BATON ROUGE - Sweeping changes are happening behind the scenes at the Department of Children and Family Services, prompting some workers to submit their resignations.

Melanie Mann is one of those employees and fears that changes at DCFS are putting children's lives at risk. Mann, who has worked at DCFS for six years, says the agency has not been appropriately staffed during her tenure, and it's more concerning than ever.

"There are urgent cases that need to be responded to in a timely manner, or people could die, that's the reality of this situation," Mann said.

For the past three and a half years, Mann has worked for the Louisiana Child Abuse and Neglect Hotline. She's part of what's called the Centralized Intake, where initial reports are received and processed within 24 hours. Nov. 5, Mann says that Secretary Harris instructed employees to prioritize phone calls to maintain a five-minute wait time. To achieve this, online reports were not tended to at the same rate and started to stack up.

"I want to say the highest number I saw was 370, where we had unprocessed reports going back as far as five days," said Mann. "I felt that children's lives would be in danger."

According to another Centralized Intake employee who wishes to remain anonymous, this week there were at least 30 tips in the backlog that included fatalities, juvenile sex trafficking, and serious head injuries like skull fractures and brain bleeds.

"We were told they couldn't assign them, that we had to focus on call wait times," said the anonymous staff member.

To keep up with the growing backlog, Mann says that DCFS instructed staff to start answering online reports outside of their normal shift. An email sent to DCFS staff from a Centralized Intake manager on Tuesday acknowledges the backlog and alerts the unit that they are under a "directive" to clear the queue. The email instructed employees to work overtime until the backlog is cleared. Overtime at DCFS consists of time off, not extra pay.

"That was mandatory," Mann said.

On Tuesday, 2 On Your Side asked Secretary Harris about the concerns. In response, she said the information WBRZ had received was not accurate and provided the following:

I want to be transparent about the steps we are taking to strengthen the operations of our Child Safety Response Center. This Center is where urgent and life-threatening reports come in, and both phone calls and online reports must be handled quickly. Our children cannot wait, and neither can the people trying to protect them. 

Our job is to protect children. That requires urgency, accountability, and a call center that is responsive and reliable.

DCFS has not directed staff to prioritize one reporting method over another. Instead, we have set a clear expectation that the Center must actively manage both by moving staff between call-taking and online reports based on real-time needs to prevent delays.

At this time, there is no backlog of online reports and no wait time to speak with an agent.

These efforts are part of our broader plan to modernize and stabilize child safety operations, which includes adding a second shift, improving management oversight, and increasing frontline staffing.

Staff working overtime to make sure this critical child safety work is completed receive compensatory time, a standard and lawful state practice.

I want to publicly thank the many hotline professionals who continue to take calls, process reports, and support their colleagues. Their commitment reflects the mission of this department.

In October, WBRZ first learned that all staff would be moving back to the office at the end of the year. Up until now, many positions have been fully remote. Those employees have been given options to commute to Baton Rouge or return to field positions with local offices. Mann lives in Hammond.

"We believe that the plan is to replace the majority of us with AI," Mann said.

For the past few months, Mann says staff have been training on an AI transcript tool. As reports are taken over the phone, a transcript is auto-generated and then uploaded to the cloud. 

"It has completely destabilized and shaken our entire hotline unit," Mann said.

Other policy changes within Centralized Intake include access to case records beyond 12 months. As Mann explains, this limits an investigator's available history and could prevent someone from properly investigating a phone call or tip.