Michigan’s child welfare system is getting a major overhaul, and MDHHS Director Elizabeth Hertel traveled to Saginaw County to see firsthand how the new team-based approach is working on the ground. The visit highlighted a shift from the traditional individual caseworker model to collaborative teams called “pods” that bring together investigators, caseworkers, supervisors, and support staff all working together to help struggling families rather than operating in silos.
The Children’s Services Administration introduced this “teaming” approach back in March 2025, fundamentally changing how child welfare work gets done in Michigan. Instead of individual caseworkers managing their own caseloads in isolation—making decisions alone, struggling with complex cases without immediate support, and potentially missing resources or solutions that colleagues might recognize—the new model creates teams that tackle cases collectively.
These pods bring together different expertise and perspectives in real time. An investigator who first encounters a family in crisis works alongside caseworkers who’ll provide ongoing support, supervisors who bring experience and oversight, and administrative staff who can quickly connect families with housing assistance, educational resources, or other services that individual caseworkers might not even know exist. It’s basically recognizing that child welfare work is too complex and too important for anyone to handle alone.
Hertel emphasized that the new structure strengthens both employee support and family outcomes by promoting shared responsibility and communication among staff. That dual focus matters because child welfare workers face extraordinarily stressful jobs—dealing with traumatized children, overwhelmed families, impossible caseloads, and the constant fear that missed warning signs could result in child deaths. Burnout and turnover plague the field, leaving agencies perpetually short-staffed with inexperienced workers handling cases beyond their capabilities.
The teaming model addresses worker support directly. Instead of shouldering entire caseloads alone, workers share responsibility with teammates who can cover during vacations, provide second opinions on difficult decisions, and offer emotional support when cases get overwhelming. That collaborative environment hopefully keeps workers in the field longer and functioning more effectively than the traditional model where isolation and burnout drive people out of child welfare work entirely.
For families, the benefits potentially flow from better coordination and more comprehensive support. When multiple professionals collaborate on cases, they’re more likely to identify all the family’s needs—not just the immediate child safety issues but underlying problems like housing instability, parental substance abuse, mental health challenges, or educational barriers. Addressing these root causes rather than just removing children from dangerous situations helps families stay together safely rather than cycling through the system repeatedly.
The rollout happened in phases, starting with a first group of counties in May 2025, followed by additional regions in September. The final phase is underway now, with statewide implementation expected to be completed by July 2026. Phased rollouts make sense for major system changes like this—you test the model in limited areas, identify problems, adjust procedures, train staff properly, and gradually expand rather than flipping the switch statewide and discovering critical flaws only after chaos erupts everywhere.
Saginaw County Director Jennifer Boose reported that the teaming system has improved cooperation, decision-making, and access to community resources. Her assessment that teams better understand family needs while ensuring workers feel supported echoes exactly what the model was designed to accomplish. When frontline staff implementing changes report positive results, that’s more credible than administrative officials declaring success based on abstract metrics.
Community partners have noticed improvements too. Representatives from Orchards Children’s Services in Macomb County noted that communication and case coordination have become more consistent under the new model. Outside organizations working with MDHHS on child welfare cases often struggle with inconsistent contacts, caseworkers who don’t return calls, or confusion about who’s responsible for what. If the teaming approach is actually improving that coordination, it benefits everyone involved in helping vulnerable children and families.
The teaming initiative supports MDHHS’s Keep Kids Safe Action Agenda, a multi-year strategy based on national best practices aimed at strengthening child welfare services across Michigan. The agenda outlines policies focused on prevention, stability, workforce development, and child well-being—basically recognizing that effective child welfare requires more than just investigating abuse and removing endangered children. It requires preventing crises through family support, maintaining stability when children must be removed, developing a skilled workforce capable of handling complex cases, and ultimately ensuring children thrive rather than just survive.
Prevention emphasis represents a philosophical shift from reactive crisis response toward proactive family support. If you can provide housing assistance, substance abuse treatment, or parenting education before families reach crisis points requiring child removal, you prevent trauma for children and families while saving the enormous costs of foster care, court proceedings, and all the services required once government intervenes in families.
Stability focuses on minimizing disruption when children must be removed from dangerous homes. That means placing siblings together when possible, avoiding multiple placement moves that compound trauma, maintaining connections with schools and communities, and working toward reunification or permanent placements quickly rather than leaving children in limbo for years.
Workforce development acknowledges that child welfare quality depends entirely on having skilled, supported workers who stick around long enough to develop expertise. The teaming model directly addresses workforce challenges by creating supportive environments where workers don’t burn out as quickly, where new workers get mentored effectively, and where the job becomes sustainable rather than a brief stop before fleeing to less stressful careers.
Child welfare reform and family support reflect broader community wellbeing priorities. Similar to how ACW-Unionville Fire Department maintains readiness despite leadership challenges through dedication to serving communities, and how organizations support vulnerable populations through various programs, MDHHS’s teaming approach demonstrates systems adapting to serve children and families more effectively.
Child welfare systems nationwide struggle with similar challenges Michigan faces—overwhelming caseloads, worker burnout, fragmented services, and outcomes that too often fail the children they’re supposed to protect. States experiment with various reforms trying to improve results, and Michigan’s teaming approach represents one model that might work better than traditional individual case management.
Organizations like the Child Welfare League of America track best practices in child welfare systems nationally. The Annie E. Casey Foundation supports child welfare reform initiatives and provides data about outcomes and effective interventions.
For Michigan families involved with child protective services, the teaming model might mean more comprehensive support and better communication. Instead of dealing with a single caseworker who might miss important needs or resources, families interact with teams bringing broader expertise and connections. That could translate to faster access to housing assistance, more appropriate substance abuse treatment referrals, better coordination with schools, or simply feeling like the system actually cares about helping rather than just investigating and judging.
For children in foster care or at risk of removal, better teamwork among caseworkers might mean more thoughtful placement decisions, quicker movement toward permanency, less disruption from caseworker turnover, and ultimately better outcomes. Every improvement in how the system functions potentially changes trajectories for vulnerable kids who depend on overwhelmed government agencies to protect them and help their families heal.
The July 2026 completion target for statewide implementation means Michigan is still mid-transition. Some counties are further along than others, some workers have adapted better than others, and inevitable implementation challenges continue being addressed. But the early reports from places like Saginaw County suggest the model is delivering on its promise to improve both worker support and family outcomes.
Hertel’s visit to Saginaw County signals leadership attention to implementation quality rather than just declaring victory and moving on. Seeing how teaming works in practice, hearing from frontline workers and supervisors, and understanding what’s working and what needs adjustment ensures the rollout succeeds rather than becoming another failed reform that looked good on paper but collapsed under real-world pressures.
For Michigan’s most vulnerable children and struggling families, this reform represents hope that the system designed to protect and support them might actually do so more effectively than the traditional model that’s failed too many kids for too long. Time will tell whether teaming delivers sustained improvements or whether initial positive reports fade as the novelty wears off and old problems resurface in new forms.
