Experts urge coordinated "plans of safe care" to reduce infant removals and improve outcomes in Harrison County

A panel of judges, child-welfare researchers and Mississippi child-protection officials told a Harrison County Board of Supervisors workshop that coordinated “plans of safe care” and upstream prenatal supports can reduce unnecessary removals of infants and improve long-term outcomes for children.

Mike Dickinson, Harrison County youth court judge, opened the workshop and introduced speakers including retired youth court judge John Hudson; Sean Couch of the National Center on Substance Use and Child Welfare; Christopher Church of Casey Family Programs; and Andrea Sanders, commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Child Protection Services (MDCPS). The presenters described legal rules that constrain removal, federal funding requirements and models that other states use to coordinate medical, substance-use and social supports for pregnant people and newborns.

Why it matters: Speakers said removal from a home is legally and practically significant—federal rules require courts and agencies to show “reasonable efforts” to prevent removal and to move children to permanency quickly if reunification fails. Presenters argued that plans of safe care — multi-agency, family-centered care plans required under the federal Comprehensive Addiction and…