County Attorney John Gish, Assistant County Attorney Jennifer Lerher and Washington County Supervisor Chairman Richard Young met in the Washington County courthouse December 2 with Kelly Garcia, director of the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services.  Garcia initiated the meeting after Gish had publicly criticized the department’s child protection services.

Gish provided a summary of the session and of issues discussed in the afternoon meeting:

•Too often DHHS rejects legitimate reports of abuse.

•DHHS should be going inside parents’ homes to visit children instead of seeing children at court and considering that a good enough visit.

•If there is an allegation of criminal physical or sexual abuse, DHHs needs to involve law enforcement.  Sometime, a social worker will “investigate allegations and only report to law enforcement after DHHS concluded their own review.”  This has resulted in suspects of sexual or child abuse being interviewed by a social worker before a trained investigator ever has a chance to get involved.

•DHHS should do a better job of notifying county attorneys of reported abuse.

•DHHS has a defensive culture and employees are rarely receptive to suggestions or input from the outside, including county attorneys and medical professionals.

•There needs to be an office that is like an inspector general, and the office’s responsibility is to listen to concerns about DHHS and the investigator has the chance to get involved.

“While I believe Director Garcia is interested in protecting children, some of these changes are better coming from legislation instead of DHHS policy,” Gish said. “I call on the newly installed legislature to provide oversight of DHHS and enact necessary improvements to protect our children.”