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Subject: COURANT DCF Update- Morons per capita
Date: Jul 27, 2008 8:59 AM
http://www.topix.net/forum/source/hartford-courant/TIPBE9V317HACSC2K#...
Muffin Man wrote:
quoted text
Kathleen - what does this have to do with the story??
- - - - - - - - --
Kids are capital. A medium of exchange.
DCF is not about child welfare, but preserving their union and their
jobs. They
cover up known cases of child abuse in foster care, and they lie to
the courts to
abuse parents.
I was falsely arrested for being a terrorist, when my kids have Lyme:http://www.actionlyme.org/Schoen.htm
I have an international audience. My target audience is not the United
States. Last
week ActionLyme was visited over 100 times by people in Russia alone.
They're all pretty upset over the HIV vaccine failing the same way
LYMErix failed,
but that Yale lied about it to the FDA.
They're the same vaccine:http://www.actionlyme.org/080726.htm
YOU may be a moron, and the entire DHHS may be morons, but other
countries have
fewer morons per capita.
Kathleen M.
Dicksonhttp://www.actionlyme.org
===============================http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-ctdcf0727.artjul27,0,4864652.story
Officials: DCF Was Advised Of Problems 5 Years Ago
By JON LENDER | Courant Staff Writer
July 27, 2008
The state Department of Children and Families was told five years ago
of internal
weaknesses that it is only now trying to remedy after the May death of
an infant
under the foster care of a DCF employee, two key state officials say.
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and Child Advocate Jeanne Milstein
wrote Friday
to DCF Commissioner Susan Hamilton, saying they issued a joint report
in 2003 that
raised the very issues that Hamilton pledged this month to address
because of the
death of 7-month-old Michael Brown.
They wrote in their letter that they are "particularly troubled that
the same
systemic concerns you raised in response to Michael's death were
brought to
DCF's attention nearly five years ago" in a 2003 report titled
"Children
Left At Risk."
" Connecticut citizens, particularly our children, deserve to know why
— after
nearly five years — DCF has failed to adopt or even address the
critical measures
that we raised in our initial investigative report."
Milstein and Blumenthal asked some pointed questions — including when
Hamilton,
DCF's legal director before becoming commissioner in 2007, learned of
their
2003 report. They asked what DCF did in response and what it plans
now.
In response, DCF spokesman Josh Howroyd issued a statement: "The
commissioner
stands by her comments made last week including her statement that she
will continue
to hold herself, her staff and the system accountable for any and all
improvements
within our control that are needed to prevent this type of tragedy
from happening
again. We will provide the child advocate and the attorney general
with a specific
response to the concerns that they raise ... and we look forward to
working collaboratively
with them."
On July 17, Suzanne Listro, 42, a licensed foster parent now on leave
from her children's
services consultant position at DCF, was arraigned on a manslaughter
charge in the
May death of the 7-month-old placed in her home a week earlier. Listro
had been
investigated twice under allegations of child abuse that were never
substantiated.
Milstein and Blumenthal compared excerpts from their 2003 report to
statements by
Hamilton after Listro's arraignment.
•Hamilton said July 17: "Although the [past] allegations [against
Listro] were
not substantiated, the quality of those investigations, conducted by
our centralized
Special Investigations Unit (SIU), was substandard and unacceptable.
Accordingly,
it is unclear whether those allegations would have been substantiated
[by] a more
thorough investigation."
•The Milstein-Blumenthal report said in 2003: "The [DCF] must improve
its processes
of investigation and assessment. ... The number of times allegations
of abuse or
neglect are unsubstantiated, or substantiated and closed without ...
action ...
reflects a lack of comprehensiveness and depth in the family studies
undertaken
by department line staff."
In another example, Blumenthal and Milstein cited a statement in their
2003 report
that said DCF's "management structure and ... internal
communication ...
must be revamped" because they were marred by "the use of informal
communications,
and hand-me-down information."
They noted that Hamilton said on July 17 that she had "learned for the
first
time" after the baby's death "that unsubstantiated allegations against
DCF employees were not being entered into our automated database ...
and were being
maintained only in hard-copy, and this prevented the licensing staff
from having
access to this information as part of their assessment."
State Senate President Pro Tem Donald Williams, D-Brooklyn, who had
called for the
2003 report after discovering numerous failures to document child
abuse allegations,
said the issues in Friday's letter "need to be addressed. ... The
last
thing we want is to see problems swept under the rug. I would hope
that they would
reach out to the legislature."
Also in mid-July, a federal judge approved a settlement ordering the
state to recruit
more foster families to help troubled children and reduce the number
of non-family
group homes for abused youth. The state must add 850 foster family
homes over the
next two years.
Contact Jon Lender at jlen... at (no spam) courant.com.
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