Lack of coordination between law enforcement and child protection is one of three factors that contributed to recent instances of extreme child abuse and murders, including the Curry case, and the former Minnesota mothers who drove their children off a California cliff.
Some counties, including Hennepin and Stearns, currently coordinate police/child protection communications to some degree. But all of Minnesota’s many child protection and law enforcement agencies need ways to reach each other during crises — particularly outside business hours — to ascertain for example if there is already a plan for where children should go in an emergency, or a relative who isn’t supposed to take them.
This won’t happen organically. The Department of Human Services should initiate a project to help local agencies develop communication protocols tailored to their situations.