Expert says DHS secrecy abuses power

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AUGUSTA – Calling the Department of Human Services the most arrogant child welfare agency in the country, a national children’s advocate recommended Monday that hearings and records be open and interviews taped.

“DHS shouldn’t even be allowed to ask for secrecy. DHS has no interest in secrecy other than as a way to cover up its failings,” said Richard Wexler, director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform.

“[DHS’] power must be checked by accountability. And accountability is not possible in secret,” he told the Committee to Review the Child Protective System, a 12-member investigative team created by the Legislature.

“We all do better when someone is looking over our shoulder,” Wexler said. “We think things through a bit more. We’re better prepared. We explore more options. We resist any temptation we might feel to substitute a nod and a wink among friends for due process of law.”

The state’s argument that a child might be embarrassed at an open proceeding is bogus, according to Wexler, who said open court hearings are the norm in other states.

“Perhaps had [Maine’s hearings] been open, Logan Marr might have lived long enough to blush,” said Wexler, referring to the 5-year-old Chelsea girl whose foster mother allegedly suffocated her.

The child’s death was the impetus for the joint order that created the Committee to Review the Child Protective System, which is looking into the legal processes used by DHS.

Also scrutinizing DHS is the Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee, which is focusing on the department’s child protective and foster care systems.

Monday wasn’t the first time that Wexler lit into DHS. Last April, after he was invited to Augusta by parents angry with the huge agency, the outspoken critic lambasted the department in a study called “A Law Unto Itself,” which he distributed at the State House.

In the report, Wexler charged that the state has a “take-the-child-and-run approach”; that it endangers children by taking too many of them from homes that are safe or could be made safe with the right type of services; and that it has one of the worst records for placing children with relatives, even though those placements are safer.

On Monday, Wexler’s comments were no less stinging.

DHS confuses poverty with neglect, is terrified of scrutiny, and wrongly believes that family preservation and child protection are at odds, he said.

But, “you can’t have real child protection without family preservation,” he said. “The only way to fix foster care is to have less of it.”

The foster care system is glutted with children who don’t need to be there, spurring an artificial shortage of foster parents, according to Wexler.

That’s why the state has had to lower its standards and look the other way when children are abused both by foster parents and by other foster children, he said.

DHS spokesman David Winslow took Wexler’s appearance in stride. He said the former journalist had misquoted him and that his complaints had more to do with the country as a whole.

“I don’t think the comments were based on a knowledge of Maine,” he said.

Meanwhile, Wexler came armed with plenty of recommendations. He suggested, among other things:

. Requiring daily visits between parents and children from the day they are taken.

. Making it more difficult for the department to ask the court for a preliminary protection order without the parents being present.

. Raising the burden of proof DHS must meet when it takes children from their homes.

. Letting people who think they’ve been wronged sue the department.

Wexler also urged that a birth parent who has had a child taken by DHS be added to the study committee. The omission “suggests that this committee has bought into the stereotype of all birth parents as worthless louts, brutally abusive or hopelessly addicted, who don’t really deserve to sit at the table with the rest of us,” he said.

Wexler’s comments ring true, according to Auburn attorney and court-appointed guardian ad litem Lillian Kennedy who also was invited to speak to the panel.

The committee needs a birth parent, she said. “There’s a big gap between living [in the system] and working [with it] up close.”

Kennedy had further criticisms. Sometimes when a mother calls DHS with concerns that a child is being abused by the father, the department is reluctant to get involved and tells the mother to call an attorney.

But later, if it turns out that the child is being hurt, DHS accuses the mother of failing to protect the child, according to Kennedy.

If foster parents “get uppity” by challenging the caseworker or disagreeing with the way the department is handling a case, they stand to lose the child and their license, Kennedy said.

More problems she has noticed: Parents don’t get notice of hearings; judicial reviews don’t happen in a timely fashion; too many guardians ad litem don’t listen to children and fail to offer a neutral perspective, relying too heavily on caseworkers’ assessments.

Echoing the criticisms leveled by previous speakers were Caroline Gardiner from the Maine Civil Liberties Union and Mary Henderson from the Maine Equal Justice Project. Their groups sponsored a survey that was sent to Maine attorneys who represent either parents or children in child protective proceedings.

Based on the responses from 69 lawyers from all 16 counties, the groups found, among other things, that DHS doesn’t always provide information to parents about their rights or offer a copy of the case plan. The survey found DHS imposes unnecessary requirements, requires people to leave households even when allegations aren’t adequately substantiated, and implements services to parents too late.