Overview
As our audit was nearing completion, an additional area of concern that was outside the scope of our audit objectives came to our attention. Given the high-risk nature of this area, we looked into this area for the period July 1, 2020 through December 31, 2023, and the results are documented below.
1. The Office of the Child Advocate Should Coordinate With Other State Agencies To Ensure That Children Who Have Gone Missing From, and Later Returned to, Foster Care Are Screened To Determine Whether
In July 2022, the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS OIG) issued a report5 that cited Massachusetts as one of five states where there was no evidence that children in foster care were screened for human trafficking after they had gone missing from, and later returned to, foster care. Specifically, in its report, HHS OIG identified 949 children in Massachusetts who went missing from, and later returned to, foster care between July 1, 2018 through June 30, 2019. HHS OIG then sampled 88 out of the 949 identified children and reviewed their case files. HHS OIG found that 72 out of the 88 sampled children were not screened for human trafficking after they returned to foster care.
We asked the Office of the Child Advocate (OCA) whether it was aware of the July 2022 HHS OIG report and asked whether OCA met with the Department of Children and Families to address the findings and recommendations of the July 2022 HHS OIG report. OCA told us that it was aware of the report upon its release in July 2022 and that, within a few weeks of the report’s release, it reached out to the Department of Children and Families to collaborate on how to address the findings in the HHS OIG report.
We asked OCA whether it had reached out to other state agencies to share information regarding how to identify and respond to instances of human trafficking. In an email dated April 4, 2024, OCA stated,
We address sexual assault, domestic violence and human trafficking as necessary and appropriate through our statutory oversight obligations of ensuring that children receive appropriate, timely and quality executive-branch state services. We may also address these issues through our work on task forces if relevant. Coordinating detection and response is not an obligation of the OCA though the OCA may participate in such efforts.
While we recognize that coordinating the detection of and response to instances of human trafficking is not an obligation of OCA, we note that OCA’s mission statement is to ensure that “the Commonwealth’s most vulnerable and at-risk children have the opportunity to thrive.”
We recommend that OCA collaborate with other state agencies to address the issue of human trafficking of children and collaborate with other state agencies to determine ways to identify and respond to instances of human trafficking of children in Massachusetts.
Auditee’s Response
The OCA is deeply invested in ensuring that the Commonwealth is addressing the risk of, and reality of, human trafficking. The OCA has taken the necessary steps to evaluate the relevant Department of Children and Families policies and practices on this topic and continues to monitor issues through our oversight function.
The OCA’s goal of ensuring that the Commonwealth’s most vulnerable and at-risk children have the opportunity to thrive is a broad one, and the list of work to ensure the Commonwealth meets that goal is lengthy. Like all state agencies, the OCA has limited financial and staff resources, and we therefore must make decisions about where to focus our efforts in our work toward that important goal. Opinions on how the OCA utilizes its discretion to design projects and initiatives to address issues related to our mission is, respectfully, beyond the scope of this audit.
The OCA will continue to address the issue of human trafficking through our oversight function, which includes interagency and cross-sector collaboration, and will not expand our work unless and until the OCA determines that the issue is ripe for an OCA project through our annual detailed strategic planning process under the direction of the Child Advocate. We note that our strategic plan for each year is presented to our Advisory Council for feedback and input and is publicly available.
Auditor’s Reply
We appreciate OCA’s commitment to issues impacting children in the Commonwealth. Core to any performance audit in the public sector is a review of the effectiveness of services provided by government. OCA indicated in its response that “opinions on how the OCA utilizes its discretion to design projects and initiatives to address issues related to our mission is, respectfully, beyond the scope of this audit.”
We disagree. Evaluating the performance of government agencies requires a review of how well services are provided. It also requires that we ask if there are better ways to provide services or if the services are appropriate given their costs and benefits.
We believe that OCA can be more effective in how it addresses the issue of human trafficking. We remain concerned about this matter and are newly concerned by the agency’s response to our findings, as it appears to indicate resistance to external oversight and appropriate questioning of its work.
