Child Protection & Welfare Services

Child Protection Intake: 507-328-6130
After-Hours Crisis phone: 507-535-5625

Making a report

Anyone can make a report concerning the safety of a child. This can be done by phone, mail, or in person.

1. Gather your information

The more information we have the better we can help you. For example:

  • Child's name and/or description
  • What you think happened, or why you are worried
  • Name of the person who takes care of the child (caregiver)
  • The phone number of the caregiver
  • The address where the child lives

2. To make a referral or report, Olmsted County Child & Family Services Intake Staff are available Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and can be reached using the following:

  • Call us at 507-328-6130. Tell the staff person who answers the phone that you are worried about a child's welfare and that you need to know where to report it.
  • Come to our office:
    2117 Campus Drive SE
    Suite 200
    Rochester, MN 55904
    Monday-Friday 8 a.m. - 5 p.m.
    Tell staff at the front desk you need to speak with someone in Child Protection Intake.
  • To make a referral or report during evenings, weekends, and holidays, please reach out to After Hours Child & Family Services Intake Staff by calling 507-535-5625.

  • Email us at cpintake@olmstedcounty.gov, subject Line: Concern for Child

    • Note that e-mailed information cannot be made totally secure from unauthorized persons who use the internet. As a result, Olmsted County cannot ensure the confidentiality of any information submitted in this manner as required by Minnesota law and Olmsted County waives all liability for unauthorized use or distribution of any information submitted in this manner.

3. What to expect

In addition to the police, many other agencies work together to investigate a report about a child’s safety. The safety of the child is the most important. This means that many questions will be asked and then maybe, asked again in a different way.

What you will be asked:

  • Your name, phone number and how you know the child (your relationship to the family of the child).
  • Where is the child right now?
  • Do you think the child is in immediate danger?

If the child is not in immediate danger:

  • Describe any injuries, or the condition of the child now.
  • What do you think happened to the child?
    • Where do you think this happened?
    • When do you think this happened?

If this happened at a school, daycare, or other business:

  • The name and address of this school, or business.
  • Can you tell us about any action the school or business took when this happened?

And finally…

  • The names and address of the child, parents, or caregivers
  • The names of any other witnesses
  • Any other information you have about the child, family, or caregivers that might be helpful

Please submit any reports involving abuse or maltreatment of a child only to child protection intake workers in the community services department by phone, by mail, or orally in person. Your cooperation with this request is appreciated.

Mandated Reporter information

Target Population: Children aged 0 to 18 years and their families.

Crisis Response: Is available 24 hours a day to respond to reports of child abuse and child welfare concerns. Staff assist with questions and referrals to appropriate programs and services within Community Services and the Olmsted County service community.

By providing prevention and early intervention services, Intake assists individuals and families with issues before they escalate into dangerous situations, to possibly prevent individuals from becoming more deeply involved with the system.

Child Abuse: Any physical or mental injury or threatened injury inflicted by a person responsible for the child's care on a child other than by accidental means; or physical injury that cannot reasonably be explained by the child's history of injuries. (MN Statute: 626.556 Subd. 2d)

Child Neglect: Failure by a person responsible for a child's care to supply a child necessary food, clothing, shelter, or medical care when reasonably able to do so; or failure to protect a child from actions or conditions which imminently and seriously endanger the child's physical or mental health when reasonable able to do so; or failure to take steps to ensure that a child is educated in accordance with state law. Neglect also includes prenatal exposure to a controlled substance. (MN Statue 626.556, Subd. 2c)

Note that a mandated reporter can't be anonymous.

When to report abuse or neglect

Anyone who has reason to believe a child has been maltreated can report maltreatment.

Immediate danger - If you know or suspect that a child is in immediate danger (such as recent sexual assault or serious physical assault) or the child is abandoned:

  • Contact your local law enforcement agency 911 right away
  • Law enforcement officers can remove a child from a threatening environment to protect the child

No immediate danger – If the child is not in immediate danger, as soon as you have reason to believe a child has been maltreated:

  • If the alleged perpetrator is a parent, guardian, family childcare provider, family foster care provider, or juvenile correctional facility staff person:

  • If the alleged maltreatment was committed by a staff person at a childcare center, residential treatment center (children's mental health), group home for children, minor parent program, shelter for children, chemical dependency treatment program for adolescents, waivered services program for children, crisis respite service program for children, or residential service program for children with developmental disabilities

    • Contact the Minnesota Department of Human Services, Division of Licensing at 651-297-4123

  • If the alleged maltreatment occurred in a home health care setting, hospital, regional treatment center, nursing home, or intermediate care facility for the intellectually disabled

