screening. The Child Protective Services hotline where
15 calls come in for the benefit, the safety of children,
16 report an allegation that a child may be in harm's way, and
17 here's the first place the State can interact with the
18 community and bring safety to the life of that child.
19 The State's committed to do screening and proper
20 investigations for all kids in foster care, and what we see
21 in this Period 10 report are serious, serious issues with
22 respect to the judgment and practices that are being applied
23 at the hotline. And again, it's not simply a matter of
24 numbers. These are real kids, and real homes, and real
25 neighborhoods in the State of Michigan.

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1 These reports were not deemed adequate to get a
2 child safety investigation here in Michigan by the
3 Department, nine years into this reform:
4 A report was made that a foster parent kicked a
5 nine-year-old foster child in the genitals. That didn't get
6 a Child Protective Services investigation. That child was
7 in a state-provided foster care setting. There was a report
8 of a child that was whipped in foster care. Screened out,
9 no investigation. Similar reports that children in homes
10 with caretakers that frequently smoked marijuana right in
11 front of, right in the presence of the children. Screened
12 out.
13 Your Honor, that's not safe practice. We must
14 address this issue with urgency.
15 Your Honor, there's a two-fold problem here.
16 This is danger, this is bad for individual kids that we
17 ought to care for, but, also, this means that when the State
18 reports aggregate data on safety, we can't trust it. If you
19 don't investigate, you can't substantiate, and the numbers
20 that are reported don't include these incidents. How many
21 are there? This was a mere sample of 50 cases, and this is
22 what's found. Deeply disturbing. We need to get very, very
23 deep into this issue, and plaintiffs intend to make sure
24 that that occurs with the monitors' assistance and the
25 State's assistance. We're sure that management wants to

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1 take this up.
2 THE COURT: I'm sure.
3 MS. BARTOSZ: Your Honor, finally, and this is a
4 safety issue: Data. The Court will recall that when we
5 brought the suit, there was a system called SWSS, S-W-S-S.
6 It was old, it wasn't working, frankly, it was dilapidated.
7 No one liked SWSS. Eventually, and I applaud former
8 Director Corrigan for this, the State committed to get rid
9 of SWSS and let's bring in a modern child welfare data
10 management system. That system is called MiSACWIS.
11 The Court will recall it was supposed to go
12 online in 2013, the fall. There was a six-month extension
13 into the spring of 2014 to turn the light green. That
14 occurred, and here we now are, three years down the trail,
15 and on numerous, basic outcomes that have to do with safety
16 for children, it is reported the state cannot deliver data.
17 We understood that putting in a new computer
18 system was a big lift, and we've been very honest with the
19 Court that we've not been, early on, terribly frustrated
20 with management because we knew there was going to be
21 troubleshooting, and there would be bugs to debug, but three
22 years in, it's time to start asking, when is data going to
23 be there? And it's not simply to drive this process in this
24 courtroom. How does management know, day to day, what
25 decisions to make? You're driving a bus in the blind.

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1 We are extremely concerned about this, and this
2 has been a movie we've seen too many times in this case, and
3 urgent action -- I keep using that word urgent, urgent
4 action is needed.
5 So those are a handful of areas, Judge, in this
6 report that really raise big, giant red flags that we want
7 to get on top of.
8 Your Honor, frankly, these --
9 THE COURT: My understanding, actually, is you
10 have some comments on other areas, too, but I know Mr. Yager
11 was working very hard on the data issue, spent a tremendous
12 amount of time on that, particularly in the last year or
13 two, so I assume it's an issue that will be taken up either
14 by Mr. McCall, or by somebody who he designates to follow up
15 with the good work Mr. Yager was doing to try to move that
16 particular area of disappointment forward in a positive
17 direction.
18 MS. BARTOSZ: Well, we certainly look forward to
19 working with DHHS management and Director McCall. We met
20 today for the first time. I very much look forward, along
21 with my colleagues, to working with you, and to address this
22 data and the other issues.
23 THE COURT: Right.
24 MS. BARTOSZ: And Judge, this brings me to this
25 point: In plaintiffs' view, and based upon the terms of the

