Oregon Child Welfare Report Finds Many Case Reviews Still Missing 60-Day Target

The Oregon Department of Human Services (ODHS) first quarter report on work underway to improve the child welfare system indicated that child abuse investigations are being resolved faster, yet nearly four in 10 assessments still took longer than 60 days.

ODHS began issuing quarterly reports in November 2025 as an overview of measures and initiatives in key priority areas, such as safety and supporting families to prevent child maltreatment, improving services for children in foster care, ensuring a well-supported workforce, and enhancing the program’s infrastructure to serve Oregonians better.

Using data for accountability and to support continuous quality improvement, the highlights in the 2026 first-quarter report include progress in safety through faster child abuse assessments.

While timely Child Protective Services (CPS) assessments increased, most suspected child abuse cases are assessed within 60 days- by the end of the first quarter of 2026, only 61% of assessments were completed within this timeframe.

The improvement is a significant improvement on the 39.5% of assessments completed within 60 days at the end of the first quarter of 2025, one year ago, and 50.5% from the last quarter of 2025.

In addition, families do receive information about next steps to create safety plans or a determination about temporarily moving children to a relative or resource family for safety.

The improvement was attributed to oversight at the district level that led to the development of specific strategies to improve timeliness.

More efficient data entry and documentation procedures were also implemented so staff can more quickly record case notes for improved accuracy.

But overdue assessments- as acknowledged by ODHS- can cause additional family stress and increase risks to child safety.