The Child Protection Program provides for the care, safety, and protection of abused or neglected children through five major services - the Florida Abuse Hotline, protective investigations, in-home services, out-of-home services, and adoptions. During Fiscal Year 1999-2000, 235,823 calls were made to the Florida Abuse Hotline, of which 164,464 were serious enough to be investigated. During the same time period, the program identified 76,494 victims of abuse and neglect, provided protective supervision to 27,249 families, provided out-of-home services to 31,329 children, and placed 931 children in adoptive homes.

Our review of the program determined that

• the program provides beneficial services to clients and should be continued;
• the department is the appropriate state agency to be responsible for child protection services;
• the program has not met its legislative goals for keeping children safe from abuse and neglect and for finding children permanent homes and must take additional steps to implement more effective child protection strategies; and
• the department must address the challenges it faces in transitioning foster care and related services to community-based care lead agencies.