Recent publicity about resentencing Sally Schofield, the Department of Human Services staffer acting as foster parent to Logan Marr, should remind us all that if the child hadn’t unexpectedly died from Schofield’s mistreatment, Logan and her younger sister would have continued to endure abuse. The public would have known nothing about it and the birth mother, Christy Marr, would have continued to be powerless to protect her children or get them back.

We learned from the “March for DHS Accountability” in 2003 of families from one end of the state to the other still suffering because their children had been abruptly removed. Impassioned families marched 88 miles in cold and snow to tell Gov. Baldacci of their pain and frustration.

He listened and promised to make changes. Reorganized into the Department of Health and Human Services, the bureaucracy attempted to right some of the past wrongs and some improvements were made. But the best intentions of the governor, legislators and parents have been unable to stop the abuses of power in the foster care system.

I still hear of children removed without reason and not returned, of parents denied information about and access to children, and of relentless retaliation against those parents who protest. Parents are often unable to afford legal counsel and DHHS uses confidentiality as a powerful means to prevent information from reaching the media.

Now a law restricting dissemination of DHHS information makes it even more difficult for victims of the system to get redress.

Joyce White, Stoneham

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