Lansing — Leaders from Michigan family and juvenile courts told the House Oversight Committee on the child welfare system on Sept. 12 that centralized State intake and contractor-driven case management are producing delays and missed safety signals, and urged a shift toward localized intake, standardized risk assessments, and stronger supports for foster and kinship caregivers.

The testimony, given by members of the Michigan Association of Family Court Administrators (MAFCA), emphasized three near-term priorities: return certain intake decisions to locally based workers, expand court‑run or court‑partnered in‑home services that allow frequent face‑to‑face contact, and create a centralized training institute to raise baseline practice standards across counties.

The presenters described a contrast between how many Michigan juvenile courts handle high‑risk families and how the child welfare system currently operates. "Michigan's child welfare system is currently heavily centralized to the detriment of youth and families it's designed to protect," said Tim Smith, court administrator and attorney referee for the Charlevoix County Probate/Family Court. Smith and other court officials argued that central intake implemented in February 2012 moved screening decisions away from workers who know local communities, producing a substantial drop in abuse/neglect petitions filed in some counties and, they contend, screening out referrals that local staff would have investigated.

Kathy Quillin, assistant director at the Ottawa County 20th Circuit Court, gave a personal account of a recent case she called a failure of contracted casework. Quillin said her granddaughter was removed from the home of relatives after a court hearing and swiftly placed with a man she described as having a serious criminal history; Quillin said the private agency assigned to the case performed only minimal checks and did not share documentation with the court. "There was literally a court hearing at about 02:00, and by 05:00, she was gone," Quillin said. She urged the committee to adopt validated assessments and more frequent contact schedules, similar to reforms used in juvenile justice, so that risk is measured and addressed objectively.

Scott LeRoy, circuit court administrator in Ingham County, described a four‑decade Ingham program called Intensive Neglect Services (INDS) that assigns juvenile court officers caseloads of about 20 and requires weekly in‑home contacts. LeRoy said those locally run services reduced out‑of‑home placements, shortened stays in foster care and residential treatment, and produced cost savings for county and state budgets. "Our juvenile court officers that have a neglect and abuse caseload have only 20 kids on their caseload, and they have weekly face‑to‑face contacts," LeRoy said.

Dave Polan, deputy court administrator in Barry County, cited recent examples where local courts moved quickly to meet children’s needs when placements were not immediately available. Polan described using day‑treatment schooling, clothing and community supports when state placement options were delayed, saying, "We clothed him because DHHS couldn't clothe him, so we went out and bought clothes today for him."

Presenters urged several specific changes that can be pursued within existing legal and funding structures: move some intake screening back to local workers, adopt validated risk and needs assessments to guide protection and placement decisions, expand licensing and financial supports for kinship and foster families (including provisional placements with safety monitoring), and consider reforms to the childcare fund to allow juvenile courts more flexible use of those dollars.

Speakers also recommended standardizing legal representation for MDHHS where variability exists across counties and exploring a stand‑alone commission or oversight office (models cited in Pennsylvania) to monitor child welfare and delinquency trends and training across jurisdictions. MAFCA members said they are continuing weekly work‑group meetings and plan to send representatives to a Pennsylvania conference this fall to study that state’s juvenile court and child welfare structures.

Committee members asked how decentralization would address disparate resources across counties. Presenters acknowledged funding and service disparities and suggested repurposing some dollars currently spent on out‑of‑home placements into community‑based supports. They cited rough figures discussed in testimony: centralized intake in some counties coincided with an approximately 60% drop in filings (Charlevoix County), the childcare fund has historically reimbursed roughly 75% by the state and 25% by counties for some programs, courts contracting with private agencies have paid foster/placement providers rates such as $135 per day in certain arrangements, and residential placements can range from several hundred to $900 per day. Presenters cautioned that precise statewide cost and outcomes data require further review.

The presenters framed their recommendations as extensions of reforms already implemented on the delinquency side: validated screening tools, frequent face‑to‑face contact for high‑risk youth, multidisciplinary review and judicial oversight. "If child welfare embraced a similar approach—valuing engagement over minimum compliance—workers would be better positioned to build trust, spot emerging concerns before they escalate, and make recommendations based on real-time insight rather than limited snapshots," Quillin said.

Next steps described to the committee included continued weekly work‑group meetings, deeper dives into budget and data, outreach to other states, and follow‑up testimony to the committee. Committee procedural actions at the start and end of the hearing included approval of the Sept. 6 minutes and a motion to excuse absent members; both were adopted by unanimous consent.

The work group’s proposals are exploratory; presenters repeatedly noted they are early in the study process and declined to say the committee should replace MDHHS functions wholesale. Instead, they urged pilot approaches, further data analysis and collaboration among courts, MDHHS, private agencies, and the Legislature to test whether localized intake, standardized risk assessment, enhanced foster/kin supports and a training institute can reduce placements in costly residential settings while protecting children.