According to the WTG:
BOSTON? The embattled head of the state’s child welfare system will be replaced Wednesday as Gov. Deval Patrick looks to put his stamp on state government, a source told The Associated Press.
According to the WTG, the new Commissioner is a former DSS worker named Angelo McClain. I do not know anything about Angelo – so I will be very interested in comments.
Here is what the WTG has said, so far, about Angelo McClain:
Patrick plans to replace Spence with Angelo McClain, a former DSS worker who now works for ValueOptions, a New Jersey-based healthcare company, according to a person with direct knowledge of the decision. McClain’s appointment was subject to final review late Tuesday, said the source, who asked to remain anonymous because the announcement wasn’t public yet.
My hope is that McClain has a background in social work, child development, child psychology, and family based services. Harry Spence had no training or background in any of these. Foster care is far more dangerous for children than most of the homes from which they were removed.
Further, there is still no definition or over sight as to what, precisely, the reasonable efforts are that a family should receive before their children are traumatized by being placed with strangers – and a family risks being torn asunder forever due to homelessness, or an adversarial and difficult relationship between a parent, and a social worker.
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Now there’s a good attitude..
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With quotes like this, and the press needing to highlight every problem but rarely any success.. I can see why so many people are dropping out of doing foster care.
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Number show a loss of over 250 homes in the northeast mass region.
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With the loss of Spence, I see a lot more.
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With him we had someone who wanted the job and was making progress towards improvement.
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Now we’re going to get a series of short term politicos on their way up who will crisis manage one issue after another.. patch little problems.. claim success and then move on.
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We’ve seen it before.
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Who wants a job where you are responsible for tens of thousand s of “problem” children and their families? and be held responsible for every case personally?
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He has little to work with beyond an extremely overloaded workforce, a judicial system that wants to use his services as punishment (rather than jail.. send em to foster care), and a huge volunteer force of support people who are getting fed up with the whole system.
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Things are now going to get a lot worse before they can ever get better.
There’s a notable industry in blaming DSS for things, and sooner or later they were going to claim a scalp. Turns out it’s Spence.
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Not sure how it’s Harry’s fault that he can’t complete a near-impossible task, given his budget and personnel. But, hey, blaming a commissioner is easier than blaming a system. And handing over a scapegoat is easier than reforming it.
I will grant that Harry Spence wanted the job, and had experience in cutting costs in Chelsea and other places.
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But he had no training in child development, no training in child psychology, no training in social work at all.
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You may not know this, but he made getting mental healths treatment for the children I represent 100% more difficult. He also spent more money on an additional layer of consultant beauracracy then on social workers.
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The number of adolescents I represented who were abused in foster care is rather large – in part because of lax screening and supervision.
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A good foster parent is a treasure – and I am sure that is what the previous poster was. But, believe me, there is a wide spectrum
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Did Harry Spence create the problems – not all of them, but some. His attempt to save money by reducing residential care did, in fact, put some of my young clients at grave risk.
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I will post my first set of information about the new Commissioner. He has a doctorate in social work, and managed a mental health treatment network. To me, that sounds very promising.
Fact is, Spence came under pressure time and again to loudly and publicly fire people. The demands from the media to “clean house” anytime they uncovered a bad decision by DSS, or a foster parent, were petulent and unending. I give a lot of credit to the fact that Spence didn’t fold by dismissing DSS workers with extensive, high-quality histories of caring about the kids and making good decisions. DSS is stronger for it.
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His dismissal sends a clear signal to the new commissioner — you ARE expected to dance to the tune the media calls, and you are NOT expected to place your clients above the media or the lawyers.
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And as a side note, I’ve met far too many Ph.D.s to believe that a doctorate measures anything save endurance and a high tolerance for academic politics. Certainly doesn’t say how such a person would fare in the real world.
The fact that Spence stood up for his staff was not my problem. If anything, I liked that. you will note, if you go to my page and read my child welfare posts, there is no hue and cry over high profile cases by me. These happen. My issues with Spence were:
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1. Failure to be responsive to parent and advocate concerns. I sent many letters as to the failure of DSS to follow the CMR in creating Service Plans, etc. I never received a reply to any of them. I never criticized a particular worker, I always sought to address broad concerns of general practices that I consider to be either statutory violations, or poor social work.
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2. Failure to provide services to families, and lack of apparent commitment to even a “C grade” effort as to family services, family preservation, or the “strengthening families” in G.L. c. 119 Sec.1.
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3. Statewide confusion of poverty and neglect, and overly aggressive non emergency removals from the working poor, and non white families.
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4. Undue deference to highly paid consultants, and the infusion of more money into that additional level of bureacracy rather than social workers or services to families and children.
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5. Apparent lack of understanding or commitment to providing mental health services to children in foster care, or “in home services”; the availability of in home services of ANY variety declined drastically after Harry Spence became commissioner, and still further declined after money was diverted to the so called “lead agencies”.
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6. An extreme commitment to expediting termination of parental rights and adoption, and no apparent commitment to services for struggling but non-abusive families.
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I could go on and on – but my “beef” with Spence was not with the fact that he “stuck up for his staff”. In fact, all too often the high-profile cases resulted from the for profit subcontractors to DSS – but that is another discussion entirely.
Did you read my “open letter” to the designated new commissioner? Again, my failure of confidence in Spence was not about the “sensational cases.”