Press Release  Massachusetts Child Advocate Releases Fiscal Year 2020 Annual Report

Boston, MA — The Office of the Child Advocate (OCA) released its Fiscal Year 2020 Annual Report today. The report focuses on the OCA’s pandemic response efforts, including several initiatives the agency launched to help children and families in crisis during an unprecedented year. The report also provides information and data about the OCA’s core functions including critical incident reports, institutional reporting, juvenile justice monitoring, and the OCA Complaint Line, as well as the agency’s project-based work. 

“Since the COVID-19 state of emergency began in March of last year, ensuring the welfare of our most vulnerable children and families remained the OCA’s top priority,” said Maria Mossaides, Director of the Office of the Child Advocate. “Recognizing that children and caregivers were under increased personal, economic, and emotional stress, the OCA quickly pivoted to meet the unique and pressing issues facing families across the Commonwealth.” 

As the report details, the OCA’s pandemic response efforts focused on preventative work that identified specific interventions and supports for families. The agency’s efforts included collecting information about gaps and challenges in providing children with needed services, identifying special populations of particularly at-risk children who need focused attention, and working with the agency’s public and private partners to identify creative solutions to both in-the-moment crises and emerging and anticipated challenges. The report highlights the OCA’s COVID-19 response initiatives, including the following examples:  

• Handhold MA Interactive Website: The OCA worked with the Department of Mental Health and MassHealth to design and launch the first iteration of an interactive website called “HandholdMA.” This website provides family-friendly information on helping kids build resiliency, tips on managing lower-level behavioral issues, advice on when a child needs a more intense intervention, and a guide to available state and community behavioral health resources. 
   
• OCA Complaint Line: In April 2020, the OCA reached out to legislators, service providers, advocates, and others who work with children and families to provide them with information about the OCA’s Complaint Line and ask them to alert the OCA if they had trouble accessing needed services. The OCA gathered and analyzed COVID-19 related complaints and brought any systemic concerns to the attention of the state agency involved in an expedited fashion.  

In addition to documenting the agency’s robust COVID-19 intervention efforts, the report provides an overview of data the OCA collected in FY20 to track issues that impact children, young adults, and their families:  

• The OCA received 328 statutorily required Critical Incident Reports (CIRs) in FY20 from the Departments of Children and Families (DCF), Mental Health (DMH), Public Health (DPH), and Youth Services (DYS). These CIRs detailed 497 individual critical incidents (fatality, near fatality, serious bodily injury, and emotional injury) involving 479 children and young adults. Overall, there was an 80% increase in the number of CIRs from FY19 to FY20, with the highest increase coming from DCF.  
   
• In FY20, the OCA received 276 reports of supported abuse and/or neglect in out-of-home settings. These reports contained 631 supported allegations of abuse and/or neglect impacting at least 453 children. Within these reports, 80% of the supported allegations were related to neglect, 14% were related to physical abuse, and 6% were related to sexual abuse.  
   
• The OCA’s Juvenile Justice Policy and Data Board continued work on a juvenile justice system data website, which makes a variety of juvenile justice system data available to the public on an interactive dashboard.  

The OCA’s report also details the agency’s extensive work in FY20 with the Childhood Trauma Task Force, Mandated Reporter Commission, Child Welfare Data Work Group, and Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Task Force, as well as its collaborative efforts with many other projects, initiatives, and committees dedicated to improving the lives of children and young adults in the Commonwealth.

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