This story originally appeared in the Oct. 25, 1992 edition of The Boston Globe.
The state Department of Social Services, under fire for mishandling foster child cases, is an agency riddled with problems, from gross mismanagement and poor communication by managers to a lack of vision and little support from Gov. Weld, according to advocates and others in the child welfare system.
Although many critics have focused on the agency’s lack of resources to handle a burgeoning number of child abuse reports, others familiar with DSS operations say its woes extend far beyond simple issues of money and staffing.
“They will tell you the issue is money. I don’t believe it,” said Stephen Bing, executive director of the Massachusetts Advocacy Center. “When DSS was created, it had a $90 million-plus budget; today it’s about $400 million. That’s a growth industry.”
“To be sure, every agency could use more resources, but that’s not the fundamental problem,” he said. “The fundamental problem is vision and leadership and translating that vision into the field.”
That view was bolstered last week by a new report by a private consulting company that found that DSS is suffering such a severe “organizational breakdown” that the number of children who are abused or who could die will increase unless drastic changes are made immediately.
The report said DSS has a lack of management direction and oversight, poorly thought-out initiatives, and no coordination with other state agencies.
Imminent collapse of the agency, the report’s authors found, is being averted mainly through the hard work and commitment of its social workers and staff.
The report, compiled by Andersen Consulting for Gov. Weld’s Special Commission on Foster Care, while taking an unprecedented in-depth look at the agency, echoes criticisms heard throughout the agency’s 12-year history. The commission, appointed to study the state’s child welfare system, is expected to present its full report in January.
Said Dr. Charles Welch, a member of the Weld commission and a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital: “We’re dealing with old issues here. Funding cuts in the last year may have exacerbated the problem, but to say that they are the cause of the problem would serve the public poorly.”
Welch sees three main problems with DSS: a misguided mission under which the agency places the rights of parents ahead of those of children; faulty criteria for returning a child to his birth parents based only the “current fitness” of the parents, regardless of their history; and the absence of someone in the system who is “completely responsible for the child’s safety and well-being.”
“We have not had a good, uniform system of tracking children, of recordkeeping and accountability,” Welch said. “Consequently, children can be abused repeatedly, and it sometimes is hard to recognize that abuse with the current system.”
Others complain that DSS is an “agency out of control,” one that tramples individuals’ rights without being held accountable for its actions.
“The major problem is the lack of due process and lack of accountability,” said Rep. Marie Parente (D-Milford), a former foster child who has been a champion of foster care issues during her seven terms in the Legislature.
“It’s a very totalitarian kind of agency,” Parente said. “We’ve given too much power to an agency that has run amok.”
Problems at the agency, while longstanding, were spotlighted this year by public outrage at the agency’s handling of two foster care cases in which children were removed from the foster homes where they had lived most of their lives.
Earlier this month, DSS Commissioner Gerald W. Robinson resigned, effective Nov. 1, saying he did not have Weld’s support.
Two weeks ago, DSS social workers filed suit against the state, alleging that their caseloads are excessively high.
And earlier this year, the state comptroller temporarily placed the agency in fiscal receivership while he investigated allegations that agency budget officers illegally shifted expenses from one fiscal year to another to cover up deficits. The investigation found the agency illegally used $5.2 million in 1992 finances to pay 1991 bills.
DSS was created when the Division of Child Guardianship was separated from the Welfare Department by the Legislature in 1978, following an epidemic of child abuse deaths. The new department opened its doors in 1980.
DSS is responsible for providing more than a dozen family services ranging from foster and day care and protecting abused children, to help for the elderly, disabled and homeless. But as reports of child abuse began to jump in the 1980s, the agency became more crisis-driven, with an emphasis on protective services.
“When DSS was created, it was to be a family service agency,” said Bing, who serves on an ad hoc committee organized by the Children’s Advocacy Network and the Statewide Advisory Council to the Office for Children, which will recommend a wholesale restructuring of DSS. “For a lot of reasons, it has gradually cut back that mission and become a protective service agency. As a result, there are things that they are statutorily required to do that they don’t do.”
Bing said the committee will recommend that DSS be divided into two agencies -- one responsible for enforcing child protection laws and another charged with providing services to families.
To be sure, money and staffing are problems. As reports of abuse increased from about 82,000 in 1990 to projections of nearly 90,000 this year, the agency’s budget was cut by $10.3 million in roughly the same period, to $395 million.
Although its budget this year is $410 million, the agency has cut workers and closed offices.
In the past 18 months, the agency has eliminated 215 social worker positions at a time when its caseworkers are handling an average of 22 cases each -- four more than department standards recommend, and more than a half-dozen over what national standards suggest.
In addition, the department has lost 350 administrative and management positions, and closed 14 of its 40 area offices and all six of its regional offices.
DSS completes about 500 adoptions a year -- just one-third of the referrals it receives. Agency officials say they do not have enough staff to move faster. There are about 80 lawyers handling 11,000 care and protection petitions.
The budget approved in July included $2.3 million for 77 new positions, including lawyers and secretaries, but to date, none of those positions has been filled.
Exacerbating the agency’s problems is the fact that societal changes are forcing caseworkers to deal with more complicated social issues, more severely dysfunctional families, and more serious cases of abuse complicated by drug and alcohol abuse, child welfare specialists say.
Many observers agree with Welch that essential to turning the agency around is changing its mission from a focus on the rights of birth parents to the protection of children.
Privately, a Weld administration official said the governor and Charles D. Baker, the newly appointed secretary of health and human services -- which oversees DSS -- are leaning toward a two-pronged focus: family preservation and child protection.
“Sooner or later, a decision has to be made that the family is too far gone and you need to get the kids out of there permanently,” the official said. “Our feeling is that the interests of the child should get a little more weight.”
However, some say the Weld administration isn’t committed to child welfare issues, and that Robinson was a scapegoat.
“There has to be a better way to approach this problem,” said Rep. Kevin Fitzgerald (D-Jamaica Plain), chairman of the Legislative Children’s Caucus. “It isn’t just the commissioner’s fault, and getting rid of him doesn’t solve the problem.”
“I don’t think child welfare has been close to a priority in this administration,” Bing said. “When they appointed Gerald Robinson, the governor didn’t even come out of his office to swear him in. Now you can make too much of symbols, but that says something to me. Where is their commitment? Now they have a commitment because of the thrashing they’re taking in the press.”
Social workers in both the private and public sectors also are disappointed in the governor.
“If the governor really had a commitment to child welfare, then when caseloads went up, he would have asked the Legislature for more money to hire more social workers like the courts ordered,” said Carol Brill, executive director of the state chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.
Weld spokesman Ray Howell disputed criticism of the governor, saying Weld’s appointment of the special commission and his shifting of $30 million during the past year into child welfare programs -- not all of which are in DSS -- are evidence of his commitment to children.
As to the governor’s vision for the agency, Howell said Weld does not want to make sweeping changes until the commission’s report is done.
Other changes aimed at addressing some DSS problems are in the works. Legislation to streamline procedures, set guidelines for the removal and return of children and strengthen the rights of children age 12 and older are in the pipeline.
Despite past failed attempts at renovations, Welch is hopeful change will happen this time around.
“First, what the commission is doing is unprecedented in terms of its depth, and I think its recommendations will be unprecedented in their depth,” he said. “Second, we have an administration that is really receptive and interested in accomplishing positive and lasting change, and we have a moment of public awareness that is unlike anything we’ve had in decades. I don’t think we’ve seen the top of this wave.”