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.
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.
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.
I’m not sure but this looks like the bill – H 4333.
There was also a senate bill – it also passed in the State Senate.
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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.
http://www.mass.gov/legis/bill… (PDF file)
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p>There’s no legislative history online yet, but I would presume that this passed intact.
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 “Devil” will be not only “in the details” but in how such sweeping legislation is interpreted.
Look sharp and you’ll find her…………….
For example, in raising the penalty for not reporting suspected abuse and neglect, there will probably be more unsubstantiated reports.
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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.