  • If the alleged perpetrator is employed by a public pre-school, elementary school, middle school, secondary school, or charter school and the child is a student in the school

    • Contact the Minnesota Department of Children, Families and Learning at 651-582-8546 or by fax at 651-634-2277

  • If the alleged perpetrator is someone outside the family and not a staff person at a facility. Examples of non-family, non-facility caretakers include club athletics staff and babysitters

    • Contact either the Rochester Police Department of Olmsted County Sheriff's Department

  • If you are unsure whether you should make a report

    • Call Olmsted County Intake Unit 507-328-6130 or after hours 507-535-5625

      . The child protection staff will help you decide if a report should be made based on the information you provide

If you are a mandated reporter, you must file a written report within 72 hours of your oral report, excluding weekends and holidays.

Early intervention

Parent Support and Outreach Program of Olmsted County, (PSOP)

PSOP is a voluntary program offering short term services for parents to access when they need:

  • support with tasks such as connecting to community resources and information
  • assistance in planning how to meet daily obligations
  • parent education and child development
  • decision making and case planning

To make a referral please call Olmsted County Child and Family Services intake at 507-328-6130.

For more information on PSOP visit Minnesota Department of Health Services PSOP website or 

Families seeking short term services

PSOP social workers assist families in connecting to community resources and information, assistance in planning how to meet daily obligations, parent education and child development, decision making and case planning.

Alcohol & drug concerns

PSOP social workers work with parents who are expecting a baby who are also struggling with substance use. This service is typically offered from the time of referral and continued through the time of delivery. Length of service is driven by family. The goal is to plan for a healthy birth as well as create a safety network of family supports to ensure that parent’s and baby’s needs are met.• The social worker can engage with the parents from very early in the pregnancy, even if there are no other children in the home.

Expectant & post-partum parents

PSOP also focuses on working with parents who are expecting a child or have recently delivered a child and are experiencing difficulties in coping, meeting baby’s physical, emotional, and/or basic needs.

Parents with past history of child protection involvement

PSOP joins with parents who want to parent but are worried about previous child protection involvement and influence on future parenting.  The focus of the work is to demonstrate what has changed for the family since last involvement and create a plan of support and safe care for the family.

See below for additional PSOP Information:

  • Hmong - Nyem qhov no mus saib tau PSOP ntawv nthuav qhia
  • русский - Нажмите здесь, чтобы получить доступ к брошюре PSOP
  • Soomaali - Halkan guji si aad uhesho qoraalka yar ee loo yaqaan PSOP
  • Español - Haga clic aquí para acceder al folleto de PSOP
  • Tiếng Việt - Nhấn vào đây để truy cập tài liệu PSOP

C.A.R.E. (Child Adult Relationship Enrichment Program)

C.A.R.E is a voluntary two-year early intervention/prevention program designed to work on improving family stability, parent-child attachment, and safety in homes where a parent has been diagnosed with a severe and persistent mental illness and there is a child/children between the ages of 0-5.

In order to make a referral to either program, please call Olmsted County Child and Family Services intake at 507-328-6130.

Childcare provider complaint

If you suspect a childcare provider of abuse or neglect, please file a complaint.

Family Access Center (FAC)

The Family Access Center offers a safe and secure setting for children to maintain relationships with parents and other significant adults. Trained staff provide supervised parenting times, monitored parenting times and supervised exchanges. They serve families experiencing safety or conflict concerns in need of a setting where they can safely exchange or spend time with their children.

For information call 507-328-6400.

This program is in collaboration with Family Service Rochester.

Parents and Children Excel (PACE)

From its inception, PACE was designed to address disparities and disproportionality that manifests in the form of negative educational outcomes for children of color.

Social workers partner with families to help foster a positive working relationship between the family and school, as well as to support and empower families to provide stability, safety, and well-being for their children, through targeted case management services and mentorship programming.

For information call 507-328-6400.

Impact of PACE program on racial disparities in the child welfare system
By: Mathangi Swaminathan

Minnesota ranks among the worst states in racial disparities among outcomes for children. Between 2016 and 2019, African American children in Olmsted County, Minnesota, were twice as likely as white children to be reported to child protection and multiracial children were seven times as likely as white children to enter out-of-home care.
Racial disparities exist within child protection reports due to education-related challenges as well. Defined as the “failure to educate the child required by law,” educational neglect can be a reason for reporting children to child protection if they fail to maintain at least 95% attendance in accordance with Minnesota state laws. This translates to seven unexcused absences per school year. 60% of educational neglect reports in 2019 were against children of color, despite children of color representing only 35% of the overall student population.


PACE program in Olmsted County was intended to address this.

