In the wake of the Child Advocate’s report surrounding the overdose death of 10-month-old Marcello Meadows, the Committee on Children met Child Advocate Sarah Eagan and the Department of Children and Families (DCF) Commissioner Jody Hill-Lilly to discuss possible solutions moving forward.
Prior to the meeting, Senate Republican Leader Stephen Harding (Brookfield) and Sen. Lisa Seminara (R-Avon), Ranking Senator on the Committee on Children, released a statement calling for increased accountability and oversight in state agencies.
“This report shines a bright light, yet again, on several instances where state government has failed a child under its supervision,” read the statement. “This is the third report from the Child Advocate in a year which has pointed to systemic shortcomings.”
The death of Meadows is the latest in a string of recent scandals involving the Connecticut Department of Children and Families. A lawsuit was recently filed alleging rape of a 14-year-old girl at a Short Term Assessment and Respite (STAR) home in Harwinton, and a similar overdose death of a Stamford, CT child, Luis Rivera, was found to have resulted from DCF negligence in October 2023. Meadows marks the 11th death of children aged 1-5 from fentanyl poisoning in the state of Connecticut since 2020.
“What we want as lawmakers, and what the people of Connecticut deserve, is accountability,” reads the statement. “We must hear directly, as soon as possible, from state child protection officials on what steps they are taking to bring about that accountability and prevent future senseless tragedies.”
Hill-Lily has since released a list of changes DCF officials are looking to implement to assuage concerns surrounding the department’s care. Hill-Lily stated that DCF staff is assessing child safety in families where substance abuse, particularly fentanyl, is present, expanding access to fentanyl testing, ensuring coordinated communication and information sharing between the DCF and its service providers, working to address turnover among providers and providing more comprehensive assessments of fathers when case planning.
Hill-Lily also highlighted the fact that the DCF assembled a Fentanyl Senior Advisory Council in 2022, to review the impact of fentanyl.
“As a result, over the past 16 months, the Department has conducted approximately 745 multidisciplinary team meetings where substance use is known or suspected in a home where children are present, of which over 550 consults pertain specifically to fentanyl,” reads the statement. “Focusing our efforts on the high-risk nature of the 0-5 population is a priority in my administration.”
At today’s Committee on Children meeting, Hill-Lily was questioned by Rep. Anne Dauphinais (R-Killingly) on her thoughts on SB 126, a proposed bill that would mandate all DCF wellness checks involving families with parents who are known drug users be done in person.
“Do you believe and support that this would help with the fentanyl deaths that we’ve had occurred?,” asked Dauphinais. “It seems very specific to have more eyes on, in those cases, are you supportive of that?”
“I’m very supportive of the bill and part of the reason I’m supportive of the bill is it comports with our practice,” responded Lily-Hill. “We expect for our visits to be in person and they have been in person so we have no disagreement with the bill because it already comports with what we’re doing.”
Eagan, who released the initial report on Marcello, was also present and elaborated on the recommendations outlined in her report. Eagan spoke in defense of Lily-Hill’s testimony, stating that all evidence has shown that in-person visits are being conducted by the DCF at the rates that they ought to be. She did, however, say that she believes that the 80% of telework stipulation secured by DCF employees via collective bargaining has led to a noticeable decline in case supervision.
“I wanted to comment on this bill {SB 126], that I think the issue is broader than the conducting of home visits in person,” said Eagan. “In Marcello’s case, he was visited in person. I think however, there is an opportunity… that the legislature work with the department to examine the impact of widespread telework outside just the visits on child safety planning.”
Eagan said that she believes the large shift of frontline care providers in the DCF from in-person to telework can’t be considered “impact neutral.”
“We are in active discussion, very constructive, with the DCF on these issues,” said Eagan. “But if there’s an opportunity in the legislature this session, to look at limits or anticipate maybe the need for future limits on telework in frontline safety work, I would say that is a strong recommendation we have.”
Eagan also shared her belief that high workforce turnover has negatively impacted the standard of care at the hands of the DCF. She also shared that the impact is felt by the service providers they work with. In a November panel meeting with the DCF, Eagan said that they reported a workforce turnover “upwards of 30%.”