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1 ISEP, we could trigger an alternative dispute resolution
2 process right now that might lead to motion practice. Your
3 Honor, plaintiffs will forebear on that for a time. Though
4 we are extremely agitated about these issues, there's new
5 management, and we feel it right to sit down with them, to
6 talk these things through to see what strategies they have
7 to get at this stuff to fix it, and we are set to meet with
8 the monitors and DHS in June, on the 21st, to begin those
9 discussions.
10 So we're committed to working this hand in hand,
11 working it collaboratively and get there, and we'll forebear
12 for a time, but we will need to see forward progress on
13 these critical matters, or the day will come where we have
14 to course correct, but our intention right now is to really
15 try to sit down and work through these issues and see how
16 solutions might be developed and implemented.
17 THE COURT: Well, that's great. We certainly
18 made a lot of progress with that kind of approach to the
19 problems over the last nine years, and hopefully it will
20 continue to be productive in these very serious areas, very
21 serious issues that I know the State wants to resolve as
22 much as you do.
23 Thank you, Ms. Bartosz.
24 MS. BARTOSZ: I appreciate the Court's time.
25 THE COURT: Mr. Bursch, are you going to speak,

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1 or Dr. McCall?
2 MR. BURSCH: I will, but Dr. McCall is going to
3 first.
4 DR. McCALL: Good afternoon, Your Honor. I
5 appreciate an opportunity have a few minutes to say a few
6 words.
7 First, I'd like to thank Director Lyon for his
8 vote of confidence and his kind words. I look forward to
9 working with you, Your Honor, and Kevin Ryan, Eileen Crummy
10 and the team from Public Catalyst, as well as Sara Bartosz
11 and Elizabeth Gretter and the Children's Rights team. I
12 believe it's fair to say we all share the same very
13 important goal, protecting the safety and wellbeing of
14 children in Michigan by continuing to improve the State's
15 child welfare system.
16 The leadership team and staff at the Children's
17 Services Agency has led Michigan to some great
18 accomplishments that have put us on a path of exiting
19 federal court oversight. Passionate about the work, I
20 pledge to continue pushing for improvements that are
21 necessary not just to exit federal court oversight, but,
22 most importantly, to keep our children safe.
23 I was fortunate enough to transition into this
24 position as Steve Yager was exiting, and I'm pleased to say
25 we both share the same high opinion of our leadership team

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1 and staff. We absolutely understand success is about having
2 a child welfare team in place, with great staff all around
3 the state who are doing what's in the best interests of
4 children so that they will remain physically and emotionally
5 safe. I am confident we have such a team that includes our
6 private agencies, judges, court administrators, attorneys
7 and service providers.
8 I would be happy to answer any questions you
9 have for me today, and please don't hesitate to contact me
10 in the future if you have additional questions.
11 THE COURT: Thank you, Dr. McCall.
12 DR. McCALL: Presenting for us today will be
13 John Bursch, our attorney. Thanks again for your time.
14 THE COURT: Thank you.
15 Mr. Bursch.
16 MR. BURSCH: Good morning, Your Honor. John
17 Bursch on behalf of the Department. It is good to see you
18 again.
19 I'm pleased to report that there are many
20 wonderful things happening in the Child Welfare Agency as
21 reported in the ISEP Period 10 report and otherwise, and I'm
22 going to touch on some of those. Before I do, I do need to
23 address the serious allegations made in the Lansing State
24 Journal article about alleged caseload manipulations.
25 We have investigated those allegations, and

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1 there is no evidence of caseloads being manipulated, and we
2 have provided substantial data, as well as our findings, to
3 the monitors, and they are going to vet those, but I think
4 it's important to publicly just walk through those
5 allegations and tell you what we have found.
6 In Marquette County, the allegation is that
7 while one of our workers was on medical leave, 12 cases
8 remained on her workload while she was off, but, in fact,
9 that staff person was only supposed to be on a short leave,
10 and the county director decided, rather than reassign them
11 for a short period, to assign a second worker to handle them
12 while she was out. Subsequently, unexpectedly, that leave
13 was extended, and the cases continued to be handled by the
14 secondary worker, and no new cases were assigned to that
15 person while they were on leave.
16 That allegation is false.
17 In Muskegon County, an allegation was made that
18 12 new cases were assigned to an employee who was out of the
19 office on leave on October 31, 2016, the same day that we
20 were reporting caseloads to the monitors. Well, that's
21 because the cases were assigned to the worker because she
22 was returning to the office the very next day, and she did.
23 Now, she told the Lansing State Journal that the cases were
24 subsequently transferred back to another worker. That's
25 true, but it was a mistake that the supervisor quickly

