The sibling children to the subject child not being placed after the critical incident was influenced by agency procedures, having multiple workers on the case and Law Enforcement's (LE) response to the incident. When the case came in after the critical incident, it was received by agency after-hours staff, which was just recently added to the agency's work tasks as it was previously contracted out. This new process created gaps in communication during transitions between after-hour workers and subsequently-assigned FA/FI workers. Due to a snowstorm, the after-hours staff was unable to make it to the children's home during the after-hours response. The after-hours worker had questioned the need for removal of the children at the time given their ages, and also because LE had not identified a need for removal at the time of the incident. The case was then assigned to an agency staff that was working with the family in a family assessment workgroup at the time and that worker subsequently conducted in-home face to face contact with the family and identified the children as safe. In situations such as this, after a home visit and assessment that children are safe, manager overrides may occur. 
Regarding policy within the agency concerning removal of children after a child death suspected due to neglect, it was identified that the policy was not “transferred wellâ€ to staff and thus, the worker had no knowledge of the policy. Without this knowledge, the worker assessed the need for removal on a case-to-case basis. In this case, the worker provided risk and safety assessments regarding the sibling children during subsequent home visits and did not identify the need to remove.