Report on child custody reviewed Panel recommends interview audiotapes

The Department of Human Services should be required to audiotape all interviews in child protective cases, according to a draft report from the Committee to Review the Child Protective System.

The report, which is being circulated to committee members, also recommends that parents be allowed to record interviews and that more people with a relationship with children in the system have access to the court process.

The Committee to Review the Child Protective System, established by the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee to examine DHS court practices, has been meeting since August.

The Health and Human Services Committee also is investigating the child protective system and plans to hold a final meeting on its report on Friday.

Both investigations were spurred by the death of 5-year-old Logan Marr of Chelsea, who allegedly was suffocated by her foster mother. The case has become a symbol of the problems DHS has guaranteeing the safety of its charges.

But legislators have said that even before the tragedy they had received numerous complaints about the system.

The committees heard from attorneys, caseworkers, biological and foster parents, national experts, children’s advocates, DHS officials, young people in foster care and representatives from the Attorney General’s Office.

People testified that the department has failed to abide by a federal mandate to make reasonable efforts to keep families together and to place children with relatives.

The Committee to Review the Child Protective System recommended in its report that people who demonstrate that they have a substantial relationship with the child or a substantial interest in the child be permitted to attend all court proceedings, but not have the right to speak.

Other people – including relatives, foster parents and pre-adoptive parents – would have the opportunity to speak in court proceedings, but wouldn’t have access to court records.

The report contains a sweeping recommendation that would address many of the complaints from people whose children were taken by DHS. It urges that the statute governing child protection include a statement of the reasonable efforts that have been made to prevent the child from being removed from the home, as well as the names of relatives who may be able to provide care.

Also, DHS should be required to ensure that the policy concerning a child’s placement with relatives be uniformly enforced and to report back to the Legislature with recommendations on how kinship care policies will be put into place.

The panel also wants the Judiciary Committee to look at the availability of guardians at litem, especially in less populated areas, and to review the guardian ad litem’s role. A guardian ad litem is a court-appointed children’s advocate.

Other suggestions call for the Supreme Judicial Court to establish a pilot project in which the Judicial Department contracts with one or more private attorneys or law firms to provide legal representation of parents in child protective cases.

The final report, which is due next week and which will vary little from the draft, will be sent to the Judiciary Committee, which then may submit legislation during next session, said Sen. Karl Turner, R-Cumberland, and a member of the review committee.

Continuity will be easy since several members of the committee are members of the Judiciary Committee, he said.

In the end, both committees’ suggestions will have helped make the system better, but there still will be a ways to go, Turner said.

“This is like steering a giant oil tanker – you’ve got to get your hands on the tiller and it takes a while to turn things.

“So if people think the creation of two reports will affect the change that’s necessary, they’d be very naive. Some of what we’re talking about is practice and policy as opposed to law. That will take some time … and will require vigorous oversight,” Turner said.