Issue Brief

County human service departments respond to 40,000 reports of possible child abuse or neglect throughout Colorado each year. Roughly 100 times a day, child protection workers serve as first responders to these reports, typically by entering families’ homes at their own risk. As the spread of COVID-19 overwhelmed Colorado, the reports of abuse or neglect […]

Unlike most state agencies in Colorado, the Division of Youth Services (DYS) – which is overseen by the Colorado Department of Human Services – develops its polices internally among agency leadership with no opportunity for outside entities to participate or observe. This raised questions about whether the DYS operates in compliance with state laws that