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1 corrected. All of this was reported to the UAW at the time
2 back in 2016, and no grievances were filed because nothing
3 wrong had happened.
4 In Barry County, there was a worker who made
5 three allegations. She said that she had inherited a case
6 in 2015 where drug screening wasn't done appropriately.
7 There was a father in that same case who said that he
8 couldn't reach anyone with the state for months. The worker
9 also said that she inherited what she called a ghost load of
10 cases that were not being worked.
11 Taking those in turn, it's true that there was
12 no hair follicle drug test that was performed on that child,
13 but there were other drug screenings that were done in place
14 of that test. The prosecutor stated that there was no other
15 evidence that the children were in danger. They've returned
16 home, and they've been fine since that time.
17 With respect to the father, our case records
18 reflect that there was ongoing contact with our workers and
19 him. That allegation is completely refuted by our
20 documentation.
21 As for the caseload, the ghost load, our manager
22 verified that all of these were, in fact, being worked on by
23 caseworkers. There were some issues in 2015 with caseload
24 assignments. For example, we had a supervisor who
25 inadvertently failed to reassign cases after a worker

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1 departed. But all of those were quickly reassigned and
2 fixed. It was just a simple and quickly corrected mistake.
3 In St. Clair County, a former employee claimed
4 that supervisors were hiding cases about the time that
5 MiSACWIS came online. She ended her state employment in
6 August of 2016. Our St. Clair County director refutes that
7 there was any practice of hiding or misassigning of cases,
8 and he's asked that all staff members bring concerns
9 immediately to his attention. There's was one little thing
10 that was resolved the same day, but there's no systemic
11 issue there at all.
12 That same employee made allegations that these
13 same types of things were happening in Wayne County. Wayne
14 County has no evidence of that. She said she reported it to
15 her supervisors in Wayne County. We've contacted all the
16 supervisors, and they never received one of these
17 complaints. As far as they can tell, it never happened.
18 In Ingham County, a former worker who left her
19 job in 2015 said that supervisors were assigning cases to
20 workers who were out of the office, and assigning to the
21 wrong people, things like that. Well, this is a concern
22 that she had raised with our supervisors three years ago,
23 and the county director investigated at that time and found
24 no evidence that any of this had happened, and he's
25 continued to follow up with his managers to make sure it

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1 never does happen.
2 Finally, in Monroe County, a former employee
3 said that the supervisors would often shuffle cases around
4 near count days, assigning them to workers on medical leave,
5 licensed workers and adoption workers, and then reassigning
6 them back to the original workers, that this is a persistent
7 problem, and that she complained to supervisors and to the
8 UAW about the practice. She retired from the department in
9 June 2015.
10 And in Monroe, cases were only moved when a
11 worker was scheduled to be on leave for more than three
12 weeks, which is entirely appropriate. The county confirmed
13 that no caseload shifting has taken place there. Despite
14 the allegation that this had been reported to numerous
15 people, there are no supervisors that recall a complaint
16 ever being raised, and the local UAW representative confirms
17 that she never received a complaint from this employee about
18 that practice.
19 So the monitors are looking at the bigger data
20 set, which will look at employee leaves and case
21 assignments, and that will back up all this anecdotal
22 evidence, but so far, our investigation has uncovered no
23 evidence of caseload mismanagement, and I could not be more
24 clear about that.
25 THE COURT: Yeah, I had a conversation with

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1 Public Catalyst, the monitors, before we came in here, and
2 we chatted about the Lansing State Journal story. It is
3 troubling. I mean, it's troubling to have these allegations
4 made. I know that the State takes them very seriously, as
5 do plaintiff and the monitors, and my suggestion to the
6 monitors, because I had seen this list that you've kind of
7 gone through just now of, incident by incident, and what the
8 resolution was. It just needs to be watched very carefully,
9 I think, over the next reporting period. I've asked the
10 monitors to step up their supervision a bit, and just keep
11 an eye on it and make sure that if such allegations are made
12 that they're followed up aggressively and quickly.
13 MR. BURSCH: We completely agree, and as you saw
14 from the list --
15 THE COURT: You've done that.
16 MR. BURSCH: -- we've done that, and we did it
17 at the time that allegations have ever been raised to us.
18 THE COURT: Okay. I'm satisfied.
19 MR. BURSCH: So with that, I do want to turn to
20 the ISEP report. Before I get into the five areas that I
21 want to touch on -- child safety, caseloads, healthcare,
22 visitation and data/MiSACWIS system -- I do want to put this
23 report in a little bit of context.
24 As you'll recall, the whole purpose of this
25 agreement was to eliminate literally hundreds of provisions

