NASHUA – In January and February last year, the state Department of Children, Youth and Families sent 15 letters to Nashua police requesting that they investigate a matter involving a client or family. The number raised no eyebrows; it was in line with 16 letters sent over the same period in 2014.

But in March 2015, the numbers began telling a different story: Requests for police investigations were up sharply, having more than doubled over March 2014 and easily surpassing January and February combined. The increase has overwhelmed Nashua police detectives and forced supervisors to tap patrol officers to handle some of the investigations, police here said.

The trend is not unique to Nashua, nor does it necessarily reflect what would be an alarming rise in child abuse, neglect, exploitation and other family-centered crimes. According to DCYF director Lorraine Bartlett, the spike is tied to the agency’s renewed efforts to strengthen its partnership with town and city police departments, as well as county and state law enforcement personnel.

“I believe the increase in law enforcement letters has to do with the conversations we’ve been having with county attorneys and the attorney general’s office,” Bartlett said, referring to DCYF requests for police involvement. “There’s been an increase because we want to make sure we’re keeping (law enforcement) apprised … that we’re doing due diligence in ensuring we provide them with the information they need,” she said.

In Nashua, the jump in DCYF requests prompted police Special Investigations Division Lt. Kerry Baxter to conduct a workload assessment in hopes of mitigating the impact the added DCYF letters have had on detectives.

“Beginning last spring, the number of letters we’ve been receiving has overwhelmed the detective bureau,” Baxter said. One partial solution has been leaning more on the patrol division to answer DCYF requests, at least for the start of an investigation.

“We’ve been getting more involved at the patrol level,” Baxter said. “If it’s then determined that a detective has to get involved, that’s what we’ll do.”

In Merrimack, Lt. Denise Roy estimated she’s seen “at least 40 percent” more DCYF letters come across her desk over the past 10-12 months.

As commander of the department’s Criminal Investigation Bureau, Roy receives and reviews the DCYF letters, then assigns a detective, ideally a member of the juvenile division, to the case. The swelling list of requests has easily made the detective bureau the department’s busiest, she said.

Like Baxter in Nashua, Roy said she assigns a patrol officer to a DCYF case when possible. Uniformed officers, by virtue of their 24/7 coverage, also initiate investigations, Roy said. When practical, the officer will remain on the case.

Roy said while the increase in DCYF requests has meant a heavier workload for police, Chief Mark Doyle said he appreciates the fact that his officers and detectives are getting more involved with DCYF cases.

“I speak for Chief Doyle in saying we’re happy we’re getting a chance to see what’s going on – even if it turns out there is no criminal behavior,” Roy said.

In the statewide picture, many observers, from police and political office-holders to child and family advocacy groups and activists – including survivors of child abuse or neglect – are watching closely the ongoing metamorphosis of the DCYF, an historically underfunded and overwhelmed state agency long criticized for its lack of transparency and accountability.

Sparked in large part by the tragic deaths of two children – 3-year-old Nashua resident Brielle Eternity Gage in November 2014 and 21-month-old Sadie Willott of Manchester in September 2015 – the agency is in the midst of a comprehensive, multi-phase overhaul to better serve children and families through intervention and prevention.

The most recent step in that direction came last week, when the Executive Council voted unanimously to bring in a Maryland-based consulting group to review and analyze the workings of the agency and recommend improvements.

And roughly two weeks ago, Bartlett, the DCYF director, proposed to the Legislature’s newly-created Commission on Child Abuse Fatalities an interim plan to expand DCYF coverage to include nights and weekends.

She underscored the need for significant funding increases for the interim plan to be successfully implemented. Under her proposal, the agency would add a noon-8 p.m. shift to be staffed by 12 new social workers and two new supervisors; hire three new social workers and one new supervisor to cover a “central intake” shift from 4:30-8 a.m. and on weekends; and bring on six staffers and a supervisor who would handle overnight emergency calls on a rotating, on-call basis.

Current staffing levels, Bartlett said in her report to the legislative committee, are “not adequate to meet the demands” of the workload. Likewise, she added, the existing staff is “insufficient” to assure around-the-clock coverage.

The fairly swift surge of ideas and proposals aimed at increasing DCYF funding and staffing and improving its methods coincides with the uptick in requests for police involvement, numbers and statistics show. Discussion got underway in earnest with the debut in January of the Commission on Child Abuse Fatalities, which was signed into law in fall 2015.

As it turned out, Nashua police department’s merging in early 2014 of its Youth Services Division and Domestic Violence Unit into the Special Investigation Division came roughly a year before the increase in DCYF letters – and several months before Brielle Gage died of multiple injuries consistent with child abuse.

In August 2015, Nashua Deputy Police Chief Michael Carignan noted at a meeting of the Nashua Police Commission that the average monthly calls from DCYF had more than tripled “due to a change in reporting requirements” at the DCYF.

Bartlett said the increase wasn’t as much the result of new reporting requirements as it was the agency’s renewed commitment to thorough investigations.

“If there’s any indication that a child is abused, injured or may have been the victim of a crime, we’re required to put the information in writing and forward it to the local law enforcement agency and the county attorney’s office,” Bartlett said.

She and Baxter, the Nashua lieutenant, agree that the opioid epidemic has also been a significant contributor to the workload of both police and DCYF personnel.

“A lot of people who have substance abuse issues also have children,” Baxter said. She praised the Legislature’s passage last week of a bill that defines opioid abuse as a form of child neglect, which gives police and DCYF personnel another tool to remove a child from a home in which opioid abuse or addiction is present.

“It’s a great step forward,” Baxter said. “But what I’d like to see is (similar legislation) across the board, not just for opiates.”

Dean Shalhoup can be reached at 594-6443, dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com or @Telegraph_DeanS.