At-risk families need more than one month of services

The Maine Department of Health and Human Services has proposed changes, due to federal issues and the budget shortfall, that may harm Maine’s most vulnerable children – those reported to Child Protective Services.

Currently, children reported to CPS and living with risks in families can receive stabilization services to reduce or eliminate their risk. As Maine’s “Alternate Response” provider in Androscoggin, Oxford and Franklin counties, Community Concepts has grave concerns that these chances will place more children needlessly at risk, and tragedies will occur because risky situations are unaddressed.

Last year, 3,848 CPS reports were sent to alternate response programs statewide. DHHS gives 40 percent of appropriate CPS referrals to alternate response programs, such as Community Concepts, and 60 percent to its own child protective workers.

Community Concepts has provided alternate response services since 1999, when the Maine Legislature created public policy to ensure children have supports to prevent unnecessary removal due to child protective concerns.

DHHS says, effective July 1, a social worker can only intervene for longer than one month if the child (1) has MaineCare health insurance and (2) has a diagnosable mental health illness or (3) the child is in jeopardy and the Department will move to take the child into state custody. We believe children will be ill-served by this reactive policy, and children will be unnecessarily harmed.

Here are some examples of recent referrals. If they were your children or grandchildren, would you want them to have just one month of assessment?

• A family with four children is in turmoil. The parents have severe substance abuse and mental health issues, and have been arrested in the past. The young children are routinely exposed to parental behaviors.

• A two-year-old child is out-of-control due to young mom’s inability to parent and discipline. The report to DHHS centered on potential drug use and domestic violence between the parents.

• Four children are suffering from constant lice and are not attending school. One caregiver is never home and another caregiver is unable to care for the children (due to untreated physical and mental deterioration). The caregivers also refuse to allow children to receive mental health services.

• A stepfather is reported for physical abuse to three children. The kids do not have mental health issues.

• The parents of a two and four-year-old use opiates daily. The father has gone to treatment several times and does not feel his drug use has impacted the children. The mother is at a shelter with the children. Our social worker is working with the family on psychiatric evaluations for the children, optometry appointments, and the mother’s mental health issues and maintaining parenting education services.

• A local mother allows her boyfriend to use excessive discipline on her preschooler, by doing something most in civil society would find contemptible. There are three children, all without behavioral health issues. The mother and boyfriend make changes, following social worker’s suggestions. If the social worker left this family at the end of one month, the boyfriend would still be disciplining in an abusive way.

DHHS has indicated it will not ask for additional funding to reduce child risks past the one-month assessment, because of the state’s budget deficit. So, I am asking for an investment in our most vulnerable children.

Alternate response programs need to be able to provide stabilization services past one month for children who do not have MaineCare and/or a mental health condition. I estimate $1 million is needed for just one additional month of stabilization services for the estimated 2,000 children who would otherwise only receive an assessment.

The governor’s supplemental budget does not take one penny from the rainy day fund.

It feels like a very rainy day when Maine’s children will be without community-based child protection.

Ten years ago, the Legislature created a policy to protect Maine’s children for child abuse and neglect and started the Alternate Response Program so legitimate child protective referrals could be assessed and stabilized.

Children in child welfare situations deserve more than just an assessment. We do not need more tragic deaths of infants and children to remind ourselves that Maine wants safety for its children.

Joan Churchill is the Family Services Director at Community Concepts in Auburn and South Paris.