PACE Program

PACE is a diversionary program for children of color between ages 5 and 12 reported to the child protection system for education-related issues. Deeper-end child protection services include foster care placement and court systems that often traumatize children and their families and put a significant financial strain on county systems. PACE diverts kids of color from the child protection system by offering front-end case management services that wrap around the needs of the family. Services include resources and referrals to meet the family’s basic needs such as housing, medical, social, and emotional needs and those related to the child’s educational well-being. Efforts are made to improve engagement between the child, their family and school.

PACE offers both preventive and corrective case management services, not just for the child referred, but for all children in that family. Implemented with a budget of $174K to serve 31 children in 2010, the program has grown 300% in budget and has served 605 children along with their siblings and families between 2010 and 2019. PACE is managed by six full-time staff along with a program manager.

Graphic map to show how the referral into the PACE program works.

PACE Demographics

Between 2010 and 2019, the median age of a child referred to PACE was 9 and 64% of children were in elementary school. The primary parent’s average age was 35 and this has consistently remained in the 30s since the beginning of the program. 61% of single-race primary parents are African American and 17% of primary parents are Hispanic. Nearly one in two primary parents stated their marital status as “single, never married.” Most families have a history of having been referred to the system before being referred to PACE: 51% were referred between 1 and 7 times and only 22% never received a case management service before a PACE referral.

PACE Evaluation Set-Up

The goal of the PACE program is to ensure academic success of children and prevent entries into the system. PACE was hence evaluated on two outcomes related to entry rates into the system after exit from PACE:

  •  Short-term entry rate, and
  • Long-term entry rate.

These are defined as entry into an assessment or case management stage in any part of the system within one year of exit from PACE and three years of exit from PACE respectively.


A counterfactual group was constructed to compare outcomes of children who received case management services from PACE to those who did not. This counterfactual group consisted of all children who were referred to the PACE program from intake but did not receive case management services. The children from the PACE group were then matched with the counterfactual group based on multiple observable characteristics using the quasi-experimental Propensity Score Matching technique. The main source of data was the Social Services Information System (SSIS) used by all child welfare agencies in Minnesota. The final set of matched data from the PACE and counterfactual groups were used to conduct the evaluation.

Evaluation Results

Children who received case management services from PACE reduced their short-term entry rates by 16% and long-term entry rates by 7%, as compared to those who didn’t, on average, controlling for family size; primary parent’s age, marital status, race and ethnicity; target child’s age and gender; history of interactions with child welfare and child protection systems; nature of referral (educational neglect or preventive); year the family was referred and year the PACE case was closed. While the short-term impact of 16% was statistically significant at the 95% level, the long-term impact was not.

Percentage graph showing the short and long-term entry rates for PACE

 A sensitivity analysis was conducted using nearest neighbor, kernel and mahalanobis propensity score matching techniques. Short term entry rates showed statistically significant results between 13% and 16% whereas long-term entry rates remained statistically insignificant at 7%.

Financial Returns for investing in diversionary programs

Besides the social, emotional, and ethical implications of investing in front-end services rather than deeper-end child protection services, investing in prevention also has fiscal implications.

The average cost of serving one child through Child Protection is between two and three times more expensive than the average cost of serving one child through PACE.

This was derived in three steps:

  • Budget: The annual budget information between 2010-2019 was used for both the programs. For child protection, the budget was available separately for three stages (Assessment, Case Management and Out-of-Home) for each year.
  • Number of children served: Since the staff work with all children in the family who need help, not just the child referred to the system, two different scenarios were constructed to derive a range of costs for both scenarios.
  • Weighted average of the per-child cost of each stage was calculated to derive a program-level average cost.
Dollar graph of showing the cost per child in pace program versus cost per child in child protection

Annual cost avoidance to Olmsted County due to PACE

By diverting children of color to PACE instead of the more expensive child protection system, Olmsted County avoided cost of ~$2 million between 2010 and 2019. This was derived in three steps:

  • Historical trend: For each year between 2010-2019, the proportion of children moving across the three stages of child protection (assessment, case management and out-of-home care) was considered.
  • Estimation of the counterfactual: Had PACE not existed, all children in PACE would have been referred to child protection. Hence, the number of children from PACE who would have moved to each stage of child protection was estimated using the above proportions, for each year.
  • Cost avoidance calculation was done using annual per-child costs of each stage of child protection and the annual PACE budget.

Out-of-home care costs comprise the largest share of total child protection costs at ~40% of the total budget and is the largest contributor to the differential per-child cost between PACE and Child Protection. As the county invests more in prevention services, out-of-home placements should reduce, driving down budgets overall. Considering both scenarios (only children referred to the system and all children in the family), the total cost avoidance to the county was between $1.8Mn - $2.7 Mn during the period 2010 and 2019.

