Important Dates

Minnesota’s Final Report was issued on November 18, 2025. Minnesota was found to be in substantial conformity with 1 of the 7 outcomes (Well-Being Outcome 2: Children receive appropriate services to meet their educational needs) and 3 of the 7 systemic factors (Statewide Information System, Quality Assurance System, and Agency Responsiveness to the Community). Overall, the Final Report highlighted that while Minnesota has strong foundational systems and areas of high performance, targeted, measurable improvement is needed to achieve national standards and ensure consistent outcomes statewide.

Minnesota launched its Round 4 Child and Family Services Review (CFSR) Program Improvement Plan (PIP) development with a statewide kickoff event on January 6, 2026, which included a joint presentation by the Children’s Bureau (CB) and Minnesota’s Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) Section. The event’s purpose was to share key information, establish expectations, and begin a collaborative planning process. The kickoff focused on reviewing Round 4 performance information across safety, permanency, and well-being outcomes and highlighting areas of strength and areas needing improvement based on federal data indicators, case review findings, and statewide assessment results.

The CQI Section invited a wide range of partners across the state for participation in the kickoff event held on 1/6/26, including:  

• Tribal and County partners and collaborators: MACSSA, Children’s Mental Health (CMH), Developmental Disabilities (DD), Law Enforcement, Truancy, Juvenile Justice (JJ)
• Court/Legal Partners: Judicial Officers, Court Administration Staff, Children’s Justice Initiative (CJI) Members, Law Clerks, County Attorneys, Guardians ad Litem, and Tribal Representatives
• Individuals with lived experience: Children/Youth, Biological Parents, Foster Parents, Adoptive Parents, Caregivers, Relatives

There were 277 attendees for the statewide kickoff event. The kickoff event provided next steps that included continued analysis of performance and systemic influences, future opportunities for partner and community engagement, and alignment of PIP development with Minnesota’s existing values and strategic goals.

On November 13, 2025, an Executive Order (No. 4395) titled “Fostering the Future” was signed, with the stated goal of improving child welfare outcomes throughout the county. This EO tasked the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) to “update applicable regulations, policies, and practices to improve the collection, publication, utility, and transparency of State-level child welfare data, including by improving collection of data and information indicative of child well-being and safety, eliminating duplicative or unnecessary high-cost and low-value reporting requirements, and expanding and expediting child welfare data publication.”

Based on this guidance, the ACF distributed a Technical Bulletin (TB 14) on December 19, 2025, which offers states the opportunity to participate in a pilot program related to the CFSR and PIP processes. The stated purpose was, “When viewed alongside other available data, the CFSR results appear inconsistent with what many believe to be real-world improvements in child welfare practice. This disconnect raises important questions about the CFSR’s ability to accurately capture system performance and to produce meaningful and well-measured changes. If the goal is sustainable performance improvement, then the CFSRs may not be effectively assessing state child welfare agency performance in ways that are truly indicative of promoting child safety, permanency, and well-being.” ACF launched a new initiative titled “A Home for Every Child”, within which is the goal of ensuring every child has access to a safe, stable, and loving home. In support of this initiative and to strengthen the CFSR process, ACF created a pilot opportunity for states in various stages of CFSR Round 4 to center their program improvement efforts around the A Home for Every Child goal, excusing them from the PIP development and measurement process of the Traditional PIP.