This story is being co-published with The Imprint, a national nonprofit news outlet covering child welfare and youth justice.
Last week, Minnesota’s state Supreme Court announced the launch of its first Council for Child Protection and Maltreatment Prevention. The 26-member group of experts will spend the next year recommending policies and laws to improve outcomes for kids and families in the child welfare system and those at risk of abuse and neglect.
Supreme Court Justice Anne McKeig will chair the council. She vows that its final report by January 2026 will not “end up gathering dust on a shelf or to be forgotten after a brief period of attention.”
“If we’re going to take ownership of the issues plaguing the state, we need to look at it from a broader view — so that families don’t fall down the mine shaft of child welfare,” the 57-year-old justice said in a lengthy interview with The Imprint on Wednesday.
Representative Dave Pinto, DFL-St. Paul, co-author of the 2024 legislation that created the new council, said addressing disproportionality rates in the foster care system will be a major focus for members, a goal Justice McKeig agreed with.