Put on hold: Calls to child abuse line go unanswered

An average of over 1,000 callers each month to the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services child abuse hotline in 2022 abandoned their calls while on hold, according to a new audit.

The Louisiana legislative auditor issued a performance report last week that examined the Department of Children and Family Services’ processes for receiving and acting on child abuse and neglect complaints in fiscal years 2018 through 2022.

The audit follows several reports of child abuse and fatalities in 2022 that triggered the Senate Health and Welfare Committee to launch a broader review of the department’s practices, staffing and leadership.

Suspected child abuse in Louisiana can be reported to the Department of Children and Family Services through a statewide hotline and a Mandated Reporter Portal online. Most reports come from mandatory reporters such as school personnel and health professionals, with 57,164 or 29% of the 197,302 reports from 2018 through 2022 received through the portal and the rest through the hotline.

“In addition, emergency reports submitted through the (portal) increased by 47.3%, from 239 reports in fiscal year 2019 to 352 reports in fiscal year 2022, despite the (portal) informing mandatory reporters to report emergency reports through the hotline,” auditors wrote.

The audit shows that the Department of Children and Family Services centralized intake staff fell short of the only performance metric of 66% of calls to the hotline answered live, with that percentage at 60.3% in 2022. Analysis of an average of 6,331 calls per month that year showed the average speed to answer was 6.9 minutes.

Of the 6,331, an average of 3,820 were answered live, 1,111 opted to receive a callback if staff were busy, and 1,183 hung up before staff could answer. Another 218 on average hung up before staff finished the report, auditors wrote.

The Department of Children and Family Services contracts with a software vendor for the hotline that is required to retain call recordings and other data for five years, but auditors found data missing for 15 months of the audit period and incomplete for three.

Other analysis found the agency could work with its vendor to improve data metrics to allow officials to target shift schedules for call center staff better and minimize changeover during peak call times.

“Since 2011, (centralized intake) has used nine overlapping shifts but these shifts are not based on an analysis of call volume,” auditors wrote. “Our analysis of call volume data from calendar year 2022 found that intake may be overstaffed from approximately 5 p.m. until 2 a.m. on any given weekday and … staff could be reallocated to shifts during the peak call period between 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

“In addition, we found that Thursdays and Fridays had the highest daily average speed to answer calls and the most calls abandoned during the calendar year 2022,” the report read

The Department of Children and Family Services Secretary Terri Ricks responded to the audit report with a letter to Louisiana Legislative Auditor Mike Waguespack on Aug. 31 that explained how the department is working to improve. Centralized intake managers use daily hotline data to adjust staff on daily shifts, but DCFS is working with its vendor to improve the data and its retention.

The agency is also working with Franklin Associates to educate mandatory reporters about emergency reports, to ensure they’re received through the hotline instead of the portal, which would help to minimize response times.

In addition, “DCFS will research and implement performance targets and include data analysis as part of the overall (continuous quality improvement) process to identify improvements in the intake process,” Ricks wrote.