Boston Globe Letters: “Can we get a grip on protecting kids?”

On October 10, the Boston Globe published several letters to the editor regarding DCF and the courts, including the following one from Deputy Chief Counsel Michael Dsida:

GOVERNOR BAKER has rightly urged the state Department of Children and Families to keep children safe (“Baker moves to ‘keep kids safe,’ ” Page A1, Sept. 28). DCF, however, must balance the risks of keeping children at home with the trauma that removal causes children, along with other risks of harm that some foster placements present.

As DCF Commissioner Linda S. Spears noted, child protection and family preservation aren’t competing goals. When provided with appropriate supports, DCF-involved parents can meet the needs of their children. Foster care, though sometimes necessary, should be reserved for children whose families cannot meet their needs. The trauma that DCF placements cause children — including removal from siblings, extended family, and community — is too significant to use foster care in any other way.

The law reflects the importance of child protection andfamily preservation. Under state law, while “the health and safety of the child is of paramount concern,” foster care may be used “only when the family [or] resources available . . . are unable to provide necessary care and protection.”

As Governor Baker noted, DCF caseloads must also decline. In addition, DCF should provide more services to families, to meet what the Child Welfare League of America has called the agency’s “dual obligations — to protect children and . . . respect the right of families to be free from unwarranted state intervention.”

Michael Dsida
Deputy chief counsel
Children and Family Law Division
Committee for Public Counsel Services
Boston