As a foster parent and someone who has observed the Maine Department of Health and Human Services and Child Protective Services over many years, I continually reflect on changes that could improve their systems.
First and foremost, DHHS needs to have an independent audit done by experts unconnected to Maine political bias to investigate whether the issues in CPS also exist in other programs. The issues facing the DHHS and CPS are truly not a Republican or Democrat administration problem, rather a long-term, deeply entrenched set of institutional problems that no one seems willing to act on.
Reunification should not be the end goal for each child’s case.
The top priority must be what is best for the children in question. If what is best for the children is unclear, listen to the input of the guardian ad litem; that is what they are there for. Next, follow the rule book. DHHS and CPS have official rules to follow, and it is time that they are held strictly accountable to them. Each kinship care (keeping the child with family members) and foster family should be given a copy of the book, so everyone can be – literally – on the same page, rather than putting families in situations where they have to juggle three different answers from three different caseworkers.
If everyone at DHHS had been following their own rules and had safety net mechanisms been in place, we would not be familiar with the names of children who have died while under DHHS and CPS case supervision, including Ayla Reynolds, whose disappearance occurred 12 years ago today, or Logan Marr, two of the many tragic casualties in DHHS care.
On Jan. 31, 2001, 5-year-old Logan Marr was killed by ex-DHHS caseworker Sally Schofield. DHHS not only failed to check on the children as required, but also failed to properly investigate abuse allegations.
Ayla Reynolds, a 20-month-old who went missing from her home in 2011 and was declared dead six years later, was similarly failed by a state system intended to protect children. Her mother has alleged that DHHS didn’t follow procedures in vetting the child’s father before placing her in his care while the mother underwent rehabilitation for drug use.
It is time to do away with fiefdom within DHHS. These fiefdoms have further jeopardized vulnerable children by keeping direct oversight of their cases unnecessarily complicated and weak. This is noticeable when someone’s case crosses more than one area in the state. DHHS is supposed to be one cohesive organization working for the whole state of Maine. Staff focus should be mostly in their local area of employment. No longer should case management working from the Skowhegan office, for example, be trying to work with a foster family in South Portland. Except for safety concerns, standards for foster parents should not be any different than those for biological parents.
While fragmentation within DHHS and CPS has caused too many tragic outcomes for Maine’s most vulnerable children, a system-wide commitment to transparency, communication and accountability is essential if there is to be any hope of improvement. We must never forget that behind the numbers, charts and statistics are children whose lives literally depend on the system. They need and deserve much more than has been provided for them thus far.
It is urgent that DHHS accept culpability for continually failing to protect Maine’s children from abuse and death, and to immediately stop using confidentiality disclaimers to try to cover up their failures. Full transparency is called for here. DHHS needs to willingly explain how specific failures and missed opportunities occurred in each case, as well as detail what corrective measures have been put in place to prevent them from happening to other children.
Finally, if there is a commission on how to reform DHHS and CPS, it should include representatives from these groups: someone from a kinship care family placement, someone from a foster care family, an adopted family from state care and finally, a biological family whose children were taken by the state. My reasoning is that representatives from each of these groups have experienced the system in very different ways and may have ideas about where improvements can be made.
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