Mission

To facilitate public outreach and provide opportunities for citizens to evaluate and make recommendations to state and local child protection systems to ensure that these systems promote safety, well-being and permanency to the children and families of Wyoming.  

Vision

WyCRP shall motivate citizen participation to meet the unmet needs of the child welfare system through positive change so Wyoming's children and families have the opportunity to develop to their full potential. 

Purpose

The Citizen Review Panel is a federally mandated group of citizens who are responsible for determining whether state and local agencies are effectively meeting child protective responsibilities pursuant to the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) and subsequent amendments.

Through a review of service networks, policies, procedures, research and reviews of child protective and juvenile service cases the purpose of the Citizen Review Panel is to promote child safety, permanency and well-being for children and families.

History of WYCRP

The WyCRP is a federally mandated group of citizens who are responsible for evaluating the efficiencies of state and local child protection agencies by reviewing systems, policies and procedures.  Through strong partnerships, WyCRP is able to promote safety, permanency,and well-being for children and families.

The Wyoming Citizen Review Panel (WYCRP) began in 1998 in response to a federal mandated from the Child Abuse and Prevention Treatment Act of 1996. This act requires each state to have a Citizen Review Panel that provides input from citizens with regards to agency policies and procedures.

The Wyoming Child Death Review and Prevention team, a program of WYCRP, conducts reviews of all child deaths and major injuries that occur while these children are in the protective custody of the state.

The Parents as Teachers Affiliate program was introduced in 2013 under the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visitation grant (MIECHV). This program's goal is to provide support and information to parents during the early stages of childhood development, prenatally up to age three. This is done by empowering parents as the first and most important teacher of their child.

How does it all fit together?

One of the biggest questions people ask is how all of our different programs fit under the umbrella of WYCRP.

The panel started to provide citizen input for the child protection system to help them improve policies and procedures. As we all know prevention is always better than intervention. We not only want to prevent children and families from becoming involved in the protection system, we want to see them thrive.

It is this philosophy that has driven our organization to expand the programs we offer. We want to provide families with the knowledge and skills to raise happy, healthy kids.