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1 under the previous consent decree that the Department has
2 already satisfied, so we could have a laser-like focus on
3 the things that still needed to be done. So as a result,
4 while we continue to make progress under the new agreement,
5 I don't want the public or the Court to lose sight of the
6 tremendous work that has already happened.
7 Second, this report covers Period 10 which
8 begins January 1, 2016, runs through June 30, 2016. As you
9 know, the parties didn't even submit the agreement to the
10 Court for your approval until February 2, 2016, a month into
11 that monitoring period. So this period does not reflect any
12 training or measures designed to focus on these new things.
13 To the extent that we've accomplished stuff and had things
14 move out of the agreement, that was entirely because of
15 organic changes that had already taken place, and we'll see
16 future improvement in future monitoring periods.
17 Third, because some of these measures of
18 performance are different, there's been a need to develop
19 new data protocols. We've heard from the monitors on this.
20 Sometimes this results in a lack of available performance
21 data, as I look in more specific detail. It's not because
22 of a systemic problem with MiSACWIS or data reporting, but
23 simply a transition, simply a transition. And then, the
24 monitors and the department have worked very closely on this
25 ISEP metrics plan that Ms. Crummy mentioned. I think you'll

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1 see many of those data issues working themselves out.
2 Despite all of those things, there's still
3 substantial progress. You saw that all the structures and
4 policies have been maintained. Other than a few data
5 issues, all the To Be Maintained things have been
6 maintained. Several are even rolling out of the consent
7 decree entirely, and we've actually satisfied eight of the
8 To Be Achieved commitments, again, without any policies or
9 training reflecting what those commitments are, simply
10 organic improvement.
11 Now, turning to my five areas. The first is
12 child safety, and as you know, one of the primary reasons we
13 had a consent decree in the first instance was because of
14 the number of children who were neglected or abused while in
15 Department custody. We all know it's impossible to have a
16 perfect system, with more than 13,000 children in it, but
17 our safety performance has improved dramatically.
18 The data that monitors are vetting right now
19 will show that instances of maltreatment in care dropped
20 from 152 in fiscal year 2013 to 111 in '14; 105 in '15; and
21 77 in '16, a decrease of 50 percent over three years,
22 bringing us within one tenth of one percent of the national
23 standard.
24 Same improvement with recurrence of
25 maltreatment. We've reduced the number of kids who have

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1 experienced recurrence of maltreatment by 169, from the
2 MSA-6 period to the Period 10 report, bringing us within
3 2,500th of a percent of the national standard.
4 Now, responding specifically to some of
5 Ms. Bartosz' comments, first, on kinship placements, we're
6 absolutely trying to make sure that all of those placements
7 are vetted and licensed. Of course, we can't force anybody
8 to get licensing if they don't want to, but all of the
9 support that we apply to licensed families applies equally
10 to unlicensed families. It's not that these kids are being
11 abandoned.
12 Some of the specific instances about
13 insufficient beds, unsecured firearms, and the like, and we
14 could go case by case and rebut each one of those
15 allegations, but the fact of the matter is we are keeping
16 kids safe, and I don't think this is a forum where we need
17 to have a trial on allegations where there's a lot of
18 background that the Court would need to understand.
19 Also, we want to reiterate, in response to the
20 monitors' comments, that it has not, and never has been, the
21 Department's policy to reject a complaint of abuse for lack
22 of physical injury. We'll be working very closely with the
23 monitors to ensure that our policy is comprehensively
24 implemented everywhere. We completely agree on that.
25 Ms. Bartosz talked about the screening and the

