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'There is more to be done,' Aniya's father not happy with the lack of changes he sees in CFS

Posted at 6:52 AM, Jul 11, 2018
and last updated 2019-03-26 11:18:00-04

In March, Cuyahoga County promised to right its wrong when it let Aniya Day-Garrett slip through the cracks. The 4-year-old was killed by her mother and her mother's boyfriend in March.

The county pledged to hire more staff, conduct an independent investigation and ask the community for its input on how the department can improve.

"The changes that they're making, they talk about it but we don't see any action being made behind it," said Mickhal Garrett, Aniya's father.

So far, Garrett isn't impressed with what the county has done and worries this investigation isn't even touching the surface.

"There is more work to be done. Here with Cuyahoga County, with DCFS, with the child welfare panel. There is more work to be done here in our community," he said.

Donna Brown with the activist organization "Black on Black Crime" questions how much of an effort was made to reach out to community members and families to ensure that they were part of the listening tour process.

"Their excuse is that they reached out to all types of social media — Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat — but the point is when you're talking about something as important as children's lives, you should have sent them a letter out," Brown said.

Now that the five-stop listening tour is complete and the internal investigation is over, the public waits to hear the final word from Cuyahoga County Children and Family Services, a department that previously said there would be accountability.

In March, the department released this statement:

"We are expected to see and recognize patterns of abuse and neglect and if the internal investigation determines we did something wrong there will be discipline."

RELATED: Review of Cuyahoga County Children and Family Services' handling of Aniya Day-Garrett case complete

County leaders have seen the report into CFS and are going over recommendations in that report. The law department will ultimately decide which parts of the report the public will see. CFS has not revealed when their findings will become public record.

Many questions arose at the time of Aniya's death about what CFS knew about how she was being treated and what was done about it.