2. The Office of the Child Advocate Did Not Have Documented Policies and Procedures for Developing Temporary Cost Share Agreements.
OCA did not have documented policies and procedures for developing temporary cost share agreements. Without having documented policies and procedures in place for developing temporary cost share agreements, OCA may delay the delivery of necessary services to a child, such as finding a different residential school or out-of-home placement. Policies and procedures regarding temporary cost share agreements would ensure that OCA addresses issues such as who should determine the allocation of payments, when a temporary cost share agreement should be issued, and how OCA should monitor a temporary cost share agreement once it is in effect.
Section 2(e) of Chapter 18C of the Massachusetts General Laws states, “[OCA] shall impose temporary cost share agreements, as necessary pursuant to section 16R of chapter 6A [of the General Laws] to ensure children’s timely access to services.”
Section 16R of Chapter 6A of the General Laws, effective August 9, 2018 through November 7, 2022, stated,
If, after 14 days from the date that the [unified planning] team determines which services a child is eligible for, the team is unable to reach a consensus on the responsibility of payment, and the child is unable to access those services because of disagreement about responsibility for payment among state agencies and local education agencies, the child advocate shall be notified and shall have the authority to impose a binding temporary cost share agreement on those state agencies and local education agencies. The cost share agreement shall remain in effect until the child advocate is informed in writing of a permanent cost share or payment agreement having been implemented or until the child no longer qualifies for the services.
Even though the unified planning team (UPT) did not ask OCA to develop a temporary cost share agreement during the audit period, we consider it a best practice to have documented policies and procedures in place to ensure that temporary cost share agreements are handled timely, equitably, and consistently to minimize unnecessary delays when providing essential services to children and families.
OCA’s director told us in an email on June 24, 2022 that although the UPT managers “would periodically come to discuss a case, nothing ever reached the level of a formal request for OCA intervention.”
In a meeting with OCA on April 6, 2023, OCA’s director told us that there was no mandate in the UPT statutes that required OCA to produce regulations and guidelines for UPT case resolution. They also stated that it would be difficult for OCA to develop standard guidelines for imposing these agreements because every temporary cost share agreement is case-specific.
Although OCA is no longer responsible for developing cost share agreements because of the amended Section 16R of Chapter 6A of the General Laws, which went into effect on November 8, 2022, OCA should nevertheless develop policies and procedures related to its involvement in the UPT review process to minimize delays when providing essential services to children and their families.
Auditee’s Response
As the audit notes, the OCA is no longer authorized to develop cost-share agreements due to a change in statute. The OCA has never had a case referred to it via the Unified Planning Team process for the development of a cost-share agreement. The discussions with unified planning team staff regarding specific cases consisted of brainstorming and troubleshooting specific fact-patterns and such informal discussions are not aided by formal policies and procedures.
The OCA absolutely would have put policies and procedures in place had the OCA had the opportunity to develop cost-share agreements. However, writing such policies and procedures in the abstract, without any experience to draw upon, did not appear to be a wise use of OCA resources given our small staff. The OCA understood the unlikeliness of developing a cost-share agreement and that the process and procedure for doing so would likely only become clear through the experience itself. The OCA highly values policies and procedures but wants to ensure that we are developing state systems that are the most efficient and most effective and did not feel we could do so in this instance without additional experience. Given the change in statute the OCA no longer has a formal role in developing temporary cost share agreements, and as a result we will not be developing any policies or procedures.
Auditor’s Reply
We understand that OCA is no longer responsible for developing cost share agreements because of the amended Section 16R of Chapter 6A of the General Laws, which went into effect after the audit period on November 8, 2022. However, OCA should have been following the law while it was in effect. Going forward, as a best practice, we recommend that OCA develop policies and procedures related to its involvement in the UPT review process to minimize delays when providing essential services to children and their families.
| Date published: | October 7, 2024 |
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