Utah News Dispatch
Misled by reports on children who died in state custody, lawmakers want more information
The Capitol in Salt Lake City is pictured on the first day of the legislative session, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
When a child in state custody dies, few people get to learn the details of what happened and what Utah officials may have learned from the tragedy.
A small circle of state lawmakers is part of the group, and in the last three years, they received data suggesting the Division of Child and Family Services followed its own policies in each and every case. But that isn’t true, according to a legislative audit released last week.
Now lawmakers are reevaluating how the information comes to them and taking steps to improve the process. A new proposal would limit how much information can be blacked out in fatality reviews given to the Child Welfare Legislative Oversight Panel.
The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Cheryl Acton, said the goal is to better understand anything that may have gone wrong or could have been prevented.
“We need to make sure no one falls through the cracks, and if they do, we need to fill those cracks,” said Acton, R-West Jordan. Under her proposal, HB434, only a child’s last name and address would be redacted.
The reviews are conducted in cases of Utahns receiving child welfare services within a year of their deaths.
The audit ordered by lawmakers found the reports contained more redactions than necessary, making them hard to review. Separately, from 2023 to 2025, auditors found the reviews stated the division followed its policy even when it failed to. They criticized “troubling deficiencies that starve the oversight process.”
When auditors asked about the incorrect information, leaders of the division and the Department of Health and Human Services’ internal review agency explained that the process of reporting policy violations previously gave harsh critique to individual caseworkers, instead of broader lessons. But now it gives neither, the report states, resulting in a process “starved of the very information it was created to produce.”
It’s important for lawmakers to clearly understand the information in fatality reviews, said Carrie Bambrough, director of the Division of Continuous Quality and Improvement within DHHS. She called the bill an “appropriate balance” in following privacy laws and allowing for accountability.
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Bambrough told Utah News Dispatch Wednesday that the department is evaluating its policies and agrees with auditors’ recommendations that it should work to identify both systemic issues and those specific to a particular case. She said doing so will help lawmakers, along with the department’s own top officials, to know all that they should.
“We are committed and really want this process to be meaningful and what it should be, so that they have the information that they need to make those decisions,” Bambrough said.
Senate Minority Leader Luz Escamilla told reporters this week she and her colleagues will review how the Department of Health and Human Services and the Division of Child and Family Services share information with the panel.
Escamilla, D-Salt Lake City, recalled telling the agencies after an audit presentation last week, “‘You know, this kind of hurts when you’re trying to build a relationship of working closely with the executive branch.’ And I think they heard that pretty clear.”
A member of the Child Welfare Oversight Panel, she is one of five lawmakers who scrutinize the fatality reviews. She noted as lawmakers consider changes to the process, they’ll need to focus on protecting privacy.
A public hearing for the bill focused on redactions has not yet been scheduled.