Discussion

Neglect is often a symptom of poverty and neglect often co-occurs with other forms of abuse 8. For example, in a 2010 study of 303 children referred for neglect, only 5% experienced neglect without any other form of maltreatment 9. Working with families preventatively by helping them access resources without further traumatizing them can go a long way in improving outcomes for children and their families. That prevention is better than cure is not a new story. The Family First Prevention Services Act was set up to financially incentivize foster care placement prevention programs. Creating front-end diversionary programs, especially for children of color, can be an effective strategy to promote racial equity and preserve families.

PACE is intentional about staff diversity. 80% of PACE staff including case workers and program manager are staff of color. Research indicates that recruiting and retaining staff of color is associated with better outcomes for children and their families and reduces racial disparities.

PACE is intentional about staff diversity. 80% of PACE staff including case workers and program manager are staff of color. Research indicates that recruiting and retaining staff of color is associated with better outcomes for children and their families and reduces racial disparities.


Implementing such a program comes with its set of challenges. PACE is a voluntary program and families could choose not to work with the program. A separate “assessment” stage was introduced to have an effective program-level understanding of who received case management services and who did not, to measure outcomes accurately. Increasing acceptance rates from families, having uniform entry and exit criteria for case management services, and identifying more preventive referrals as compared to educational-neglect referrals have been ongoing implementation challenges with the team.


While the evaluation indicates that there is a strong statistically significant impact with short-term entry rates, the evidence does not support statistically significant impact long-term. However, the long-term impact could still be practically significant.


For a comparative reference, a study on the entry rate following a 2010 community-based child abuse prevention program in California reported no statistically significant results following 270 days of start of the program 10. While more recent research studying entry rates for front-end prevention programs have not been found, considering the financial returns to the county and the moral, ethical and social implications of investing in front-end prevention programs, the impact of a 7% reduction in long-term entry rates can have positive implications.


Diversionary programs can be an effective strategy to prevent children and families from getting into the child protection system.
When designed keeping children and families of color at the center, they can be effective equity strategies as well.
As with all programs, the challenge is to implement them well.

Safety guidelines

Guidelines for children home alone

As a parent, you often wonder at what age your child can be left unsupervised or babysit other children. The following are some guidelines to consider for leaving your child unattended or allowing them to babysit other children.

  • The age and maturity of your child.
  • The availability of parent, guardian, or caretaker by phone or in person.
  • A child’s awareness of reacting to an emergency may include fire, severe weather, injury to self or others, etc.
  • The health status of your child.
  • Child’s awareness of the dangers of appliance use (stove, iron) or unusual hazards in the house.
  • What is your child’s reaction to being left alone?
  • What is your child’s response to a babysitter?

Age specific guidelines

  • Children 7 years of age and younger should not be left alone for any period.
  • Children 8 to 10 years of age should not be left alone for more than 3 hours.
  • Children 11 to 13 years of age should not be left alone for more than 12 hours. 

Supervision by older children guidelines

  • A child aged 11 to 13 may babysit with the expectation that the parent, guardian, or caretaker will be returning within 12 hours to supervise the children. 
  • Adolescents aged 14 to 15 can babysit for up to 24 hours as long as they can contact their parent, guardian, or another responsible adult. 
  • An adolescent 16 years of age or older providing babysitting for younger children for more than 24 hours must know the parents' whereabouts when they will return and have an adult backup. 
  • Consider enrolling your child in a babysitting clinic. Check your community education booklet or call your child’s school. 

Guidelines for car safety with children

Parents often mistake that it is safe to leave a child in the vehicle alone for just a quick errand or a couple of minutes. Unfortunately, leaving a child alone for just a few short minutes can lead to a tragedy (hyperthermia, hypothermia, kidnapping, etc.) In addition, heat is much more dangerous to children than to adults. When left in a hot vehicle, a child’s body temperature may increase to three to five times faster than adults, which could cause permanent injury or death.

Leaving a child in a vehicle is a citable offense with Law Enforcement, and child protection services may become involved. If a child is locked inside the car, get them out immediately! If a child is hot or appears sick, call 911!

Helpful tips:

  • Teach children never to play in or around vehicles. 
  • Keep car doors locked, even while parked in a garage. 
  • Keep keys out of reach of children. 
  • Watch children closely around cars, particularly when loading and unloading.
  • Check to make sure all children are out of the vehicle when your reach your destination. Do not overlook sleeping children or infants. 
  • Secure children properly in their children's restraints, car seats, or seat belts.
  • The back seat is the safest for all children.
  • Keep children 12 and under in the backseat. 
  • Every child should have a safety restraint.