Governor implements child welfare policies.

Byline: Susan Palmer The Register-Guard

Kids shouldn't have to die because of bureaucratic blind spots. Gov. Ted Kulongoski delivered that message at a news conference in Eugene on Wednesday where he described two new policies designed to help Oregon's Child Welfare System do a better job of protecting children.

The first gives child welfare workers direct access to criminal histories of the parents and caregivers of children being supervised by the state.

The second creates a coordinated effort by the governor's Critical Incident Response Team whenever children in state care are injured or killed.

Kulongoski made the announcements after touring the Relief Nursery, a nonprofit agency in Eugene that provides a variety of support programs to families with young children.

He said the changes followed the June death of 4-year-old Cassandra Hodges, a Klamath Falls child who police believe died of injuries inflicted by her mother and her mother's live-in boyfriend.

According to news reports, child welfare caseworkers had contacted the family after receiving anonymous complaints about the care of two other children in the household.

State workers found no reason to remove the children from the home.

What they didn't know was that the mother's boyfriend had served 10 years in prison for killing his infant daughter in 1990.

While state workers have always been able to get criminal history information, their access was limited to foster care and adoption certification cases.

Now child-care workers in offices throughout the state will be trained on how to retrieve information from the Law Enforcement Data System, which logs crime statistics from both state and local law enforcement agencies. Case workers will be able to use the information in assessing the well-being of children. Their access will begin within 90 days, the governor said.

In June, Kulongoski created a 15-member Critical Incident Response work group headed by Gary Weeks, director of Health and Human Services. Kulongoski asked the group to develop a way to quickly react to emergencies such as the Hodges case in order to identify gaps in child oversight and suggest ways to better protect kids.

The new protocol will be used whenever a child is seriously injured or killed or when the potential for harm to a child creates community concern.

Within 24 hours, a Critical Incident Response Team will be formed from a variety of local and state agencies to review the incident and write a report within 30 days. If the report identifies policy weaknesses, the team will suggest ways to address the problem.

The state receives about 40,000 child welfare calls a year. Of those, investigations reveal about 9,500 cases of abuse or mistreatment of children.

That's 9,500 cases too many, Kulongoski said.

"We can do better," he said.

CAPTION(S):

Gov. Ted Kulongoski spends time coloring with Zachary Lee, 2, at Eugene's Relief Nursery.