A working group tasked with recommending changes to the way the state decides when to remove children from their families made a first round of recommendations to lawmakers on Wednesday.
But instead of staking out a clear path forward, the group’s report – and its reception – underscored the uncertainty over how to reform Vermont’s overwhelmed child protective system.
Sen. Dick Sears, the chairman of the Joint Legislative Child Protective Oversight Committee, bluntly told Vermont’s chief administrative judge, Brian Grearson, who presented the group’s report, that the document didn’t do enough to address Vermont’s drug epidemic.
“This report seems to be designed for Ward and June,” the Bennington Democrat said, referencing the stereotypical suburban parents in the 1950s sitcom Leave it to Beaver. “And I don’t think it’s reflective of the crisis we face today.”
Grearson responded that the group was at a loss for immediate fixes and trying to take the longview.
“This is where we are in the process,” the judge said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do,”
The Legislature has set aside $7 million from a settlement with tobacco companies to reform the state’s CHINS (Children in Need of Care and Supervision) process over the course of several years. To start the process, it convened a working group with representatives from the judiciary, Defender General’s office, State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs, and the Department for Children and Families.
Wednesday’s report represents the group’s preliminary recommendations for how to spend the first $3.75 million. A follow-up is due out in another year.
The report recommends piloting home-visiting services to help get families support before the state’s child protective services ever become involved, as well as and an alternative dispute resolution system to mediate concerns about a child’s welfare outside the courts. It also recommends investing in 12 “peer navigators” – parents who themselves once interacted with the state’s child protective system tasked with helping parents whose own children could be taken away.
The report also recommends taking a deep-dive into the CHINS court process. Grearson said there have long been discussions about restructuring the roles and responsibilities of those involved in the legal system. Separately, parent advocates recently called for changes in the way attorneys are assigned to parents and children in CHINS cases as part of a larger package of reforms.
“I don’t come in to this part of the report with a preconceived notion. But it is something that has certainly been raised over the years,” Grearson told lawmakers.
And finally, the report called on policymakers to go on a statewide listening tour to get input from people on the ground. It was one of the few recommendations no lawmakers pushed back on.
Outgoing Sen. Peg Flory, R-Rutland, expressed skepticism at the peer navigator model.
“What’s going to stop them from teaching them how to play the system?” she said.
And Sen. Anthony Pollina, P/D-Washington, said he worried the report didn’t do enough to address prevention.
“It seems heavily weighted toward navigating the system. And not so much skewed toward preventing people from being in the system in the first place,” he said.
Even Deputy Defender General Marshall Pahl, a member of the working group, said the body hadn’t yet reached a consensus on the issues. The report, he said, was better characterized as “where the discussion stands at this point.”
But he emphasized changes were urgently needed.
“There’s no adjustments that could be made to our system – no sort of minor tweaks to the system – that could allow the system to adequately process the number of cases that are coming through it right now,” he said.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont’s child protective system needs fixing, but path forward is unclear.