DENVER -- The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has released its review of Colorado's child welfare system and the results are consistent with the repeated findings of the CALL7 Investigators in Denver.

The review said Colorado did well in areas like "timeliness of adoptions" and "timeliness of permanency of reunification" of a child with his/her family, but also said the state failed to meet standards in several key areas.

Those included timeliness of "initiating a response to a child maltreatment report" in foster care and "the recurrence of substantiated or indicated maltreatment within a 6-month period." In other words, human services agencies did not respond quickly enough to reports of child abuse, or a report of a recurrence of child abuse.

The federal review said the City and County of Denver did not meet federal standards in 35 percent of cases.

Federal workers reviewed 65 cases from Denver, Larimer and Fremont counties that were open sometime between Oct. 1, 2007 and March 20, 2009.

In a news release, the Colorado Department of Human Services said the review "notes significant themes in Colorado's overall performance: lack of consistency, lack of service accessibility, and lack of accountability."

Forty of the cases examined by federal workers were foster care and the remaining 25 were in-home services cases. The review may have included cases previously reviewed by CALL7 Investigator John Ferrugia.

Since 2006, Ferrugia documented at least six cases where a child, who was in the Denver Human Services system, has died. Records obtained by 7NEWS show a pattern of mismanagement and missed opportunities that could have potentially saved each child.

As a result of the series of the CALL7 Investigative reports, Gov. Bill Ritter, D-Colorado, created a Child Welfare Action Committee in April 2008. The committee made 29 recommendations, including enhanced training for caseworkers, when it released its findings in Sept., 2009.

The Colorado Department of Human Services said, in a release, that it is already implementing 27 of the 29 recommendations.