NEW ULM — Brown County Human Services Director Anne Broskoff presented the 2025 child protection annual report to commissioners Tuesday with some good news.

“This is like a report card for the work we do,” said Broskoff.

Brown County caseworkers made monthly, face-to-face to face visits with children in out-of-home care 98.3% of the time last year. The state standard is 95%.

Brown County topped the state standard for percentage of days children spent in family foster care settings with relatives, by a bigger margin at 53.5%. The state standard is 35.7%.

The county exceeded the maltreatment recurrence state standard of 15.2% with 20% in 2025.

“Some of this involves lower level reports that meet the mark of maltreatment happening but don’t meet the criteria to remove children from the home, so some recurrent (repeat) situations happen. We have some chronic families that we deal with from time to time that fall into this category,” said Broskoff. She said her agency feels it’s important for children to have permanency with a ‘forever family.’

Broskoff said a youth that turned 18 while in foster care and while in a child protection case, entered extended foster care.

“If the aged out youth chooses to maintain contact with the agency, we might financially support them in an independent living arrangement or continued placement with the foster home,” she said. “We prioritize placements with relatives over placements with un-related individuals. I think we excel in that.”

Brown County child protection intakes numbered 464 in 2025, 478 in 2024, 545 in 2023, 446 in 2022, 471 in 2021 and 403 in 2020.

Broskoff said in 2025, there were 111 family assessments, 26 family investigations for more severe forms of child abuse or neglect and no facility investigations.

“Zero facility investigations is a good thing. Those are our foster care homes and daycare homes,” she said.

Broskoff said 24 children exited out of home placement in 2025. One child was adopted, three aged out of care, 18 reunified with parents and two were custody transfers to a non-removal parent.

“Staffing continues to be a major barrier for many agencies,” she said. “This highlights the need for more robust training and recruitment for child protection workers and more resources for supervisors and staff. Other barriers include lack of service providers including mental health and substance abuse providers, a new or redesigned (computer) system for documentation requirements to make the work less complex and time consuming.”

Commissioner Dave Borchert thanked Broskoff and her staff for their work.

“Thanks for your service. I think you have a very difficult job,” said Borchert.