The day after the release of a searing study of the near-fatal starvation of a baby placed by the state with a relative, a pressing question has emerged: Are problems revealed by the abuse of a child under the noses of Connecticut’s child-protection agency fixable?
Joette Katz, commissioner of the Department of Children and Families, called several newspaper editorial boards Tuesday and Wednesday, including The Courant’s, to insist they are fixable, and said the errors in this case don’t indicate a systemic failure — disputing a major point in the child advocate’s 64-page case review.
Two managers were suspended without pay for three weeks and the lead social worker in the case was suspended without pay for four weeks. A fourth worker, a manager, was allowed to retire.
Many child-protection advocates on Wednesday were questioning why no was fired.
Katz defended the action.
“The two managers, in particular, fell on their swords and acknowledged their role, their responsibility and their failure in this case,” Katz said. “That acceptance allows the agency to have trust and confidence in them going forward.”
After reviewing the events leading to the near-fatal injuries of Dallas C. during the five months he spent with Crystal Magee in Groton last spring through fall, Child Advocate Sarah Eagan concluded the errors and missed opportunities suggest deeper, “cultural” fissures in DCF’s practices.
“This was a terrible case. It was bad practice, all the way around. I offer no excuses and only my apology,” said Katz said in an interview Wednesday afternoon.
But she said her trust in the large majority of DCF’s 3,400 employees remains intact, and that the department won’t abandon its focus on placing children with relatives whenever possible.
She said in most instances, children are faring much better when living with people they know.
“We’ve seen wonderful outcomes — but that doesn’t mean there aren’t challenges. And we always have to assure safety in every placement we do,” Katz said.
Eagan stressed that she wasn’t saying that DCF should stop “kinship” placements, only that they be done safely. She has requested the files in a least a dozen cases where safety may be an issue.
It’s not the outcome of a case that determines whether a problem is systemic, “it’s the flawed practices that led or contributed to the outcome,” Eagan said Wednesday.
One criticism has been that DCF has become obsessed with placing children with relatives.
Katz denied this, saying: “This is not about pushing numbers or achieving arbitrary benchmarks. Historically, when DCF had a bad outcome, everything would change. The next week, 500 children would be removed. We don’t do that. We know that wasn’t good for the kids.”
Dallas was placed in the Magee household without an assessment of whether the couple was able to care for him, the child advocate’s report found.
In addition, the couple lied about their backgrounds on their foster-care application. DCF had previously confirmed an instance of child neglect against Crystal Magee, and her husband had a criminal record — but the inconsistencies on the foster-care application were never challenged.
The couple also never completed the required training, and were never licensed as foster parents during the entire time the boy was with them, according to the child advocate’s report. While rules surrounding placements with relatives are somewhat looser than the requirements for traditional, or “stranger” foster-care families, Katz still must formally waive the prohibitions against caregivers with criminal or child-abuse records. However, in the Groton case, waiver applications were never submitted to Katz, according to the case review.
But there are clear signs in the months after Dallas was rescued from the Magee household and Crystal Magee was charged with felony child-abuse by the Groton police, that Katz herself was surprised by actions taken, or not taken, by DCF front-line caseworkers and supervisors.
On Feb. 19, 2016, four months after Dallas was removed from the Magee home and rushed the next morning to a hospital with severe malnourishment, broken bones and burns, Katz sent a memo to the senior leadership of the sprawling $794 million-a-year agency.
“It would appear that I was under the mistaken belief that a review of the [Dallas] case was conducted by regional staff,” Katz said in the email. “In reading [further case summaries] I was alarmed, and upon further review, appalled. I have asked human-resources to conduct a thorough review …”
She continued: “I have to be able to rely on quality assurance/quality improvement workers in the region to advise human-resources and me of its findings and recommendations. If that is too onerous or a better system should be considered/invoked, I’m happy to consider it, but when this process falls through the cracks, I lose confidence in our ability to monitor ourselves. And frankly, that scares me more than anything …”
The occasion for the memo was an inquiry from The Courant after Crystal Magee was formally charged by the Groton police.
Katz’s admission is telling because during legislative hearings last year, Katz strongly resisted attempts by Republican lawmakers and some advocates to increase outside oversight of DCF, and appoint an independent ombudsman.
Katz repeated that she has confidence that her staff “understands that safety is paramount — but some things are so important that they bear repeating. That’s what I do with my memos. I’m reinforcing policies that have already been delivered.”
In August, eight months after Dallas was removed from the Magee home and following five visits in which the DCF social worker never managed to see Dallas awake, Katz wrote another alarming memo, this one to the managers of the regional office responsible for Dallas’ care.
“It has come to my attention that there may be several families for whom waivers for criminal and child-protection histories were not done prior to placement, and that your office is of the opinion … these waivers will not be done until the families are up for the renewal of their [foster-care] license.
“This is incorrect,” Katz wrote to the senior managers. “All placements that require a waiver, but did not get one, must be examined immediately. There must be a careful assessment of the current situation and consensus from all that there are no outstanding safety factors resulting from the criminal or child-protection histories. It should also be documented that this is the most appropriate placement for the children.”
Eagan said that it is stunning, given DCF’s focus on placing children with relatives whenever possible, that these fundamental obligations had to be reaffirmed — in the aftermath of egregious lapses in Dallas’ case.
The child’s ordeal also revealed that DCF employees failed to take action after outside counselors, who were attempting to visit the home to help with Dallas’ development, were reporting that they were barred access and that Crystal Magee was refusing to cooperate.
In one of a series of recommendations at the end of her case review, Eagan said DCF should have a rule requiring caseworkers to immediately contact DCF lawyers when a caregiver like Magee refuses to allow the child to receive support services.
In addition to sweeping re-examinations and reforms of its practices and its ability to monitor itself and gauge the quality of its work, DCF should be regularly advising the juvenile court on the progress of placements of vulnerable children in relative households — another basic step that Eagan said was missed in Dallas’ case.