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1 hotline review. To say that someone got a report that a
2 child had been whipped, and then the person who was taking
3 that report just threw it in the discard file, is offensive
4 to our workers. That is not what happens. There's
5 extensive, immediate investigation when one of these
6 complaints come in. And sure, there are cases that are
7 close to the line. We may not all agree on the outcome, but
8 to say we're just ignoring instances of physical abuse is
9 not accurate.
10 Data, I'm going to come back to with respect to
11 MiSACWIS system at the end of this presentation.
12 Next, I would like to focus on caseloads.
13 During ISEP Period 10, we met two of the caseload
14 commitments To Be Achieved. Both of those are moving to To
15 Be Maintained. In traditional categories, we were within
16 5 percent of the goal. And while our current performance
17 will not be vetted for several monitoring periods, I can
18 report that our compliance internal numbers show a
19 decreasing overall caseload compliance rate of 92 percent
20 and rising. So that's going excellent.
21 Healthcare, in the MSA 6 report, we didn't even
22 have the ability to give you data on a systemwide basis. We
23 had to do a limited case review study, and based on that we
24 fell far below our own expectations. But two things have
25 happened since then which have dramatically changed the way

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1 healthcare is delivered to these children. First, we
2 established 34 permanent health liaison officers, you may
3 have heard of them referred to as HOO's, to promote and
4 facilitate improved health outcomes for children. In
5 addition, we have this computer system now called Care
6 Connect 360, that connects directly into Medicaid so that
7 the department can track when appointments are happening.
8 So as a result of that, during Period 10, more than three
9 quarters of the children admitted into the system received
10 medical exams within 30 days of entry, 85 percent within 45
11 days, 70 percent had their initial dental examination within
12 90 days, and nearly 80 percent of all children in care had
13 timely well child visits, which is consistent with data
14 statewide for children of all households.
15 These are stellar numbers for the department,
16 and they're going to get better because the Care Connect 360
17 program has now been expanded to our private agencies, and
18 they make up half the caseloads, so you're going to see that
19 continue.
20 On visitation, due to some back and forth
21 between the monitors and the Department, we didn't have all
22 that data. That's going to be reported in the next cycle.
23 I can tell you that we've significantly improved in the area
24 of visitations. In fact, we recently received a letter from
25 the federal government verifying that we met the 95 percent

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1 federal standard for caseworker children visits for the
2 fiscal period from October 1st, 2015 to September 1st,
3 2016. That's never happened before. It's an incredible
4 improvement.
5 Finally, the data. As we've discussed in the
6 past, the complexity of the MiSACWIS system is deeper than
7 even the software that Amazon.com uses, so it's difficult,
8 but it's continuing to mature, and workers are learning how
9 to use it. A few data points will demonstrate that.
10 When the system first went live in the spring of
11 2014, it had what the Department considered 186 important or
12 significant defects. Today, that number is down to two.
13 The average number of health desk tickets has dropped by
14 nearly a thousand every month compared to when we kicked
15 off. When the system went live, the average time to receive
16 an answer on a call to the help desk was 15 minutes. Today,
17 it's 23 seconds.
18 Now, I do want to let you know that our initial
19 contract to build the MiSACWIS system was with Unisys. That
20 contract term recently expired. Under state law, we had to
21 go through a competitive bidding process. As a result of
22 that process, the job of maintaining and further improving
23 MiSACWIS has been awarded to Xerox, which is the largest
24 provider of technology services to state and local
25 governments in the United States. There was a competitive

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1 bid system. Even when you excluded price, they scored the
2 highest on all the metrics, and they've successfully
3 maintained Maryland's SACWIS system since 2010. We have
4 great confidence that it's going to be even better.
5 So again, this comment that here we are, three
6 years later, with inadequate data, it's not that the system
7 is not providing data. We've had some issues that we are
8 working on with the monitors about how that data is
9 delivered so that we can provide everything that they need
10 in a way that they can receive it, but it is not true to say
11 that MiSACWIS is not working and that we don't have data
12 available.
13 I'd like to conclude with some broader
14 accomplishments that are not necessarily reflected in the
15 ISEP commitments.
16 We've successfully implemented a MiTEAM Practice
17 Model, a very significant shift in the way that our folks do
18 business. It improves practice in key child welfare
19 outcomes. We've implemented a Foster Parent Bill of Rights
20 and the Foster Child Bill of Rights. These help support
21 children and families. We created a Book of Business tool
22 which is extremely helpful with the software that allows
23 front-line supervisors and staff to track case requirements
24 and ensure children and families receive all of their
25 services timely. We've introduced strategies to screen for,

