This week Arianna Hunziker’s grandparents sued staff from Hennepin County and Allina Health for the toddler’s 2017 murder, alleging that they did nothing while the child was “starved, dehydrated, bound, immobilized and abandoned” by relatives.
Just after this news broke we met with two smart, dedicated child protection workers. It reminded us that blaming individuals for catastrophes is often not on point, because research shows that about 90% of organizational errors are caused by the system.
Our systemic defects in Minnesota include intense pressures on workers to use kinship placements without sufficient vetting or follow up.
Compounding this is an allegiance to Family Assessment (FA) practices such as giving parents advance notice of a child protection visit, despite overwhelming evidence — as this expert interview explains — that this and related components of FA are dangerous.
Minnesota can prevent more child murders by correcting these systemic flaws.
Join our upcoming webinar next Wednesday October 28th. Register here.
Dr. Marti Erickson, University of Minnesota Professor Emeritus and co-host of the podcast Mom Enough will describe research findings on the long-term effects of child maltreatment, particularly in infants and toddlers, from a pioneering longitudinal study she worked on since 1976, plus her STEEP program for breaking the intergenerational cycle of abuse.
Give to the Max Day is coming on Thursday, November 19. Mark your calendar!