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Gov. Mark Dayton and his human services commissioner yesterday 

announced changes to the state's child protection system

 following a Star Tribune investigation into the death of Eric Dean, 4-year-old Starbuck boy who was beaten to death by his stepmother.

A team of experts will constitute a rapid-deployment force to help burdened social workers work through difficult cases. And a task force will look at the overall system.

It's a good first step but it also reinforces two things: (1) If the Star Tribune's Brandon Stahl hadn't doggedly pursued the system that watched as a 4-year-old died, it's unlikely there'd have been a news conference yesterday and (2) If people in the system had listened to what experts were trying to tell them, there wouldn't have been any need for Brandon Stahl to doggedly pursue the system that watched a 4-year-old die.

 contains several quotes that, while not as intense as a picture of a smiling 4-year-old with welts, show a deeper problem.

Dayton read a letter Hollensteiner sent to the Star Tribune in which she said her heart sinks when she makes abuse reports, because as a trained professional, she should be taken seriously.

Minnesota's child protection system is county run. Like so many other programs left to the counties, the results can vary from county to county, as anyone who's ever navigated the mental health system knows only too well.

Part of that is thanks to the Legislature, which provides funding directly to the counties, part of it is philosophical differences among counties. The state has cut $36 million (about 5 minutes worth of military action against Syria last night, for the record) to the system in the last 10 years, almost as if it it didn't think it would be missed.

In Stahl's investigation, county officials have certainly sounded like professionals who doggedly protected their turf.

State lawmakers infringed on that turf, too, when they passed a law that bars counties from considering past child abuse reports when considering new ones. In the aftermath of Eric Dean's murder, officials said they'll try to repeal the law. But that's only part of the problem. When it proposed it, the Department of Human Services said it simply codified practices that were already in use. The law can be gutted, but can the practices?

It appears so simple, and yet a comment on the Star Tribune's story today peels some of the issues away:

The governor and the human services commissioner have set up a task force to investigate what changes can be made in the system to prevent this from happening again. The commissioner will chair it. The co-chair will be Ramsey County commissioner Toni Carter, 

who defended the counties' performance on the issue in a recent op-ed

The barometer of whether any of this makes any difference should be when a 26-year veteran ER physician's heart doesn't sink when she sends a report of potential child abuse into the system.

Also when a picture of a dead 4-year-old isn't what gets those responsible to sit up straight.

NewsCut

Bob Collins

Author

State officials announced changes to the child abuse system to prevent a repeat of the tragedy of a 4-year-old boy. Here are a few others.

Want to fix MN child protection? Take abuse seriously

Go Deeper.

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