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June 8, 2017
1 assess and treat trauma that we did not previously have.
2 We've expanded Family Preservation and
3 Prevention services, including a family reunification
4 program now available in 73 counties, and a parent partner
5 program in Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Genesee and Washtenaw
6 Counties. We've centralized all of our intake procedures
7 pertaining to abuse, neglect or exploitation, resulting in
8 consistent statewide response so that we don't see any
9 variability in how reports of abuse are being handled.
10 We've enrolled nearly 900 kids in our Michigan
11 Youth Opportunities Initiative. Helps them with financial
12 capabilities, education, employment, housing, health, mental
13 health and transportation. We've had a Fostering Future
14 Scholarship program which has provided more than
15 $3.6 million to 2,000 children in foster care.
16 We successfully completed the merger of the
17 Division of Mental Health Services to Children and Families
18 into the Department's Children Services Agency, enhancing
19 access to mental health services. As a result, we're
20 complying at a 99.9 percent rate with the psychotropic
21 medicine provision in the ISEP.
22 We were in substantial compliance with the 2016
23 federal government's Title 4E review which examines our
24 child and provider case records to determine our compliance
25 with federal requirements in all kinds of areas.

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1 In the government's opinion, all cases in their
2 review were found to be in compliance in the areas of
3 licensing and safety. That's the federal government.
4 We now have an executive level data team to
5 promote the long-term continuous improvement in child
6 welfare by monitoring key performance indicators. As part
7 of that, we're working with the University of Michigan and
8 their School of Social Work Child and Adolescent Lab to
9 gather and analyze data so we can improve practice statewide
10 by identifying trends and predicting what's going to happen
11 in the future.
12 And, of course, we have our new executive
13 director, Dr. McCall, who is a lifetime advocate for
14 children. He's going to build on the work that Director
15 Yager and that Maura Corrigan both began, and I think that
16 the Department is in great shape.
17 Now, we do have these two outstanding legal
18 issues. We submitted the supplemental briefs. Do you want
19 to hear anything on that?
20 THE COURT: No, not really. I have your briefs.
21 I don't think I need argument. I'll try and get something
22 out to you within the next two to three weeks.
23 MR. BURSCH: Great.
24 One point that I'll emphasize, then, just in
25 response to their supplemental brief, and this has to do

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1 with the requirement that parents who have their children
2 back on a trial reunification basis somehow still count
3 towards compliance with medical and dental records -- or I'm
4 sorry, visits and appointments and things like that. Just
5 so that we're crystal clear on this, the Department has no
6 legal authority over those parents and those kids once
7 they've been reunified. Literally, if a worker walked up to
8 the door and said, "Have you taken your child to the doctor
9 this year?" The person could say, "I have, but I don't have
10 any documentation for that, you'll have to take my word for
11 it," and we could do nothing about it. We could insist that
12 they take the child to the doctor, but we have no ability to
13 enforce that.
14 Only if we see abuse and neglect and we go
15 through the process of filing an entirely new CPS complaint
16 with the court and actually have their legal custody taken
17 away from the parents again, do we have that kind of
18 authority.
19 THE COURT: Isn't the issue kind of one step
20 back from that; that is, in a trial reunification, the
21 children who are in that program, where the reunification
22 isn't final, they haven't been discharged, aren't they still
23 members of a class?
24 MR. BURSCH: I don't believe that they are
25 because I thought the class was defined as those who are

39
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1 within the legal custody of the Department. And once those
2 kids have been put back in their parents' custody, we still
3 have supervisory authority, our workers still go and visit
4 and make sure they're getting services, we work with the
5 parents, and if we see any evidence of neglect, we will
6 actually file a court action to take them back. But we have
7 no legal authority anymore, and that's the key distinction.
8 We literally would have to file a new complaint and have a
9 court order them removed from the home in order for us to be
10 able to take them to the doctor.
11 THE COURT: Well, if it's a trial reunification,
12 I mean, I guess I don't really know enough about it at this
13 point, but if it's not a permanent reunification, that is,
14 the child has not been discharged from the foster care
15 system, what triggers a change in making it a permanent
16 reunification? What's the status in that transition period?
17 MR. BURSCH: And that's a great question, and I
18 want you to think about two balls. There's a legal
19 jurisdiction ball, and then there's a supervision and
20 take-care-of-the-kids ball.
21 So when trial reunification takes place, the
22 legal jurisdiction ball moves from the Department back to
23 the parents. The supervisory and take-care-of-the-kids ball
24 remains with us to assist those parents and watch over the
25 kids to the extent possible. However, in order to get that

