Kentucky Cracks the Door on Child Abuse Secrecy

Several recent deaths-by-abuse of children under state supervision have finally forced Kentucky to open its secret records on child abuse deaths.

But those records are the tip of the secrecy iceberg. The bigger issue is the secrecy of all child protection cases that allows mishandling by both social workers and judges to go unnoticed.

The Herald:

After multiple lawsuits and key lawmakers' repeated calls for more transparency, Gov. Steve Beshear announced Tuesday that he will release state records of children who have been killed or nearly killed as a result of abuse or neglect.

The Lexington Herald-Leader and the Louisville Courier-Journal had sued the state over the records of children who died while under supervision of the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, which oversees child protection.

Franklin Circuit Court Judge Phillip Shepherd has ruled twice that the two newspapers were entitled to the records. State law says that child-protection records are private with one clear exemption: the deaths or near-deaths of children as a result of abuse or neglect.

In addition to releasing the records, Beshear said he would hold legislative hearings and conduct an independent review. An independent panel on child deaths will include social workers and pediatricians. Beshear said he will propose legislation on mandatory release of information on child fatalities in Kentucky.

In Shepherd's Nov. 3 ruling saying that the cabinet had to turn over the records, he blasted the cabinet, saying, "The court must conclude that the cabinet is so immersed in the culture of secrecy regarding these issues that it is institutionally incapable of recognizing and implementing the clear requirements of the law."

Beshear's announcement came a day before a hearing about whether the cabinet would turn over the records as the Nov. 3 ruling ordered. The two newspapers argued in court documents that the cabinet might have misclassified some of the deaths so it would not have to turn over records. The media companies had asked that Shepherd make the cabinet turn over the records by Dec. 2 and requested that the state list all fatality and near-fatality cases in which it conducted an internal review — which would show whether the cabinet made mistakes in handling of an abuse case.

Meanwhile, thousands of Kentucky children move through the protection/family-court/foster-care system hidden from public scrutiny. Several states have opened family court proceedings to the press. The states require only the redaction of identifying information, thus protecting the children while allowing the public to know how courts and social workers handle abuse and neglect cases.

Such transparency protects social workers as well as children - under secrecy, social workers cannot defend or explain their decisions, or criticize the decisions of police and the courts.

Without that kind of transparency, there is no accountability.