Our DCF is a national disgrace, saw this news on the elevator ticker at my Chicago office, Olga Roche has finally resigned after two more infant fatalities were reported over the weekend bringing the grand total to three. Unfortunately, that same article goes on to say that the new replacement seems to be someone with a ton of public transit experience but next to zero qualifications to head this agency.
Gov. Patrick has named Erin Deveney as interim DCF Commissioner. She was previously the chief of staff for the
Department of Transportation[Registry of Motor Vehicles -ed.], but had been installed as DCF deputy commissioner for the last 30 days.
Now to be fair, a lot of these agency heads float from department to department and have ‘managerial experience’. She is also an interim replacement. So I urge the Governor, and more importantly, the next Governor to make fixing this agency a top priority. Instead of sniping over a casino referendum they can’t control, both AG candidates should also vow to never again let agencies like this let children die and get mistreated.
This is the number 1 issue for my brother and sister-in-law who had a long and painful experience with the DCF during their time as foster parents. I hope a strong and experienced professional child advocate can be found and placed in charge immediately.
David says
how exactly does the AG have a bigger role with respect to DCF? DCF is an executive branch agency that reports to the Governor. The AG has no direct role that I’m aware of. So how would either candidate expressing their views on DCF be different from their doing so with respect to casinos? Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
Also, realistically, Adrian Walker is right: no highly-qualified person from the outside would take the job at this point, with a new Governor coming in the door in less than a year.
Finally, Deveney was not at DOT. She was at the RMV.
jconway says
The article I cited said she worked for DOT. I appreciate the correction but I was going off what the article said. And again, while I understand that mangers get shuffled all the time from different departments (Mayor Daley was rather infamous for the tactic of shuffling cabinet heads) and that finding a great candidate in this time frame is difficult- the optics of this are incredibly poor. The average person will think that the Governor doesn’t care. So he should make a strong statement describing why he thinks Devaney is qualified as the interim and strongly endorsing that the next Governor gets the DCF reformed and transformed into an agency that actually helps children.
I think I could’ve articulated the AG comment better, but my point is if we are going to make that issue a litmus test than how they would handle internal investigations regarding government incompetence regarding child welfare should also be important. Considering the AG is the states top watchdog and considering how important you thought the largely symbolic move of opposing casinos was in terms of its impact I think a strong commitment from either or both candidates would be just as powerful-especially if gubernatorial candidates embraced it as well.
bob-gardner says
Both are big secret agencies, with secret courts. Both agencies have a public goal that in a general sense the public approves of.
But both agencies report to an executive, who, more than anything else, wants to keep them out of the news. so both agencies, operating in secret, overreach. The over reaching and the harm it causes can be kept secret, while the catastrophic failures are public.
Both agencies will continue to grow, stuck in a cycle of over reaching and underperforming. Until DCF is under scrutiny for all their actions, they will continue to grow without improving.
I would like the AG candidates to start questioning the secrecy that the DCF uses. How much of that secrecy actually is for the benefit of the children involved? How much is simply for the benefit of the institutions involved?
Andrei Radulescu-Banu says
As usual, the issue of secrecy and transparency is front and center whenever a new scandal hits the news stands. Chalk it to the fact that we’ve outlived the information economy era. Information has become a commodity; what’s not a commodity is access to that information.
It’s been the case for a long time that DCF was a troubled agency, we just got more visibility now with the extra media attention. Once another set of scandals make the headlines, DCF will fade back our of attention, and nothing will have changed.
JimC says
And there’s the fact that DCF is trying to save and/or improve lives, and NSA’s only reason for existence (war) is immoral.
DCF employs secrecy because its clients deserve that, and not for any other reason. Any administration would be more than happy to celebrate its successes, which are many.
Andrei Radulescu-Banu says
The fact remains – we’ve only learned of troubles at DCF once an extreme case came to front page news. Once that happened, other reports of problems with other children trickled in. Why should one have to wait for children to disappear, or to be found dead, before we realize there has always been a bigger problem at this state agency?
JimC says
I’m pretty sure they could fill the nightly news with borderline cases.
I agree in general with the principle of transparency, but it’s not that simple with DCF. Nothing is simple when it comes to DCF.
bob-gardner says
and to protect the power it has over the people who are unfortunate enough to come under its scrutiny. That’s my personal experience, jimc, is yours different?
JimC says
But I have almost no direct experience with DCF. I spent a summer, when I was 19, interning at EOHS (as it was then called), which oversaw DSS, the Office for Children, and several other human services agencies.
