PHOENIX — A state senator is calling for changes to Arizona’s child abuse reporting system after the murder of 10-year-old Rebekah Baptiste exposed flaws in how the Arizona Department of Child Safety handles calls.
Senator Carine Werner (R-District 4) said she has toured the DCS call center and said fixing Arizona's child welfare system starts with reforming the hotline that receives reports of child abuse and neglect.
"I think it's one of the top keys to making changes," Werner said.
According to a recent state audit, the hotline takes 159,931 calls a year and just over 5,376 were flagged as criminal conduct.
Rebekah's school, Empower College Prep, said they called the DCS hotline at least a dozen times to report concerns about her.
Natalina Mariscal is an administrator at the school and said they trusted the system.
"We put faith in the system in this department that is created to keep kids safe," Mariscal said.
What happened to Rebekah
Deputies say Rebekah was murdered by her father and his girlfriend in July. Both were seen in police body camera video shortly after Rebekah was found severely injured. She died at the hospital days later.
DCS says it only had five recent investigations into the family before they moved and started living in a yurt in Apache County.
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DCS Director Kathryn Ptak questioned why some of the calls to the hotline in Rebekah's case weren't given a higher priority in a previous interview with ABC15.
"None of these reports were coded [as] criminal conduct. And there are a couple, with hindsight bias, looking at them, I think maybe should have been," Ptak said.
Case history changes
Senator Werner said she wants to see significant changes to how the hotline operates.
“I think it’s very important that we change that process,” she said.
Those changes start when a call first comes into the hotline. Currently, she said, the call taker can’t easily see a child’s entire history. With Rebekah, DCS was unable to consider the many calls coming in about her.
“Updating their software so that when a call comes into the hotline and that employee puts the name of the child in that, they would be able to click on a button and see the entire case history to see every call that has come in,” she explained.
Werner also said she would like to see the law changed so caseworkers can then consider a child’s entire history when making critical decisions about how to prioritize calls coming into the hotline. Under the current statute, she said DCS can only look at the one call coming in when determining how to proceed.
“I think it’s absolutely important that the entire case is taken into account when people are making decisions about a child’s life,” she said.
DCS declined ABC15’s request to tour the call center, citing confidentiality concerns.
The agency said in a statement, “The Department is working collaboratively with Senator Werner and the Governor’s Office to identify and implement changes to benefit Arizona’s children and families and has already taken steps to make the changes identified.”
