The Hawaiʻi agency responsible for protecting children is doing a worse job of that than a decade ago in all but two of 18 categories tracked in reports to the federal government.

Compared to just two years ago, in fact, the performance of Child Welfare Services has deteriorated in 20 of 21 measurements, according to the agency’s most recent report.

Among the categories where performance slid in those two years were consistent caseworker visits with children, timely achievement of permanent placements, gauging risks to children and assessing the needs of parents.

In one example, a review of 32 cases found that in 20 of them CWS needed to improve its efforts to prevent children from being removed from their biological parents, and to keep them safely in their homes. 

“In these cases, irregular caseworker visits with families, delays in providing or arranging services, and a lack of thorough assessments were factors,” the state report stated.

Only 38% of the cases were rated as a “strength,” a 44 percentage point drop from two years earlier and a 50 percentage point decline from 10 years earlier.

A Civil Beat analysis of that decade of data from the state’s self-reviews shows an overarching pattern – steep drops in performance leading into and through the pandemic, followed by encouraging across-the-board improvements before another drop-off in the past two years.

The trend generally tracks the state’s struggle to fill vacant positions among caseworkers and other child welfare workers.

CWS says the reviews, based on a sample of a small percentage of cases, do not reflect the overall health of the child welfare system. But the declines have occurred even as the state faces scrutiny for deaths of children from abuse and neglect. 

In at least five recent cases, children died in homes where they were placed by the state and Family Court and at some point subject to supervision by CWS caseworkers. In two of these, CWS either admits or relatives allege there had been earlier reports of maltreatment. 

In two more cases, children died while living with their biological parents after those parents had come to the attention of CWS for alleged abuse or neglect.

The state is a defendant in several lawsuits alleging that it failed to protect vulnerable children, and has already paid out sizable sums for its past actions or inaction, including those related to a home operated for two decades by a man CWS touted as a model foster dad.

Numbers Don’t Reflect Overall Performance, State Says

In 2026, the state will release the results of a federal review of its performance. The federal reviews, which began in 2004, are done every six or seven years to assure that states are protecting children, finding them permanent homes and getting the services they need to thrive.

In the years between federal reviews, Hawaiʻi uses the same tool to do its own assessment of how they are progressing based on a random sample of cases, each one of which is rated as either a strength or in need of improvement.

In a written response to questions, CWS said that the purpose of the reports — the most recent of which was released in November — is not to paint an accurate picture of how well the child welfare system is functioning but to pinpoint the root causes of problems flagged through other methods. 

The measurements are based on a review of less than 1% of statewide cases and “cannot be considered statistically significant,” according to the agency. 

As for why the Hawaiʻi’s performance slid, CWS said the federal government, starting in the 2022-23 fiscal year, requires more evidence to rate the handling of a particular case as a “strength.”

In addition, the state is now required to evaluate issues in the child welfare system outside its direct purview. This could include services administered by the Departments of Health and Education or the Family Court system.

A shortage of dentists statewide and waitlists for services provided by CWS contractors could also affect the measurements, CWS said in its response.

The agency also said it has met or exceeded national performance in other recent measurements looking at the overall rate of maltreatment in foster care, recurrence of maltreatment and finding children permanent placements.

Persistent Problems, Same Approaches

Each year, the state lays out its plans to improve, and in some cases those plans have changed little despite the declines. 

In the category of caseworker visits with children, for instance, CWS described its remediation plans in almost the exact same language for four years in a row. Performance went downhill in the last two.

These visits are considered crucial as a way to establish trust between caseworkers and children and identify potential maltreatment.

But keeping up with monthly visits has long been a struggle for CWS. A man who lived in a foster home in the late 1990s, the subject of a Civil Beat series this year, said his only contact with a social worker was when she took him on visits with his siblings in the first month he was in care. 

“I felt abandoned by my social worker,” he said. 

Civil Beat Investigation: When No One Is Watching

Indeed, in its first review of the state’s child welfare system in 2003, federal analysts found that in 68% percent of cases they reviewed, the contact between social workers and children fell short of what was needed to ensure their safety. 

To address this persistent problem, CWS said in its report for the 2021 state fiscal year that it had created a tracker to monitor how often caseworkers visit children.

“Staff were initially slow to use the tracker regularly, but this improved with the implementation of structured monthly supervision,” according to that report.

In its most recent report, CWS offers the exact same description of its efforts: “Staff have been slow to use the tracker regularly, but this is improving with the implementation of structured monthly supervision.”

In its response to Civil Beat’s questions, CWS said it sometimes repeats the same plans because they can take several years “to be fully implemented and take root.”

The reports also track the state’s continuing struggles to fill child welfare vacancies, often cited as an impediment to better performance.

Vacant positions declined to a low of about one in seven in 2021, then shot up over the next few years to a new high of almost one in three in 2023, followed by a slight decline in 2024 and 2025.

The state’s performance in the categories tracked in the reviews improved in 2021 and 2022, coming off the low year for vacancies, then plummeted as the number of open positions soared.

The chairs of the two legislative committees that oversee CWS — Sen. Joy San Buenaventura and Rep. Lisa Marten — did not respond to requests for comment.

Civil Beat’s investigation into past foster child deaths and near-deaths is funded in part by the Fund for Investigative Journalism.