I don’t know what axe you’re grinding, and honestly I don’t really care. Even if you dealt with DCF a dozen times, it’s a small fraction of their caseload.
And sorry, but “the power it has over the people who are unfortunate enough to come under its scrutiny” is pretty laughable. Nobody’s on a power trip at DCF.
bob-gardner says
where a mother lost her three children because she disrespected DSS workers by raising her voice to them, and by trying to extend her visits with her children by dressing her children too slowly.
I was a friend of the mother and saw this first hand.
Power trips were the rule, rather than the exception, at the agency. More than one attorney who was in that field told me the basic strategy when dealing with the agency was to obey them so completely that they would have no excuse not to return custody. Following DSS orders was more important than actually demonstrating the ability to care for your children.
During my friend’s ordeal I applied to adopt her children. I was disqualified because I had written a letter critical of DSS.
It’s really pathetic, Jimc that you admit your ignorance “almost no direct experience”, your indifference “I honestly don’t care”, blithely make sweeping judgments about something you neither know about nor care about—then hide behind Judy Meredith.
JimC says
But you know that.
judy-meredith says
In bulk and brain power.
JimC says
… can speak to these issues better than I can.
judy-meredith says
and an advocate for and friend of many trained social workers trying to support profoundly dysfunctional families to keep their own kids safe in a familiar extended family circle, and support foster families trying to mend the hearts of profoundly disrupted kids, I can tell there are angels here on earth.
And for every story we hear about a failure ..A missed fax, a stupid incompetent or sloppy worker, and I’ve been there, there are a thousand stories of near misses and ten thousand triumphant victories.
Deep breaths people.
bob-gardner says
like when we are told that the NSA is spying on us for our own good, and that for every story about failure, there are thousands of terrorist plots that they have thwarted.
If DCF had “ten thousand triumphant victories” , I guarantee that the privacy of the individuals involved would be no obstacle to getting those stories to the media.
Peter Porcupine says
…secrecy and confidentiality.
One is appropriate. The other is a guilty reflex.
Peter Porcupine says
…is the stated policy of mandatory family reunification.
It creates impossible situations which will never succeed. It hurts children. It makes workers become cynical or desparate. It was a theory along the lines that there’s no such thing as a bad boy, but it didn’t have Spencer Tracy to give it gravitas.
It has failed.
Now, can we find a different way to care for the children of vile individuals?
judy-meredith says
and put all vile individuals in a concentration camp and sterilize them!!
judy-meredith says
a bit of over-reaction. Little punchy after watching 3 days of budget debate among our elected policy makers in the House of Representatives express their commitment to protecting “our” children. Some of them spoke with personal experience and knowledge, some with none. In the end they appropriated a sizable sum to hire additional workers and IT improvements ….One Rep asking “who uses faxes any more?”
And the Speaker was partly right when he said it was not a matter of money but management and leadership. What he missed was something more important …finding ways to honor and respect and reward the workers in the field. Angels with dampened wings now, trusted by few, hated by families they must disrupt , misunderstood by almost everybody.
JimC says
merrimackguy says
Most people are willing to spend more money (and yes tax themselves more) if they feel that the money was going to make it to where it would make a difference. Tough to do when the press is bad (I’m thinking MBTA and others as well) and the leadership (Roche) is very underwhelming.
So with DCF we need good leadership and some plan that enables the people in the field to be better/do a better job. Sad thing is that’s unlikely to happen currently with an interim head and a lame duck governor.
Peter Porcupine says
And the finest systems and shrewdest administrators in the world will not be able to reunite some families. There are sitations that cannot be managed. For the sake of all, workers and families alike, we need to think hard about terminating parental rights in some cases. I hear this from social workers who are frightened that they are leaving children in dangerous situations – if they stop by daily, it may not be enough in some cases.
bob-gardner says
Putting more emphasis on breaking up families while maintaining the secrecy that DCF already abuses is the worst possible combination.
DCF breaks up plenty of families already.
sabutai says
Caseloads are exploding for social workers. And remember a “caseload” is by household, not child. So if a DCF worker has four at-risk children living in a house, that counts as one case. And I’ll tell you, not too many DCF households only have one child there.
The base cowardice of our Legislative “leaders” in making sure that we don’t have a frank talk about revenues in Massachusetts keep us from supporting DCF the way it needs. But we’ll switch the stationery and the person at the press conferences and pretend we’ve “fixed” things.
SomervilleTom says
This is the one-liner of the week, I think it belongs on the front page by itself (emphasis mine, sorry kbusch):