Pa. Auditor General issues repair manual for 'broken' child-welfare system

Rick Lee | York Daily Record

Show Caption Hide Caption Pa. Auditor General Eugene DePasquale Pa. Auditor General Eugene DePasquale's "State of the Child Action Plan"

In September 2017, Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale released his "State of the Child" report supporting his findings that the commonwealth's child-welfare system was "broken."

Wednesday, DePasquale issued his follow-up "action plan" that he hopes is the repair manual for the system.

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In that latest report, Depasquale makes 28 recommendations, which include:

Increasing state funding for preventative and diversionary programs that would prevent children from being placed in juvenile justice and child welfare systems;

Improving working relationships between county children, youth and family agencies and child advocacy centers and child-abuse medical experts;

Reducing, where possible, superfluous data being entered into cases which creates unnecessary paperwork for case workers;

And, continuing on with a previous recommendation to prevent incomplete forms being submitted to ChildLine.

DePasquale's 2017 report was the result of learning that 58,000 calls to ChildLine went unanswered in 2016.

Some, but not all, of the new recommendations will require additional financing.

The State of the Child Action Plan can be viewed on the auditor general's website.