The state agency tasked with investigating allegations of child abuse is issuing a sweeping request for public input on how it could better do its job.
The Division for Children, Youth, and Families has struggled for years through funding cuts, growing number of calls, and lawsuits that allege the agency failed to act to protect children.
The formal Request for Information issued by DCYF on Friday is unusually broad in its scope. It calls on everyone from behavioral health providers to foster parents to advocacy groups to academia to put forward ideas on how the agency can better achieve goals including reducing the number of families with repeated reports of maltreatment and decreasing the number of children removed from their families.
In the RFI, the agency says “the range and type of services available today are insufficient to meet all of the physical, psychological, emotional, and basic needs of NH families.”
The RFI also highlights areas that the agency's critics have long pointed to, including how certain DCYF services are not in line with national best practices.
The RFI is open until November 7.
