The head of a new team investigating more than 6,000 cases of child abuse and neglect that fell through the cracks says headway is being made. CARE team chair Charles Flanagan confirmed to a CPS oversight committee that more than 1,200 cases had been assigned and 451 children seen as of Friday.
In the meantime, Department of Economic Security Director Clarence Carter told the committee that discarded case information is traceable to an ex-caseworker, who left case information in a home before she moved out of state.
“There is a need sometimes for individuals who are working on case files to export them, but it is very clear,” Carter said. “There’s very clear guidance for how it is that one has to protect those records.”
Carter says when those files were found in that home, they were tossed in the trash. Flanagan says a new public Website created by the CARE Team, is aimed at making its investigation as transparent as possible.