The state agency tasked with investigating complaints against Colorado’s child welfare system has taken a step toward autonomy, state officials said Thursday.
The relationship between the Office of Colorado’s Child Protection Ombudsman and the Colorado Department of Human Services has been tenuous since the ombudsman’s office opened in 2011.
The debate centers on whether the office can properly investigate complaints about how caseworkers handle abuse and neglect cases without independence from the child welfare department.
Legislation introduced Wednesday calls for creation of a work group to study whether to make the ombudsman office independent.
State Sen. Linda Newell, D-Littleton, who helped draft the 2010 legislation that created the office, is sponsoring the proposal.
“We’re at the next step; we just need to figure out what that is,” Newell said.
Reggie Bicha, executive director of the Human Services department, supports the proposal and said the work group will help further improve systems that protect children.
In past years, the ombudsman office has claimed the department lacked transparency and was slow to provide information. In 2013, the ombudsman released a report listing 97 inaccuracies in a Human Service’s report that reviewed how caseworkers handled the case of a 2-year-old boy before his mother killed him.