Title: Overview of the Department of Children and Families | Mass.gov
Headings: Overview of the Department of Children and Families
Overview of the Department of Children and Families
Overview
Critical Incidents
DCF’s FamilyNet System
Medicaid Management Information System
Referrals to District Attorneys
Fatality Review Reporting Process
OCA

Content: An injury which involves a substantial risk of death, extreme physical pain, protracted and obvious disfigurement or protracted loss or impairment of the function of a bodily member, organ or mental faculty or emotional distress. [ Emphasis added.] This change was made in order to be more inclusive of children’s mental health. If DCF determines that “in the best interests of the child, based upon safety, well-being and permanency of the child and the child’s individual needs” the child needs to be placed outside his/her home, the child is placed in one of the following types of DCF-contracted or DCF-operated setting: foster care, which includes kinship families, child-specific families, family foster care homes where a child has previously been placed, and/or family foster care
shelter/short-term programs or group care (“congregate care”), which include short-term placements for emergency situations or assessment, called Stabilization and Rapid Reintegration Programs; group homes for children who need specialty care; and long-term residential placements for children who need a higher safety level than a foster or group home can provide
community residential care facilities, which are a form of substitute care that provides planned, temporary care in a licensed or approved residential facility 24 hours a day
The graphs below represent the number of children under 18 years old in DCF out-of-home settings each month of the audit period. When an incident occurs at one of these out-of-home locations, DCF’s Special Investigation Unit is responsible for reviewing the details of the incident and determining whether to screen it in (if it meets DCF’s criteria for suspected neglect or abuse) or out (if it does not meet these criteria). Specifically, when an incident meets DCF’s internal definition of a critical incident, 1 the DCF area director in the area where it occurred completes an internal Critical Incident Form and forwards the form to the regional and/or central office for further review and potential OCA notification. The central office reviews all the area’s Critical Incident Forms, makes a final determination of whether each incident meets the statutory definition of a critical incident and should be screened in, and notifies OCA if an incident does meet that definition.