New Minnesota Supreme Court council begins work to prevent child abuse

A new Minnesota Supreme Court council on Child Protection and Maltreatment Prevention has begun its work. State lawmakers voted to form the group after a Minnesota Star Tribune investigation found hundreds of children were abused after the state’s child protection system returned them to their parents. Fifteen died in the last decade.

Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Anne McKeig chairs the group and spoke with MPR News host Tom Crann ahead of their next meeting Wednesday.

The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity. Click on the audio player above to hear the interview.

As chair, what are you going to set as top priorities for the council?

The main thing for me is that all of the decisions or recommendations that we make are putting children at the center of those decisions — and when I mean the center, ensuring that kids are safe, cared for and that their best interests are put above our interests as adults because sometimes that doesn’t happen.

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And trying to be, I think, more “think outside the box” rather than continuing to do things the way that we have done because we know that it's not working.

Is there something in your background, experience, your work as a child welfare advocate, or as a jurist that makes this an especially good fit?

You know, a couple of things I would say. Certainly, growing up, my mom was the executive director for the Indian education program in my high school. During that time, I saw my mom as sort of a community leader and caring about all kids, and not just me and my four brothers.

She was, you know, the shoulder people cried on. She was the ride home. She was the person who made sure they had lunch.

And so, growing up and seeing that, then I was placed in the child protection division when I started my work under Mike Freeman in the county attorney's office in Hennepin County, I felt like I was where I was supposed to be because I’m extremely passionate about kids and I don't think society always does right by them.

I continued that sort of work at the various stages of my career. What’s great about where I am now is that I can do more policy work and, of course, I can do it from a statewide view rather than just a local or a county view.

It’s been found that Minnesota has one of the worst rates of repeat child maltreatment in the nation. What conversations will the council be having about that?

A couple of things. One is, I think we have to get our data right and then also looking for why are we having the re-entry rates that we are having and have had in the past. And what can we do to actually change that.

So, looking at the underlying reasons rather than just the data and looking at what has been successful perhaps in other jurisdictions across the country. And I’m not so sure that we’ve been able to really get to the prevention services that we have wanted to in a meaningful way.

How do you hope the work of your council might actually change this and might actually help lawmakers?

Well, I think, you know, everybody comes to this work with the best of intentions, but it is really complicated. I think unless you’ve been doing the work for quite a while, it’s really hard to navigate.

So, for me, this is an opportunity for the three branches of government to work together and to collaborate about how we can best address the needs of children in the state of Minnesota.

What will you do to ensure that the recommendations and findings that are issued actually will have some lasting impact?

One of the reasons I wanted to take this on is, you know, many years ago, we had the children’s justice initiative that began in this state.

And how I see this working is that once the report — which is going to be a high level blueprint, it’s not going to get into the weeds or into the details — will then go from the actual report to the children’s justice initiative, and it would be the job of the children’s justice initiative to move those ideas forward with then, I think, much more involvement from the counties on the local level.

Anne K. McKeig, associate justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, is the chair of the new council.