Two weeks ago, we shared new data we requested from the Department of Children, Youth and Families on how often Minnesota children involved in a screened-in maltreatment report are interviewed outside the presence of an alleged offender. This week, we’re taking a closer look at what happens in the cases where a private interview was possible, but someone said no.
When someone says no
Statewide, 77% of children not interviewed alone weren’t interviewed that way because of the child’s developmental capacity. But that leaves roughly 4,500 cases — 23% of all “not interviewed alone” cases — where a private interview was developmentally possible and didn’t happen because either the child or the parent declined:
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Child declined: 2,340 cases (11.5%)
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Parent declined: 2,146 cases (10.6%)
These are meaningfully different from the capacity cases. A toddler being interviewed with a parent present is a developmental reality. A parent or child declining a private interview is a decision point — one where the alleged offender, if that’s the declining parent, may have influence over whether a child gets an unsupervised chance to speak.
We don’t yet know how these declines vary by county, by case severity or by outcome, and it’s an area we’re interested in learning more about.
A note on caseload size
One pattern worth naming: Minnesota’s two largest child welfare agencies, Hennepin and Ramsey counties, both interview children alone at or above the statewide average despite handling by far the highest case volumes in the state. It may be that dedicated protocols or more standardized practice at these larger agencies play a role in their stronger performance. Either way, the data is a reassuring sign that children are mostly being interviewed alone.