Jess Dannhauser, the commissioner of the New York City Administration for Children’s Services (ACS), is facing increasing scrutiny despite claims of success from some advocates and agency leaders.
In a recent defense of his leadership, Sr. Paulette LoMonaco, former executive director of Good Shepherd Services, and Bill Baccaglini, CEO of the New York Foundling, praised Dannhauser, stating that the agency has witnessed a dramatic improvement in the quality of child welfare practice.
However, perspectives from those working directly on the front lines suggest a starkly different view. According to insiders quoted in the New York Post, the agency is prioritizing efforts to keep families together and reduce the number of Black children in foster care, at the potential expense of ensuring the safety of these children.
Concerns arise from data indicating that Black children represent 68 percent of fatalities in families previously known to ACS, raising serious questions about the agency’s commitment to child safety.
Defenders of Dannhauser refer to statistics in making their case, highlighting a “20% reduction over the last five years in the number of children being subsequently abused or neglected after an ACS intervention.”
In truth, this reported reduction can be linked to the expansion of the CARES program, a family assessment alternative to a standard child protective services (CPS) investigation.
The CARES program deviates from the traditional investigation process, which typically leads to families being “indicated” for maltreatment. Additionally, a law enacted in January 2022 further raised the evidentiary threshold for indicating a CPS case, potentially explaining the apparent improvement in child safety.
Dannhauser’s defenders assert that his strategies have led to an 18% decline in child fatalities among families known to ACS compared to the previous decade.
Critics remain skeptical of this claim. An email from the ACS communications office clarified that the 18% decline is calculated based on the average number of fatalities from 2012-2021, compared to averages from 2022-2024.
Notably, there was a dramatic decrease in recorded fatalities from 2021 (53 deaths) to 2022 (39 deaths), coinciding with Dannhauser’s tenure. However, preliminary data suggests a significant rise in fatalities during 2023 and 2024, the years his policies would be implemented.
This raises questions about the validity of the claims supporting his administration’s achievements.
Examining the reported decrease in child fatalities reveals a complex picture. While the number of fatalities reviewed by ACS has dropped significantly, the reasons behind this reduction remain unclear.
In 2021, ACS reviewed 102 child fatalities, with 52% of them known to the agency. Conversely, in 2022, only 74 child deaths were reviewed, and 53% were known to ACS.
Given that more than 100 fatalities were reviewed in 2018 and 2019, the reduction of reviews in 2022 appears noteworthy.
Speculation suggests that the decline in reviewed deaths could be influenced by a decrease in the child population in New York City, which saw a drop of 17% between 2020 and 2023.
Fewer children in the city may lead to fewer overall deaths, although it does not necessarily imply that the fatality rate aligns with this trend.
In fact, the total infant mortality rate in New York City has shown fluctuations, having declined from 2015 to 2020 but rising again in 2021 and 2022.
For children aged one to 14, the total deaths in 2022 surpassed those in all years since 2015, except for 2019.
Given this rising trend, it raises the question of why ACS reported fewer deaths that were known to them while the overall child mortality increased during the same period.
A significant factor may be ACS’s changed guidance concerning reporting substance-exposed infants to the State Central Register of Child Abuse and Maltreatment.
These infants often die under ambiguous circumstances, resulting in a higher likelihood of unrecognized maltreatment deaths.
If ACS’s current guidance leads to fewer open cases or prior allegations at the time of these infants’ deaths, it could logically follow that such fatalities are less frequently categorized as “known to ACS.”
Furthermore, changes within the medical examiner’s office may also play a role in the accuracy of fatality reviews.
Due to staffing shortages, new guidance reportedly gives medical examiners more discretion in determining the necessity of an autopsy.
Consequently, fewer autopsies could potentially lead to a decrease in recorded child maltreatment fatalities.
A recent investigation by the Times Union found that numerous child fatality reports across the state lacked completion due to missing autopsies.
While Dannhauser and his supporters claim that ACS has accomplished a dual objective of reducing child fatalities and the number of children in foster care, the statistics they cite prompt more inquiries than insights.
Moreover, the Bronx Defenders have issued a pointed critique of ACS, accusing the agency of systemic bias, which further complicates the narrative immersed in both controversy and laudation.
The reality remains that while community advocates hail improvements, critics argue that these changes may come at the cost of child safety.
As Dannhauser faces increasing scrutiny, the balance between reducing interventions and ensuring the welfare of vulnerable children remains fraught with challenges and moral dilemmas.
Those grappling with the realities of the ACS system deserve better than responses founded merely on optimism; they require a commitment to rigorous analysis and genuine accountability.
image source from：city-journal
