The critical incident occurred during non-child protection office hours during the summer when school was not in session. The date and time of the critical incident influenced staff's ability to access the sibling children to observe/interview them without parental consent. First responders and law enforcement perceived the critical incident as accidental, and while on scene, communicated to the family that they were not pursuing criminal charges. Law enforcement did not perceive a need to cross report the accidental critical incident to child protection, nor did other mandated reporters who had contact with the family at the time of the incident. Law enforcement did not have safety concerns for the sibling children and they did not pursue an emergency 72 hour hold at the time of the critical incident. Law enforcement considered the grandparents to be safe caregivers and the sibling children were presumed safe in their care.
Differing perspectives exist between law enforcement and child protection about each of their roles at times when critical incidents occur. The two work disciplines follow different definitions of child safety and alleged neglect, based on MN state laws that govern and guide their individual work, influencing the frontline's mental models, depending on which code of law is being referenced, criminal or juvenile law. Additionally, the burden of proof standards are different for criminal law and child protection law. Law enforcement's standard of probable cause and beyond a reasonable doubt is a higher burden to meet than child protection's standard of preponderance of evidence and clear and convincing.
The parents, coping with trauma induced by hearing the hospital's knowledge of the subject child's near death condition, faced potential end of life decisions and travelled to be with the subject child who was transported to a hospital outside of the county's jurisdiction. The parents were not trusting of child protection's involvement when child protection made contact with the family, as their involvement was perceived as conflicting to what law enforcement had communicated to them about not opening a criminal investigation. When child protection staff attempted to engage with the family, they were met with resistance. The grandparents refused child protection access to the sibling children. Helping the family understand the role differences between child protection and law enforcement was difficult for the staff. The family's confusion and resistance impacted staff's ability to observe/interview the sibling children in a timely manner.
Using a least invasive approach with the family was used by staff to best reduce the risk of the family continuing to resist child protection involvement, and this approach also mitigated the barrier of not having a formal process (criminal charges and court involvement) available to support child protection involvement at the time. Strategically, the local agency prioritized giving the parent's time to work through the trauma of the critical incident, as there was no imminent concern for safety to the children per law enforcement's safety assessment of the children and family at the time they had contact during the critical incident. Considering the totality of the circumstances  , being sensitive to the family's traumatic reality was prioritized as a method of family engagement, and a tradeoff decision to not make timely face to face with the sibling children was made.

Understanding differences exist across the state regarding culture within County Attorney Offices, including office size, caseloads size, attorneys available to work cases, individual attorney's methods used to practice law, (potentially anticipating case outcomes prior to filing petitions), and potentially serving multiple roles within their office, etc. The county attorney's office, also being influenced by county board decisions, further complicated the office's ability to communicate advice to child protection in a timely manner, contributing to the delay in observing/interviewing the sibling children.   Furthermore, staff did not know if their request to the county attorney's office to petition the court for a court order to observe/ interview the children would be filed by the county attorney, and/or if filed, granted by the court. Considering child protection's mental model shaped from past experience (to not get court orders granted which they had requested in the past), child protection staff utilized a workaround/adaptation to their approach used with the children and family in order to engage and assess the safety of the sibling children, contributing to staff observing/interviewing the sibling children two weeks before the investigation closed.