The Case Against DCF - Part II

Ordinary people really can make a difference.

The Juan F. case was brought on by “phone calls from foster parents, from birth parents, from DCF staff, talking about that the foster care system was broken…”

(Shelley Geballe, JD, MPH President, Connecticut Voices for Children; Lead Counsel, Juan F. v O’Neill.
Connecticut Public Television, 2006. http://www.cpbn.org/files/Consent_Order.pdf )

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The Case Against DCF - Part I

Here’s a Statistic: It would take every single one of your fingers and toes to count the number of years that DCF has been failing while under the watch of a Federal monitor.

In December, 1989 a class action law suit (Juan F. v O'Neill) was filed in the United States District Court challenging DCF’s management, policies, practices, operations, and funding regarding children in its custody. Just over a year later the state entered into a court ordered consent decree which required specific changes in each of the areas that had been identified as deficient. A court monitor was appointed who would be charged with facilitating and periodically reviewing the Department’s compliance.

“In February 2002, the court approved a plan that would allow DCF to exit from the consent decree [in November, 2006]. The plan set performance and outcome measures DCF had to achieve. In 2003, the plaintiffs returned to court arguing that DCF had failed to comply with the terms of the exit plan.” (Spigel, 2004. http://www.cga.ct.gov/2004/rpt/2004-R-0352.htm ).

Clearly, the reasons for the agency's failure are multifaceted and the solutions are not necessarily simple...but 20 years! Come on! The fact of the matter is that if we look at DCF as a collective parent, it is failing so extremely that its (collective) child should be removed from its “care.”

Callous Embrace

The process of attempting to establish a network of foster/adoptive parents and professionals who work within and around the foster care system and who are willing to share their stories out loud is interesting. Interesting is a euphemism for often futile, damn frustrating, and only occasionally productive. Just call me Sisyphus!

There are a number of well justified reasons for choosing not to come forward; perhaps chief among them is fear of retribution by the behemoth DCF. Many of those who have stories to tell have ongoing ties to the agency and speaking out is not an option. Instead, the conversations take place in private – in living rooms and back yards, after support group meetings, among therapists and patients, attorneys and clients. Nearly everyone has a story that bespeaks apathy, callousness, or the abuse of institutional power. To DCF stakeholders, such abasements are simply – and sadly – the norm.

I recently heard about a comment that illustrates the ugliness that oozes from the very core of this system of festering wrong. The comment was made by a supervisory staff member during a meeting that was held to determine the ultimate placement of a sibling group of two. A foster parent, discussing his wish to adopt the children who had been with his family for three years, suggested that it would be harmful to move them from the only home that they had ever known. The DCF staff member responded (and I am paraphrasing) that the children are already damaged when they come into the system; what difference does it make when we damage them a little more. I would say it’s unbelievable, but this is just business as usual at DCF.

If you have a story to tell; we would like to hear it. Please contact us.

What a Difference a Year Makes

April 2, 2009: Packing for our first family trip to Disney World.

April 2, 2010: Packing for our final goodbye.

Parents pack up their children’s belongings for sleepovers, vacations, camp, and college. These are milestone events that remind us to look forward when we are immersed in the demands of everyday. They give us respite, wonder and pride. They become the laughter that we share around the Thanksgiving table.

Our children are two and five, what can we possibly pack that will let them remember? What can we possibly pack that will protect them as we would have protected them or that will encourage them as we would have encouraged? What can we possibly…

Devastating Children and Families

Soliciting Outrage

Last October I sat in our living room with our children’s attorney. I begged him to do something; to stand up for the rights of the children. My plea was impassioned; a somewhat frenzied mixture of eloquence and outrage born of my blistering incapacity to take charge. I was powerless to do that which comes instinctively to (most) parents – to protect my children. I needed his help. I had not yet come to understand that the best interests of the children are but a distant consideration under the law. There was really nothing he could do to help me or them.

The attorney sat as I enumerated all of the system’s mistakes and moral wrongs. They had so extremely mishandled this case in the beginning that risk management protocols were now steering the decision making process. There was no consideration for the children and certainly none for our family. They had lied to us in order to find a home for the children and now it seemed that there was no limit to what they would do in order to sweep up the heaping piles of carelessness that they had deposited over the course of the preceding year. I was nearly as outraged at the attorney’s calm as I was at the horrible mess that had been imposed upon my family. After a time, the attorney looked me squarely in the eyes and said, You’re noticing things that most people do not; these things happen all of the time. That’s just the way the system works. Why is this okay? This cannot be okay. THIS IS NOT OKAY!

Please raise your voice in outrage for these acknowledged abuses of institutional power. Leave a comment. Tell your friends. Show your support by scrolling down this page and registering as a “follower” of this blog.

A Thousand Words

Big Bad Bully

When our children misbehave we send them to the no fun chair. We have them take a short time-out and then we help them to consider their actions and to think about how they might behave differently in the future. Perhaps a brief rest in the no fun chair would help those at DCF who have forgotten what their mothers once taught them. From the quotes below, it seems that the court monitor has described the second largest agency in the state as a big, bad bully.

