Change never comes easy, but, at last, DHS is listening

Everyone knows bad news makes the front page before good news does, especially if the bad news is sudden and awful, while the good news comes in increments. Thus is the story of the reform of the Child Protective System in Maine.

The bad news was the death of 5-year-old Logan Marr at the hands of her foster mother. It stayed newsworthy when shocking elements of the story came out, like how minor the reasons were that Logan was removed from her mother in the first place, and how clear were the warnings that something was wrong in the foster home. One such warning: Logan heard complaining about being hurt by her foster mother during a home video of a supervised visit. But that warning and others were ignored by DHS.

Public protests by parents who claimed their families had suffered in similar ways and professionals who backed them up also got a fair amount of coverage. But what has happened since?

Things have gotten better, slowly.

Six years after the death of Logan Marr, there are one-third fewer kids in the system. Nearly three times as many foster children are with kin instead of strangers. The institutions, or group homes, – the worst form of care – that used to house 28 percent of the foster care population now have only 18 percent. And people who protested in the past, report that they have been treated with more respect and helped more than ever before by DHHS workers.

One reason things have changed is that the Bangor Daily News took our concerns seriously. Editorial Page Editor Todd Benoit met with protesters and professionals who supported their concerns. An editorial he wrote said that our demands were reasonable. Others started listening, most important, Gov. Baldacci. After that two things happened that led to change, one more directly than the other.

First, committees were set up to work towards reform and several of us from the Maine Alliance for DHS Accountability and Reform were invited to participate. I spent three years driving to Augusta and sitting through meetings, some as long as four hours. Not much came if it. The committees were top heavy with insiders protecting their turf. Great ideas came out of the discussions, only to be voted down in the end. To me, the greatest benefit of participating was getting to know who really cared about kids and who used phrases like “I’m passionate about kids” as code for “I could lose money on this deal.”

But there also was new leadership at the top of what is now DHHS. Gov. Baldacci named Jack Nicholas to run DHHS. He brought in Jim Beougher, a quiet thoughtful man who moved here from Michigan when he could have retired, to fix child welfare. He probably knew he’d have a target on his back, but he came anyway.

The financial stakeholders who blocked any good ideas from getting out of the committees were livid when they learned that reform was going to happen anyway. I was at that meeting. It was not pretty. They had no choice but to lay low for a while, but they are back with a vengeance. No wonder they’re upset. Their group homes are emptying out, and some are closing, as they should.

They have met with lawmakers and reporters, even the governor, to spread scare stories and claim that Jim cares more about “the numbers” than about kids.

That is not the Jim Beougher I know. I saw Jim in action when I went to a Family Team Meeting with a friend of mine whose grandchildren were in the system. Coincidentally, Jim had chosen that meeting to attend as he was getting the lay of the land in Maine. He sat quietly through most of the meeting, but finally asked a question of the mother of the children.

“Did you know your son was autistic when DHS got involved in your life?”

She answered that they had just gotten the diagnosis the week before the agency intervened.

“That must have been such a difficult time for you,” he said.

And with that, humanity was back on the table. Before long the tone of the meeting was, How can we help? instead of: Are you good enough to get your kids back?

That is one family who won’t be claiming that Jim Beougher is all about the numbers. They would say, as I do, he is all about heart.

Mary Callahan, R.N., is an adoptive parent and organizer of the Maine Alliance for DHS Accountability and Reform (MADAR).