Michelle Lane Smithwick

Michelle Lane is a former official in the Maryland Department of Human Resources. In 2005 she alleged that the department assigned children in foster care to social workers that no longer worked for the state. This resulted in children not getting monthly visits from a social worker and possibly contributed to some preventable child deaths. In 2006, Maryland Legislature auditors reported that they had found that caseworker staffing numbers had been improperly reported. The auditors also reported failures to investigate child abuse complaints. Legislators said that they would investigate 11 foster child deaths that occurred in 2004.