“I’m really, really excited about the direction that we’re going in.”
Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Director Elizabeth Hertel recently met with the Allegan County office to find out how the new Children’s Services Administration, or CSA teaming model, was working out.
“One of the things that they pointed out is that when an allegation is being investigated by an investigator, having the team around that investigator helps them to be able to bring in services to the families sooner than what we’ve been able to do traditionally.”
Launched in May, the new CSA teaming model provides a core team assigned to a family the moment they enter the child welfare system. This team includes investigators, case managers, family resource specialists and others, replacing the previous model of a single case worker handling all aspects of serving a family.
Hertel says while the new model has proven successful overall, there have been challenges.
“Transitioning over to this model, the first few months are incredibly demanding for those case managers, so working on how we can try to support them to do this.”
A statewide rollout of the new model is planned for mid-2026.
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