The agency not making face to face contact with the sibling to the subject child was influenced by a presumption of safety as well as not wanting to cause additional trauma to the child. There has been a national push for evidence-based trauma informed practice and thus a push by the State for the same. As a result, there is hyper-vigilance on the trauma impact on children by local agency staff. There was a time lapse of a couple months between an initial screened-out report and subsequent screened-in report on the incident as it took time for the State Patrol to complete their investigation and release information on the incident. By the time the agency initiated a CP FI, the child had already been released from the hospital and was in the care of his grandmother. The hospital staff that released the child to the grandmother never reported to the agency any concerns with the family arrangement. The agency followed up with the child's grandmother and also school staff regarding the child's welfare. Both reported the child was doing well. This information, coupled with the time lapse from the incident and the information from the State Patrol, resulted in the agency not wanting to re-traumatize the child by interviewing him about the incident as they had the information they needed. Also, the alleged perpetrator to the maltreatment determination (mother) was deceased, contributing to the presumption of safety. 
Also noted was that in situations similar to this, there can be complications with attaining reliable information from child interviews with serious injuries as the injuries may impact their ability to recall/share the information. Distance and weather conditions can also inhibit contact as children are often times transported to metro-area hospitals and the agency is in rural Minnesota.