40
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June 8, 2017
1 jurisdictional ball back, the one that allows us to take the
2 kids out of the home and physically take them to a doctor
3 appointment, or to force something to happen, we would have
4 to file an entirely new CPS complaint with the court and
5 have that jurisdictional ball brought back to the
6 Department.
7 So when it goes from transition to permanent,
8 that's when the supervision ball joins the legal
9 jurisdiction ball in the home of the parents and then we're
10 completely out of the picture, we're not going for visits
11 anymore.
12 THE COURT: Well, I'll take a close look at it
13 and get something out to you on both of these pending legal
14 issues within the next few weeks.
15 MR. BURSCH: Wonderful. Do you have any
16 questions about any of these things?
17 THE COURT: No, I think I'm pretty up to speed.
18 MR. BURSCH: Terrific. Thank you, very much.
19 MS. BARTOSZ: Your Honor, in our brief we've
20 cited to law and contract language from the State that
21 provides for continuing placement and custodial care to
22 children during the trial reunification period.
23 THE COURT: So you think the legal jurisdiction
24 ball stays with the Department?
25 MS. BARTOSZ: The statutes provide that during

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1 the trial reunification period, the Court still has
2 jurisdiction over the child. The case has not been closed.
3 And as DHS itself states in the contracts with its private
4 providers who attend to many of these homes, "Trial
5 reunification is a court ordered placement where the child
6 is returned from out-of-home placement to the care of the
7 parent or guardian from whom he or she was removed. The
8 child remains under court supervision during the trial
9 reunification period with MDHHS retaining placement care and
10 custody."
11 And the policy of this department requires that
12 case workers, this is a quote, "The case worker must
13 continue to monitor the family and visit the children after
14 they are returned home until --
15 THE COURT: I think everyone agrees with that.
16 MS. BARTOSZ: Yes.
17 THE COURT: That they need to visit and monitor.
18 MS. BARTOSZ: Yes.
19 THE COURT: The question is do they have
20 enforcement power, legal enforcement power?
21 MR. BURSCH: Can I briefly respond to that?
22 THE COURT: No.
23 MR. BURSCH: Obviously, I disagree with
24 everything she just said.
25 THE COURT: Really? Shocking. No, actually,

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1 you guys have been getting along remarkably well. I applaud
2 you for that.
3 I just have a couple of comments. Obviously,
4 there are still some challenging areas. The kinship
5 placements are a problem. It's been the same -- I don't
6 know the same problem, but aspects of the same problem since
7 the very beginning; the licensure and placement and
8 supervisory responsibility, home checks and home studies all
9 remain a challenge, and a serious challenge that affects
10 safety. I agree with that completely.
11 The screening issue is a problem. There at
12 least is some claim that there's been a failure to
13 investigate complaints of problems with a some of the
14 children in the absence of observable physical injury. I'm
15 going to ask the monitors to look at a lot more cases. They
16 only looked at, I think, 50. We need to look at a lot more
17 over the next period.
18 One aspect or one issue that wasn't really
19 addressed directly but I think continues to be a challenge,
20 is that there are some areas in which performance standards
21 are still not agreed to. The specific ones that I have in
22 mind are the continuity of education, the issue of an
23 education appropriate to a specific child's needs, and the
24 provision of services to children that is sometimes
25 shorthanded as QSR. Those are three issues that I'm going

43
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1 to ask the monitors to keep an eye on over the next
2 reporting period, as well.
3 We talked about the Lansing State Journal
4 allegations. It wasn't their allegations, they were just
5 reporting others' allegations. I'm satisfied that the State
6 is taking an aggressive approach to that. The monitors will
7 certainly stay on top of it, as well, and will bring to my
8 attention any serious problem that continues in that
9 caseload data area.
10 I've talked briefly about the motions and
11 briefs.
12 The data system, still a problem with this
13 MiSACWIS. Definitely an improvement over the old system,
14 but it's really been a lot more daunting than anyone
15 expected it to be to utilize it to its full capacity.
16 I understand that there are data experts who
17 have been brought into the picture by both sides, that
18 they're working hard to move that problem to resolution, and
19 I know it's in everyone's joint interest to get that data
20 system working as efficiently as possible, and that everyone
21 is working to do that.
22 So I guess the one other thing that I still need
23 to do is approve the discharge of the specific ISEP areas
24 that are, that are met. I have a list from the summary of
25 the report prepared by the monitors. Is that a

