Unlike most states challenged by the child-welfare watchdog group Children’s Rights, Massachusetts has refused to settle a lawsuit alleging that the state has failed to meet its legal duty to some 8,000 foster children entrusted to its care. It was an unusual decision on the part of the Patrick administration to fight this battle in US District Court. But on balance, it was the right one.
There are few jobs in state government more important than finding safe homes and compassionate foster parents — usually on a temporary basis — for children who are abused or abandoned by their own families. Children’s Rights alleges that Massachusetts has bungled the job so badly that the state ranks ninth-worst among 52 jurisdictions in terms of the rate of maltreatment of children in foster care. Angelo McLain, the state commissioner of the Department of Children and Families, disputes many of the group’s criticisms and says the agency is eager to tell its side of the story to a federal judge.
Comments
It doesn't appear inentional, but reading between the lines of your editorial strongly suggests that "Children's Rights" may possibly be in need of more careful scrutiny above and beyond your editorial suggestion that Mass Children's Services let the courts decide the merits of the case rather than be bullied in a lamentably familiar manner into "settling".
The defense in this editorial of the Mass. Department of Children and Families was pathetic and in line with your previous coverage of the department, That includes, most recently, your allowing the DCF commissioner to write-off 40 (that's four-zero) dead foster kids in one year (2011) as "accidents." Well, even if so, they were accidents of kids who were in DCF's custody to keep safe. Doesn't that count? And how many were suicides? The Globe's lackidaisical coverage of the crisis in the Mass. child welfare system is exemplified by the fact that you spell the commissioner's name two different ways in the Editorial: Angelo McLean and Angelo McLain. In fact, they are both wrong: it's spelled Angelo McClain. If you can't get the name right, why should we think you got anything else correct?