DSS Responds To Charges

Massachusetts News
By Edward Oliver

December 1--In a telephone interview with Massachusetts News, Department of Social Services spokesman David Van Dam responded to a shot across the bow from Rep. Marie Parente, chair of the Foster Care Committee by saying, "We’re mandated to do a job, and I feel we do that job as mandated." 

Parente had fired her opening salvo at DSS in an interview with Massachusetts News at the Statehouse by saying she intends her committee to address what she described as the wholesale trampling of people’s "due process rights" by the agency.

Van Dam, when asked what is their mandate, replied simply, "We’re mandated to protect children." When reminded of Parente’s charge that their original mandate was to help nurture and preserve families first, he became more conciliatory. "We certainly want to keep the children at home with their families; but if for some reason the family is not able to take care of that child, then we have to think of what’s best for the child." 

Van Dam denied that the method DSS uses to decide the fate of children is to concentrate them in areas where the most federal money is available, repeating, "We do what’s best for the child." He explained that the new state adoption law, which will seek to terminate parental rights in twelve months, is "put into place to give a child a chance to move on with their life" – not to cash in on the new federal monetary incentives to speed up adoptions. 

Asked about Parente’s stated concern that people who have lost their children unjustly to DSS could lose them permanently under the new adoption law because it takes months to get the 72-hour fair hearing, Van Dam said a month wait for a 72-hour fair hearing "is not the norm, but it is possible." To his credit, Van Dam called back later to correct that, admitting that obtaining the 72-hour fair hearing does take longer than 72 hours.

Regarding the 72-hour fair hearing, Van Dam explained first that a 51A is the filing of an alleged abuse or neglect report; the 51B is the investigation portion that either supports the allegation or not. "So if we support it, families have 30 days to appeal in writing our decision." Asked how the family would know they can appeal, he replied, "They would get that information at that time. Any family that’s involved with DSS would get an information packet about how the system would work. They would get, like, a booklet of their rights…" He continued, "We would schedule a meeting with a fair hearing officer in the office that the case is out of, and if they are not happy with our decision, then they can appeal it to a Superior Court judge." He added that the DSS literature provided in the packet informs the person they have a right to have an attorney present at the hearing. 

MassNews: What is a "Fair Hearings" officer? A judge? 

DSS: A DSS attorney. 

MassNews: Can a child be removed from the home on the word of a caseworker?

DSS: Everyone’s involved in the case, the caseworker, the supervisor. We have regional area directors, so everyone’s involved in the decision-making process. It’s not just the caseworker that would say. You know, the caseworker may recommend something to the supervisor and then things are discussed. If there is a report, the social worker visits the home. The social worker then would decide and talk to the supervisor about the situation in that home. If it’s a non-emergency, then they would go out to the home and talk to neighbors, friends, family, just about what’s happening. We could be involved in a home for different reasons: possible domestic violence, abuse, neglect. We would prefer to keep children at home, so on a non-emergency basis, we would work with the family and provide services so that child could remain with the family.

MassNews: If they don’t want those services or say the services don’t apply to me, what happens? Do they take the child? 

DSS: It depends. It depends what the services are and what they are not willing to do.

[Van Dam wanted to make clear that courts make the decision to remove a child, not DSS, despite Parente’s allegation about a cozy relationship between DSS attorneys and judges.]

When we go to court to petition for custody, the court decides, and sometimes the court decides not to give us custody. We have the right to do a Care and Protection, which can be an emergency or non-emergency, but what we would do, let’s say it’s an emergency, and we needed to take temporary custody of that child, the next day we would go into court to petition for temporary custody. The court decides where that child goes.

MassNews: What happens to 51As filed against foster care providers? 

DSS: We have a department inside of the department itself called the Special Investigations Unit. It’s an institutional investigation. We have highly trained professional social workers who are dealing with these intakes and they’re either screened in or out, and then they’re investigated. It’s the same process as against everyone else but there are special investigators.

Defending DSS social workers from the Chair of Foster Care, Van Dam said, "Our social workers are professional, clinical workers; they’re highly trained and qualified." 

Asked about their qualifications, he said social workers undergo a comprehensive 30-day orientation "before they deal with any client." 

MassNews: What about a degree? 

DSS: Bachelor’s degrees in social work and human services are preferred but not required. 

MassNews: Do social workers who are not doctors or nurses strip children naked for inspection on home visits? 

DSS: No comment. [Van Dam would not respond to several pointed financial questions and did not want to respond to the charge that caseworkers "fudge" cases to keep the caseload up.]

MassNews: Are foster children sometimes molested and abused under DSS care?

DSS: Incidences in foster homes are a rarity.

MassNews: Does DSS accept reports of suspected child abuse from anonymous informants and act on them?

DSS: Anonymous reports are accepted and we investigate them as we would any other. Sometimes the reports are valid; sometimes they’re not. It’s up to our professional social workers through an investigative process to screen in or out those reports… if we’re involved with a family, there has been some sort of incident. We’re not in every home; we rely on the community-at-large to provide information to the department about any alleged abuse and neglect.

Asked if DSS sometimes refuses to hand over written records to an accused, he said people can always, without exception, get their records by requesting them in writing if they are involved in the case.

MassNews: What is the DSS definition of child abuse?

DSS: Abuse means the non-accidental commission of any act by a caretaker upon a child under the age of 18, which causes or creates a substantial risk of physical or emotional injury or constitutes a sexual offense under the laws of the Commonwealth.

MassNews: Does DSS consider spanking child abuse?

DSS: Spanking is not against the law, but what is against the law is abuse or neglect.

MassNews: Is a slap abuse?

DSS: I don’t want to quantify. I can’t answer that question.