“It is imperative that we understand, collectively, with the department, what changes may need to be made going forward, to address the impact of that work for children like Marcello and their families,” said Eagan. “So [while] I appreciate the bill being raised, I wanted to make the point that I think it’s an extremely important issue that is broader.”
Sen. Seminara asked Eagan why she believed it necessary, and recommended in her report, that there be changes made to the State Advisory Council (SAC). The SAC is a state council that serves to provide “oversight and advisement” to the DCF, per its own website.
“There’s an opportunity there, I think, to strengthen membership, to make sure that its responsibilities align with responsibilities outlined in federal law,” said Eagan. She said that she believes it would be the “natural body” to receive regular reports from the DCF in regard to the well-being of the children under its care and to ensure that the DCF’s data and casework are reviewed.
“We do think there’s an opportunity to look at membership, not to supplant folks that are there but to add to,” said Eagan.
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DCF has been failing children for decades upon decades. When will someone step up for the Children?
Foster parents are not being screened for drug use prior to becoming fosters. The foster gets paid to take in children. Sounds like a nice incentive for an addict doesn’t it? In a conversation with my foster care support worker, I was told that he wondered why some of those filthy homes were even being licensed. I’ll tell you why! Because DCF needs those foster homes. They need to keep their billions in Federal funding rolling in.
DCF consistently removes children from good families and returns other children to bad families. It is my belief they return children to bad situations so they can create more dysfunctional people for the system. There are countless stories from good families not only in CT but the entire country. There is nowhere for anyone to turn to truly file a complaint against DCF and they are extremely difficult to sue. If you’re reading this and always thought DCF was for the children, you have been terribly misinformed.
To make matters worse DCF falsifies records and villianizes the good folks. Maybe it’s a power trip but no one questions the almighty DCF!
Guardian ad litems do absolutely nothing for these children, they simply follow DCFs agenda, say nothing at meetings and just take the free money. Let me be clear. THEY DO NOT WORK FOR THESE CHILDREN. My Grandchild’s GAL never returned a single one of my phone calls. I have heard story after story about these GALs. Where’s the oversight for them as well? Right, nowhere.
How about asking these social workers why they leave DCF? There is a very high turnover and there is also a reason. It’s my belief that they discover the evil of corrupt DCF and want no part of it. They came to help children…but that’s not what DCF does.
How about actually having a REAL DCF oversight committee or person, not the ombudsman put into place to make it look like oversight. Trust me it’s not. That’s all smoke and mirrors. I had wanted to make a complaint but was told by a Foster Support worker that I had to be VERY careful about how I worded things with the Ombudsman, that I probably shouldn’t make a complaint at all. Why? Because, “you don’t want to piss off DCF.” There are foster care support workers in place but mine made it very clear that there’s a fine line and that they do support DCF. They don’t work for DCF but they do. There truly is nowhere for anyone to turn to make a complaint against DCF and have it actually investigated.
I was told by my attorney that I angered DCF because I fought for my Grandchild and had been too vocal. Too vocal about wanting to protect my Grandchild? One would think DCF would have been proud. But they weren’t.
The reason there are so many bad things happening to children in DCF care is because DCF truly doesn’t care. It’s all about the money. They have a lot of programs that make it look like they care and even hard core foster parents that speak for DCF. Some of these homes have multiple children, boy are they raking in the bucks!
How about asking the children where THEY want to be? To this day, my Grandchild begs to come home. They had never bonded with the biological parent to begin with and after 3 years of being loved and cared for were sent somewhere they didn’t and still don’t want to be. DCF has to occasionally do a reunification to keep some positivity to their records. To make it look like they are doing good things.
Simply requiring DCF to do in-home visits is a joke. They were already doing that before covid and children were dying in their care back then too. This agency needs to be completely overhauled from the top down and held accountable. Courts, judges, GALs and attorneys. They’re all in bed with each other.
DCF has destroyed many many lives and will continue to do so until they are stopped. ENOUGH. Defund the almighty DCF and create real oversight and accountability. I’ll be working on my book and waiting for a true hero to step up and actually do something about the corrupt and evil DCF.