NYC puts social justice over child safety with deadly results: ACS caseworker

In October, New York City was horrified when 4-year-old Jahmeik Modlin died hours after being found malnourished and suffering from hypothermia, with reported burns on his skin, in his family’s Harlem apartment.

It was just the latest in a much-too-long line of kids who died despite their guardians having been investigated by the Administration for Children’s Services.

Here, an anonymous child protective specialist at ACS tells policing and public-safety expert Hannah E. Meyers how the organization’s CARES program puts kids at risk in the name of promoting social justice by fighting racial disparity:

I joined New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services as a child protective specialist to protect vulnerable children. Many children require such protection, and my caseload at any given time often exceeds 10 cases involving over 20 children.

These cases range from neglect to severe abuse. I’ve seen horrors — like an infant blinded by shaken baby syndrome, with irreparable brain damage. 

In October, when 4-year-old Jahmeik Modlin became the sixth child in the city to die of malnutrition within three months, I, sadly, was not surprised. 

Despite this grim reality, ACS and city leadership have deprioritized investigations into child welfare, acting out of a false sense of compassion and social justice.

Likely because minority families are disproportionately the subject of investigations, the ACS Commissioner Jess Dannhauser has vowed to reduce them — instead channeling 70% of cases into a family-led, non-investigative track called Collaborative Assessment, Response, Engagement & Support.

Dire consequences

The problem? CARES is meant for “low safety and low risk” cases, but determining risk without an investigation is guesswork. Under current guidelines, even cases involving drug addiction or abuse qualify for CARES.

Before CARES, trained professionals investigated all reports of suspected child abuse or mistreatment. 

Today, a desk worker in the applications department decides whether a case is “low risk” based solely on written reports. 

Those cases are then funneled to family-assessment response units, where specialists like me — trained as investigators, not social workers — are expected to partner with the adult suspected of abuse or neglect. 

My role is limited to delivering referrals and resources, with no mandate to enforce their use. Families often disregard them, and I lack the training to provide meaningful support.

The result? Families are set up to fail, and children are left in danger. Drug-addicted parents, for instance, cannot coherently “lead” a welfare case. Yet CARES expects mothers — often annoyed at “catching a case” — to lead the process, even when they’re the alleged abusers. This approach fails both children and families.

The consequences are dire. 

In 2015, cases involving children under 7 years old with drug-addicted caretakers required investigation. Today, these cases qualify for CARES. 

When I raised concerns, I was told active drug use isn’t enough; there must be evidence of harm to the child.

But without investigation, how can harm be properly assessed?

Systemwide failure

Take the case of De’Neil Timberlake, a 5-year-old who died on July 14. His father, a methadone user with a long ACS history, according to the NYPD, brought him to the hospital with a foaming mouth. 

Whether this was a CARES case is unclear, but it highlights the dangers of leaving children with drug-addicted parents.

ACS has traded child safety for the pursuit of racial equity, embracing abstract ideals over facts and logic. This intellectualized squeamishness allows vulnerable children to remain in homes plagued by untreated mental illness or addiction. 

Even the courts have grown squeamish. 

Last year, city Family Court Judge Erik Pitchal returned baby Ella Vitalis to her violent parents despite overwhelming evidence of abuse, including broken ankles, a fractured skull and bite marks. Three weeks later, Ella died from a brain bleed. A preliminary cause of death was listed as homicide by the medical examiner, according to a child fatality report. 

This isn’t an isolated failure; it’s a systemic movement toward ineffectiveness. Advocates of CARES praise its ability to foster “corrective understanding,” but many families never improve. 

Instead, they cycle through ACS repeatedly.

Again and again

Tools like “mood meters,” a chart used to identify emotions through emojis, and “worry worms,” a knitted or rubber toy meant to encourage kids to talk about their fears, fail to address deep-rooted issues. Those who report abuse often plead for investigations when told their cases will be assigned to CARES — and for good reason.

The high rate of recidivism proves their fears are valid. On Aug. 14, 10-year-old Brian Santiago was found dead, starved to death beside his mother, who had fatally overdosed.

Brian, a medically fragile special-needs child, had been repeatedly investigated by ACS. He was once removed from his mother’s care, only to be returned — despite complaints of neglect, drug use and “failure to thrive.” In the end, he died of dehydration and starvation, abandoned by the system meant to protect him.

This “hope and prayer” approach — hoping abusive parents will suddenly change — is suited for church, not child-welfare investigations.

CARES denies investigations and replaces fact-based analysis with ineffective, unsustainable interventions. It creates a dangerous lack of urgency and thoroughness, leaving children to suffer preventable tragedies.

Contrast CARES with Operation We Will Find You, a 10-week initiative by the US Marshals Service. Between May and June this year, they rescued 200 missing children, including runaways and abductees. This demonstrates that child-welfare efforts can produce tangible, positive outcomes. ACS should follow their example.

Our most vulnerable

ACS says that it receives approximately 1,000 reports of potential maltreatment weekly, and it claims that, between January and October this year, only 22% of cases were assigned to CARES.

The agency also says that all child-protection specialists, including those who administer CARES “receive the same intense training.” ACS further claims that a “white family is just as likely to be tracked to CARES as a non-white family” and that all decisions are based on the nature of the case and not race or ethnicity.

For the sake of our most vulnerable, ACS must abandon its squeamishness and return to evidence-based child protection. Social experiments like CARES fail to ensure safety. Jahmeik, Ella, Brian and De’Neil would likely be alive today had they been removed from their dangerous homes and not returned. 

Our children deserve better.