What Happens When You Call CPS?

As the reporter, you should know that your identity is anonymous. CPS will not reveal any identifying information about you in their investigation. However, CPS will tell the family what the allegations are and use exact phrases from their report during their interviews.

CPS will either respond immediately, within 24 hours, or within 72 hours depending on their level of concern. CPS should send you a notice, in the form of letter, of the outcome of their case within 30 days.

We are discussing the ideal or standard protocols for CPS. As an institution run by humans, CPS does not always operate according to its ideals any more than the church always operates according to our ideals. Don’t let frustrations with one case cause you to neglect your responsibilities with a future case.

Be sure to get the CPS worker’s name and the case number so you can verify your report, if needed.

IF THE REPORT IS ACCEPTED FOR INVESTIGATION

When CPS begins their assessment with families, they take one of two approaches: 1. An investigative assessment is the response that involves a clear risk of serious harm to the child. Investigative assessments are often done in collaboration with law enforcement. 2. The more frequent approach CPS uses is a family assessment approach.

Th is approach is used for lower risk situations that still merit investigation. In this approach, the fi rst contact with the family is typically to call and schedule a time to meet with them.

Step One: Safety Plan

After CPS initiates a case, they typically discuss concerns with the family and put a safety plan in place. Th is is a signed agreement with the family about how they will ensure the safety of the child. Also at this time, CPS will attempt to connect the family with resources relevant to family’s needs.

Th is is an area where the church can be an immense asset. Ask to see the safety plan, because children or student ministry leaders may need to be informed of limitations on who can pick up the children. Off er to help with childcare, supervised visitation, or other ways of ensuring family safety.

If a Child Is at Greater Risk

When CPS fi nds that a child’s safety continues to remain at-risk, they can remove a child from the home. Besides the priority of keeping families together, taking children away from their parents is a complicated, expensive, and time-consuming task that CPS wants to avoid as much as possible. If a child is placed outside of their home, it is only because CPS has found the parents non-compliant with the safety plan and there is no way to guarantee the child’s safety in the home.

CPS tries to keep children as close to their current living situation as possible; close to their current homes, in the same school, and in contact with their family. Th is is where church members, who are in the same community, can be of great assistance by serving as foster families.

We know this brief lesson cannot answer all the questions you have about CPS. When a child’s safety is at risk, our minds can and should race with questions. If you have more questions, invite a CPS social worker to come to a church staff meeting or volunteer training for a Q&A.

Th e goal of this lesson is to ensure that uncertainty about a process does not create passivity. It will never be “comfortable” when a call to CPS is needed. But at this point you should know enough to

We don’t want uncertainty to be the reason we don’t take action to help an abused or neglected child.

call CPS with confi dence, understanding what is happening on the other end of the call.

KEY POINTS OF THIS LESSON

• Th e criterion for calling CPS is a “reasonable suspicion” of abuse or neglect of a child. • CPS will take you through a standardized interview process and vet the information received by two case workers (the intake worker and their supervisor) to determine if an investigation is needed. • Th ere are multiple ways it is possible for your church to serve the child and family during the CPS investigation process and afterward.

Contributors include Brad Hambrick, Rachael Denhollander, Mika Edmondson, Samantha Kilpatrick, Diane Langberg, Chris Moles, Andrea Munford, Karla Siu, Darby Strickland, and Leslie Vernick.

Th is article is an excerpt taken from Lesson 7 of the Becoming a Church that Cares Well for the Abused curriculum (http://churchcares.com). Th is free, 12-lesson video curriculum and accompanying handbook is available at churchcares.com and was created to help churches be equipped to respond well in the initial stages of learning about instances of sexual, physical, or emotional abuse.

First Steps When a Victim Discloses Abuse

Key Responses to Care Well for the Abused

Brad Hambrick, et al.

The fi rst and most important thing you need to realize when someone discloses the experience of sexual abuse is that they are demonstrating an immense amount of courage.

Caring for Survivors

Maybe one of the least understood aspects of sexual abuse is the victim’s loss of voice. Abuse is usually followed by demands not to tell anyone and threats of what will happen if the victim does talk. Th en, once a victim is alone, their own sense of shame makes them not want to tell anyone. Finally, there are the fears of what they will have to endure if they tell someone and are believed, not to mention the fears of telling someone and not being believed.

By the time victims get to the point of talking to you as a ministry leader about their experience of sexual abuse, they are in the midst of navigating all of these fears. Th at is courage!

By the end of the initial conversation with a victim, you should help them make decisions about what legal steps need to be taken and what self-care steps are wise. But if we fi xate on the end of the conversation, we will turn delicate conversations of pastoral care into cold conversations of legal obligation.

If a victim feels uncared for or unbelieved, they recoil and begin to think they’ve made a mistake in talking. Th eir statements begin to contradict one another and a moment of potential healing only reinforces pain. But this time, pain is multiplied by the fact that even their church (representing God) failed them.

You may be thinking, “Th is feels complicated and messy. It feels like more than