“Unfortunately, respect, support, communication and collaboration (emphasis original) are more difficult to promote, ensure and measure [than the concrete business of obtaining new foster and adoptive homes]. These areas appear to be the major barriers in both the retention and recruitment of new homes as expressed by a majority of the stakeholders.” (Juan F. v. Rell Exit Plan Quarterly Report December 2009. p. 11. http://www.ct.gov/dcf/lib/dcf/homepage/pdf/3rd_qtr_report_2009.pdf)

“Communication is a basic concept that is (sic) continues to hinder the ability to gain and retain more foster and adoptive homes. […] Foster parents report that DCF does not hear and understand their needs and concerns, and private agencies feel their comments are unheeded and they are skittish about expressing themselves due to fear of retribution (emphasis added). These are recurring issues that must be explored and resolved.” (Juan F. v. Rell Exit Plan Quarterly Report December 2009. p 19-20.)

Whadaya think? Time-out?

Yes Commissioner, This is a Santa Clause!

“Despite the challenging fiscal climate, the Department continues to conduct quality work on behalf of Connecticut’s children and families.”
(DCF Commissioner Susan Hamilton, December, 2009, Commissioners Highlights, Juan F. v. Rell Exit Plan Quarterly Report, p. 104 http://www.ct.gov/dcf/lib/dcf/homepage/pdf/3rd_qtr_report_2009.pdf )

Yes, Commissioner this is a Santa Clause! In the third quarter of 2009, the most recent quarter reported, the Department achieved only 15 of its 22 required outcome measures. That’s 68%. That’s a D+. That is not quality work! Among the poorest outcomes was, presumably, one of the most important objectives – that of “Meeting Children’s Needs”. This measure carried a score of just under 56%. That’s an F. That is not quality work!

The report indicated that, while social workers’ case loads were within the recommended limits (i.e., they were not over burdened), the principal reasons for children’s unmet medical, dental, and behavioral health needs were lack of timely referrals and lack of follow-up. That is not quality work!

Fair is fair; the report also showed that the Department initiated and completed investigations in nearly 100% of cases and that social worker-to-child visitations exceeded the 85% standard. That appears to be quality work, but…failure to meet the former standard results in a 100% likelihood of undesirable media coverage. As for the latter... speaking only for the children in my home, in nearly 17 months there has been only one social worker-to-child visitation (it was really a social worker-to-parent visitation, but let’s not split hairs). Our social workers have appeared at the end of our driveway approximately once monthly to collect the children for visits with their biological mother. There has been not a single social worker-to-child visitation in our home. I suspect that our case is not unique.

Commissioner, please tell us how you define quality work.

Life in the Inbetween

Kids doing chores, cleaning up from last night's "slumber party". Beautiful spring day; the daffodils are finally starting to bloom! It almost seems normal. It is anything but.

The Worst Kind of Apathy

They'll say it was what the Court decided, but someone had a calendar. Someone made the plans and believed they were okay.

Today we learned that they will take our children on Thursday, May 6. Convenient, I suppose, for furlough Fridays and the weekend. My birthday is May 8. Mother's Day is May 9. We are not the parents who neglected these children, we are the ones who cared for them.

Last year on Mother's day I wrote a blog post that I have pasted below.

There Are Too Many Mothers In the World

Motherhood is a trust granted by the universe. It does not require prior authorization. It is neither contingent upon skill nor reliant upon capacity. There is no licensure, degree, or certificate of minimum competency. It does not require even the smallest commitment to guide or protect. Motherhood is a trust.

Children are the fruit of the universe; delicious moments that allow us to taste perfection in spite of ourselves. They are questions that challenge all of the answers we thought we had. They make us laugh when nothing is funny. They open our hearts to hope and our eyes to the infinite. They poke at us until we are breathing fire and then they douse the flames with a floppy bouquet of freshly picked dandelions.

This Mother’s Day, more than 800 children will be taken by strangers and placed within the callous embrace of the foster care system – an embrace so unyielding, so tangled, that they may be lost within its clutches for years – until it has managed to wring all spirit, innocence, and trust from their souls. This year, the mothers of around 300,000 children will fail so extremely that they will lose their children for a time. Some will fail so completely that they will lose their children forever. By their reckless betrayal of goodness, truth, and privilege, these “mothers” will mar their children with scars that can never be erased.

Mothering is a job. The hours are 24/7. The responsibilities are endless. From dawn to dawn we serve as maids and chauffeurs, janitors, nurses, and police officers. We dry tears and clean up ugly messes. We dream, we hope, we coach; we stumble and then we get up. Mothering is devotion; we give ourselves fully and forever. Our rewards cannot be applied toward a down payment on a beach house. It is in the miracle of every day that we are paid.

I cannot celebrate Mother’s Day without disdain, for I have seen the pain of reckless betrayal reflected in the eyes of my own children. I have felt the insufficiency of having not enough with which to protect the cavernous wounds inflicted by the women who gave birth to them. There are too many women upon whom the gods of fertility have bestowed the sobriquet of Mother. It is mothering that merits recognition on the first Sunday in May.

So...Have a happy Mothering Day!