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1 comprehensive list I can just read into the record?
2 MR. RYAN: Yes it is, Your Honor.
3 Did you prepare a stipulated order?
4 MR. BURSCH: Yes, we submitted a stipulated
5 order.
6 THE COURT: Did you? Great. Then I'll just
7 sign the order. I don't have to read it into the record.
8 MR. BURSCH: Perfect.
9 THE COURT: And then there are other commitments
10 that are being moved from To Be Achieved to To Be
11 Maintained. Is that in the order, as well?
12 MR. BURSCH: It is.
13 THE COURT: Then we're all set. I thank
14 everyone for your hard work.
15 I look forward to staying with you on this and
16 eventually, hopefully, resolving it to everyone's
17 satisfaction.
18 Thank you, very much.
19 (Proceedings concluded 3:05 p.m.)
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3 C E R T I F I C A T I O N
5 I, Suzanne Jacques, Official Court Reporter for the United
6 States District Court, Eastern District of Michigan, Southern
7 Division, hereby certify that the foregoing is a correct
8 transcript of the proceedings in the above-entitled cause on the
9 date set forth.
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12 s/ Suzanne Jacques__ June 23, 2017

Suzanne Jacques, RPR, RMR, CRR, FCRR Date
13 Official Court Reporter
Eastern District of Michigan
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Federal Transcript of June 8 2017 Hearing On Michigan Child Welfare System

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Federal Transcript of June 8 2017 Hearing On Michigan Child Welfare System

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN

DWAYNE B., a minor, by his

Suzanne Jacques, Official Court Reporter

Monitors Kevin Ryan, Eileen Crummy, Pamela Murray

State of Michigan DHHS: Nick Lyon, Herman McCall,

Comments by Mr. Lyon 5

Comments by Mr. Ryan 7

Comments by Ms. Crummy 10

Comments by Dr. McCall 21

Comments by Mr. Bursch 23

Comments by The Court 41

Certificate of Court Reporter 44

Case No. 06-CV-13548

2 Thursday, June 8, 2017

5 LAW CLERK: Case number 06-13548, Dwayne B.

6 versus Snyder. Appearances, please.

7 MR. BURSCH: John Bursch on behalf of the

9 MR. LYON: Nick Lyon, director of Michigan

10 Department of Health and Human Services.

11 MR. McCALL: Herman McCall, executive director

13 MS. HEYSE: Kristin Heyse on behalf of the

15 MS. BUCHANAN: Debora Buchanan, Department of

16 Health and Human Services.

17 MS. BARTOSZ: Sara Bartosz on behalf of the

18 plaintiffs, Children's Rights.

19 MS. GRETTER: Elizabeth Gretter from Children's

20 Rights for the plaintiff.

21 MR. RYAN: Kevin Ryan, monitoring team.

22 MS. CRUMMY: Eileen Crummy, monitoring team.

23 MS. MURRAY: Pamela Murray with the monitoring

25 THE COURT: Like old friends week. I was

Case No. 06-CV-13548

1 chatting with the monitors before we convened in here, and

3 had supervision of this case. It's been a pleasure working

4 with everybody here.

5 Mr. Lyon, I understand that you have some

6 remarks that you're going to make, and you have to leave

7 fairly soon. And then I'm going to ask the monitors to

8 speak before the parties speak. So go ahead.

9 MR. LYON: Thank you for the opportunity to

10 address the Court.

11 In a minute, I want to introduce the new leader

12 of our Children's Services Agency, but first I want to

13 comment about the importance of the exit plan, as directer

14 of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

15 As you know, improving our child welfare system

16 to better protect children and to meet the benchmarks was a

17 top priority for my predecessor, Maura Corrigan. I'm here

18 today to reiterate what an important priority this is for

19 me, and also is a top priority for my boss.

20 What our Children's Services Agency does is a

21 critically important part of the MDHHS mission; to provide

22 opportunities, services, and programs, to promote a healthy,

23 safe and stable environment for residents to be self

25 And I also want to thank those behind me from

Case No. 06-CV-13548

1 the Department, who work in other Children's Services

2 Agencies as well as some of our partners, private agencies

3 who provide services, for joining us here today.

4 I am pleased that we can now better focus on the

5 most important benchmark for improving the safety and

6 wellbeing of children under the Implementation