Protecting children

Opening Department of Human Services child protection hearings to the public would lessen the shame felt by the children who are the subjects of those secret proceedings. Either that, or opening the hearings would add to their trauma.

Such 180-degree disagreement is nothing new when the issue is how best to protect children from abuse and neglect. That this disagreement was aired by experts in child protection before a committee of child protection experts – Monday’s meeting of the Committee to Review the Child Protection System – is a clear signal that open hearings, with the awful details of abuse or neglect made available for public consumption, is an unacceptable gamble with young lives already damaged. No doubt some 6-year-old victims of sexual abuse by a family member would, after a public proceeding, be met with caring and support at school and in the neighborhood. No doubt, too, that some would be met with ridicule and scorn.

Even if the odds were heavily in favor of caring and support, it is a premature gamble. The reviews being conducted by two legislative committees – Judiciary, which appointed the Committee to Review the Child Protection System, and Health and Human Services, which is holding field hearings for public comment – are only part of a thorough overhaul of DHS’ child protection system already under way.

An important component of that overhaul is the creation of an ombudsman position, a combination of public advocate and agency watchdog, a key part of the improvement plan DHS presented to lawmakers last spring. That position, plus an assistant, wisely was funded by the Legislature and should be filled by the beginning of next year. The ombudsman will work within the Executive Department, independent of DHS, and will have the authority to examine every aspect of the current system, and will have the training and experience to understand it.

A full report to the Legislature after a year on the job should provide an informed basis for any further reforms.

The long-standing concerns, doubts and suspicions about Maine’s child protection system will not vanish because of the work of one person, even with an assistant. But the public interest here is not being privy to the ugly details of abuse and neglect and the names of the young victims. The genuine public interest is that accusations are investigated fully and fairly, that struggling families are given ample opportunity to heal and that DHS caseworkers are held accountable when those standards are not met.

Virtually all of the complaints against the child protective system are connected by a common thread – a lack of oversight, or the perception that it is lacking. There are several worthwhile proposals being considered for expanding that oversight beyond the ombudsman to other responsible and informed persons, such as streamlining the currently cumbersome process by which a legislator can attend a custody hearing at the request of an affected constituent. Packing a courtroom with curious onlookers will not provide the kind of oversight tempered with the highest regard for the emotional well-being of the victims that these highly sensitive situations require.