Child & Family Services of Northwestern Michigan (“Child & Family Services”) is notifying individuals of a data security incident that may have impacted their personal information. Child & Family Services takes the privacy and security of all information seriously and sincerely regrets any concern or inconvenience this incident may cause.

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What Happened?

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On or around February 10, 2026, Child & Family Services identified suspicious activity associated within their email environment. Child & Family Services immediately initiated incident response protocols, ended all active sessions for the impacted email accounts, reset credentials, and engaged external cybersecurity experts to conduct an investigation. Our investigation into the incident is still ongoing, but early indications from that investigation are that some emails containing information belonging to a limited number of individuals may have been accessed by an unauthorized individual. Child & Family Services is in the process of conducting a thorough review to determine who was impacted and what information was associated with any impacted individuals so that we can provide individual notice to those impacted. However, we wanted to provide notice of the potential impact out of an abundance of caution.

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What is Child & Family Services doing?

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Child & Family Services has taken steps to prevent this kind of event in the future, such as changing passwords and introducing additional controls for our email environment.

Letters will be mailed to potentially impacted individuals once the review of impacted files has been completed. These letters will contain more information about the incident, complimentary credit monitoring and identity theft protection services, and steps individuals can take to protect themselves.

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What You Can Do:

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Child & Family Services encourages you to remain vigilant against incidents of identity theft by reviewing bank accounts and other financial statements. Individuals should review credit reports, bank account, and other financial statements, and immediately contact their financial institution if they identify suspicious activity. You can also visit the Federal Trade Commission’s website for more information on protecting your identity at consumer.ftc.gov/identity-theft-and-online-security.

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For More Information:

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Child & Family Services has established a dedicated, toll-free call center to help answer questions about the incident. The call center can be reached at 800-442-7315, available Monday – Friday 8:30-4:30, voicemails will be returned the next business day.