CUYAHOGA COUNTY, OH – The Cuyahoga County Division of Children and Family Services (DCFS) is looking for a local partner to lead the creation and management of a collaborative Child Protection Team (CPT) to help prevent child abuse and neglect and catch cases that could normally slip through cracks between different systems. Today the County released a Request for Proposals (RFP) for the project.

The CPT would bring together local hospitals, social services, law enforcement, prosecutors, and the Child Advocacy Center, along with DCFS in a collaborative approach to facilitate inter-agency cooperation, real-time information exchange, and multidisciplinary case evaluation and management that improves child wellbeing and safety.

“Partnership is essential in child welfare,” said County Executive Armond Budish. “We in Cuyahoga County, already have the nation’s top hospitals and medical professionals dedicated to family health and safety. Our social workers and child protection specialists welcome this innovative approach to put more eyes on children so that, together, we can identify risk and connect families with help.”

Earlier this year the DCFS Advisory Board, established by Executive Budish, recommended establishing a Cuyahoga County medical CPT with early warning mechanisms for child abuse detection and identification, improved referral, protection, and follow-up of cases. This would go along with and support the multi-disciplinary team (MDT) already working with the Canopy Child Advocacy Center. County Executive Armond Budish and DCFS leadership agreed with the recommendation and committed to allocating resources to get it established.

“It takes everyone working together to keep the children of our community safe from abuse and neglect,” said Cynthia Weiskittel, Director of DCFS. “We are excited to expand our collaboration with local hospitals, medical professionals and other service agencies, and we are committed to strengthening systems to protect vulnerable children through the Child Protection Team.”

Proposals are due by Friday, October 29, 2021 at 11:00 a.m. Anyone interested can call 216-443-7200 and refer to RFP RQ7603.