CT Mirror Article 3/24/22

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A federal judge formally released the Department of Children and Families from three decades of court oversight Thursday, concluding that Connecticut once again can be entrusted with the care of its most vulnerable children.

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“We are very excited to be able to say that today, in 2022, we are a very different agency than we were in the late ’80s and early ’90s,” said Vannessa Dorantes, the eighth and final DCF commissioner to answer to federal overseers.

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In the view of plaintiff’s counsel, DCF has been transformed from a model of dysfunction to an exemplar of a child-protection agency focused on keeping children with relatives and out of institutions to the greatest degree possible.

Connecticut is committed to ensuring that incarcerated children, and children who reside in a juvenile justice facility, have access to the highest quality of educational programming available. This includes providing smooth transitions between a justice facility and a student's home school district, and correcting the communication gaps that occur in that process, which prevent this population of students from receiving high school diplomas timely. It also includes the ability to access consistent high school-based curriculum and programming across systems offering specialization and expertise, and holding the entire system accountable for the students.

Pursuant to Public Act 21-174, the Department of Children and Families (DCF) will now create a new administrative unit, that will oversee and monitor the education of children who reside in justice facilities or who are incarcerated, creating standardization, reentry processes, and quality assurance. This unit within DCF will provide educational oversight for all students on a high school diploma (non-GED) track in all justice facilities and will continue to assess for needed resources to meet the needs of this population.

The Department of Children and Families on Friday will officially launch a new unit designed to streamline investigations into education professionals accused of abuse or neglect, while also giving those cases a higher level of scrutiny.

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In a Thursday press release, the department said the shift is the result of discussions with school administrators, school staff and union representatives.

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As a result of those talks, “a major change is being made that we are confident will significantly improve the investigative process,” the release said. The department is also implementing a quicker turnaround time for the new education investigators.

The Department of Children and Families has been hiring 30 social workers per month over much of the last year, leading to a decrease in average caseloads, an increase in home visits and improvements in the pace and quality of child welfare investigations, according to the latest federal oversight report on the agency.

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The hiring initiative, funded by the legislature, has dropped the average roster of cases to about a dozen for each of the 1,107 DCF social workers. In past years it was not unusual for the workers to carry two and three times that amount, said Kenneth Mysogland, a former special investigator and DCF ombudsman who now heads the agency’s bureau of external affairs.

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But federal oversight will continue, and more improvement is needed in the “core areas” of DCF’s child protection work, said the twice yearly report’s author, court monitor Raymond Mancuso.

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The latest report from the federal monitor overseeing the state Department of Children and Families shows that the agency is not complying with five of 10 key measures that are part of a court supervised plan to improve services for children in its care.

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Despite this, a lawyer for the plaintiffs expressed optimism that the 30-year-old case will be closed in the next few years because the agency has been making progress, particularly in its hiring and caseload goals, even though it did not reach target levels during the period covered by the report.

DCF recommends that CAC volunteers always read these definitions prior to calling the Careline to ensure that we use their “buzzwords” in order to get the proper results for the children in our cases. 

CT Mirror Article 

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Da’ee McKnight got out of prison just days before his daughter graduated from high school. He was particularly excited to attend her graduation because it was the first time his daughter would see him as a free man. Today, McKnight works for a Bridgeport-based, non-profit called Family Re-Entry that helps former prisoners re-assimilate into their community and, most importantly, their families. McKnight specifically works with men, like himself, who have been estranged from their families and now must figure out how to meet the needs of their children.

Article in the Norwalk Hour on 2/8/19 about Vannessa Dorantes, Gov. Lamont's nominee for DCF Commissioner