Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Massachusetts Legislature passes major over haul of DSS today

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While press is beginning to come out that omnibus legislation to overhaul child welfare law and practice in Massachusetts passed today, I haven’t found the actual bill online as yet.  Apparently, it passed this afternoon.

Here is the site with the most detail, at least so far:

http://seangarballey.wordpress…

It appears that the Department of Social Services [DSS] will now be called  Department of Children and Families [DCF] and that the office of the Child Advocate gets subpoena powers.

As to whether the “reasonable efforts” required to help struggling families [to keep poverty from being confused with neglect] are clarified or strengthened – or whether this is really a “tough on crime – tough on abuse” bill remains to be seen as I haven’t read it yet.

What is clear is that the legislation is 79 pages long, was powered by the horrible Poutre case, and will have a major impact on child welfare law and practice in our state.

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Comments

  1. I hope you’ll give it a thorough going-over and report for us.  You’re one of the best sources of info out there on this sort of thing.

  2. I’m not sure actually that there was an overhaul of DSS passed today – the legislature passed a bill that would create the office of child advocate, which is not DSS and is in fact totally separate from DSS. Also, I think that changing the name of DSS is more about ordering new stationary than it is overhauling DSS, how services are provided etc.  

    • There was also a senate bill – it also passed in the State Senate.

      <

      p>The two bills [H4333 and Senate No. 2472 or 2474, some number like that] went into a House/Senate Conference Committee chaired by Sen. Spilka and Rep. Coakley-Rivera and then “something” came out of Conference Committee yesterday and was passed by the House and Senate and is sitting on Gov. Patrick’s desk!

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      p>What I would like to see is how the differing House and Senate bills came out of the sausage machine.  But, yes, H4333  was indeed the child welfare/DSS legislation as passed by the House – just that there has been some level of metamorphosis since.  

        • I will be reviewing it.  

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          p>I was sent a quote from Sen Spilka, from the State House News:

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          p>

          The Senate version added foster care to this bill. The House created a new secretariat and had an advisory board work with him. The governor created by executive order the office of child advocate. The Senate bill and the conference committee has the child advocate, which reports directly to the governor, which increases power and scope. We’ve added subpoena power to the child advocate. And because the office reports directly to the governor, it increases the scope to other agencies. In terms of the bill, we’ve adopted the Department of Social Services as the Department of Children and Families. That signifies what the mission is of the new agency. We have an inter-agency task force, designing timely, safe, and effective services. We provided stopgaps so children do not fall through the cracks. We’ve created a rigorous standard for investigation of child abuse cases. We have made some long overdue changes to the foster care system of our Commonwealth. We are continuing to support those turning 22 and aging out of foster care. We create a grandparents commission to account for the fastest-growing new group of child guardians.

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          p>The “Devil” will be not only “in the details” but in how such sweeping legislation is interpreted.

            • For example, in raising the penalty for not reporting suspected abuse and neglect, there will probably be more unsubstantiated reports.

              <

              p>However, the support of former foster kids until age 22 and educated is a “hoped for” change as few kids these days are able to care for themselves fully at 18.  But anyway, I haven’t even read the legislation passed yesterday, let alone analyzed it fully as yet.

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