This commentary is by the Rev. Stephen G. Berry of Graniteville, a longtime member of the Vermont Citizens Advisory Board to the Vermont Department for Children and Families.
An open letter to Vermont’s Legislature and citizens: I am writing this letter to urge support for the bill H.265, which would establish and fund the Office of Child, Youth and Family Advocate.
I have committed most of my life to teaching and supporting youth and families in Vermont in a variety of roles. I am a graduate of UVM with a bachelor of science degree with a focus on special education, and I also received a master’s in education while I was engaged in my first job as an educator at the now-closed juvenile detention facility, the Weeks School. I taught there for 2.5 years just prior to the closure of the Weeks School.
I then founded and became the executive director of Family Life Services, a therapeutic foster care agency which I led for 21 years. The agency averaged 60 youths daily who were placed in foster care and served by 100 approved therapeutic foster homes and a staff of 21. I am an ordained minister and pastor a church. I was a bus driver for seven years to students in the Northfield/Roxbury/Montpelier area. I also have four children and 13 grandchildren.
I was asked by the Department for Children and Families to serve on the Vermont Citizens Advisory Board in 1995, the year of its inception. I am thankful for the honor and opportunity to have served on that board ever since.
In 2014, the citizens advisory board was empaneled by Gov. Shumlin to review and investigate two child deaths of children under DCF care. The two children who died were 2-year-old Dezirae Sheldon and a 14-month-old boy named Peighton Geraw.
The empaneled board took a deep dive into DCF policies, procedures and the case files of both children and their families and those responsible in DCF for the care and protection of Dezirae and Peighton. This was a difficult process for all those involved on this board, and it was shocking and heart-wrenching to review both of these child fatalities and know that both of these deaths could have and should have been prevented.
It was a difficult process to go through, but the board kept its focus on trying to understand how these two deaths occurred and to evaluate how these two deaths could have been avoided. We reviewed what changes were necessary going forward to the systems/protocols both within DCF but also within the legal, medical and enforcement systems to ideally eliminate the chance that these events could ever happen again.
The result of the committee’s work was a 26-page report that outlined a series of recommendations, improvements and changes in protocols and policies. One of the main issues found in the investigation was that DCF training and policy had focused on family reunification as being the ultimate goal for families in DCF care.
The trauma that children experienced as a result of being removed from their families was placed on an almost equal basis as ongoing child abuse. This created a culture within DCF and in the child welfare and family court system that the removal of children from their biological homes was tantamount to child abuse.
In a Vermont Public Radio report by Taylor Dobbs on Nov. 21, 2014, “The Vermont Citizens Advisory Board asserts that ‘the child welfare and family court systems in Vermont reflect a culture which excessively prioritizes reunification as the outcome to pursue, thus influencing practices and decisions.’”
I believe that this culture of “excessive prioritization of reunification as the outcome to pursue” for those working with youth and children contributed to the placement of both Dezirae and Peighton in homes that were clearly unsafe and extremely dysfunctional and led to both of their deaths.
It is clearly in the best interests of children for our communities to provide support and assistance to families and children for those able and desirous of support and assistance to receive it. However, DCF’s primary responsibility is for the protection of children from abuse, neglect and harm.
The desire to reunify and rehabilitate families is an honorable goal and it should be pursued with great vigor. However, adults have the ability to choose their behaviors and to address their weaknesses and dysfunction; children unfortunately have no choice over the good and bad choices their parents make, nor the level of their parents’ health or dysfunction. Wanting to help parents who are struggling with drug addiction and many other mental and emotional dysfunctions is a great goal to work toward, but not at the cost of vulnerable children being left in dysfunctional homes with dysfunctional adults.
Those who work in DCF and in our legal systems are tasked with the protection of our most vulnerable of citizens, our children. It is imperative that they ensure and make decisions that protect and keep our children safe. DCF and the courts are their voice, for they have no others when they are living with dysfunctional parents and caregivers.
Someone has to make those very difficult decisions to protect and keep Vermont’s children safe. Children have a right to have a life that can be peaceful, safe, vibrant, joyful and filled with hope and love.
Recently, at my last Vermont Citizens Advisory Board meeting, we were informed for the first time of the alleged abuse that took place at Woodside Correctional Facility. As I read the articles in the press and the federal lawsuit that has been filed on behalf of the young people allegedly abused at Woodside, I was horrified once again.
If these allegations are true, then it seems that DCF has learned nothing from those tragic deaths eight years ago in 2014. Nor has the hard work of many wonderful people who were empaneled in 2014 to come up with the 26-page report — which was aimed at preventing the abuse of children from happening again — been followed and implemented.
Obviously, human services, like all fields, are made up of humans who do their best in their lives and their jobs and in their families. As shocked as I was at the last citizens advisory board meeting that staff and supervisors at Woodside allegedly made choices that could have caused abuse to children in state custody, I was also shocked by something else.
What also troubled me greatly was that while DCF was shutting down Woodside, there was never one mention of the alleged abuses that are now being heard or will be heard in court. These allegations are very serious, and yet the citizens advisory board was never informed of them nor asked for our advice.
I am now thoroughly convinced that DCF cannot — nor should it be allowed to — supervise itself. The citizens advisory board, unless empaneled by the governor, is simply an advisory board. It cannot oversee what is not shared, and clearly DCF chooses what it wants to share and what it wants to withhold from the board.
There needs to be outside oversight and legal authority to hold DCF accountable to the citizens of Vermont.
I believe that the Office of Child Youth and Family Advocate is vital to the protection of Vermont’s vulnerable children, youth and families. DCF presently is a closed system. It is a system made up of hundreds of hard-working, well-meaning state employees who are committed to doing their jobs to the best of their abilities. Every district has a district director. Every caseworker has a supervisor, and if workers do not agree with a supervisor’s decision, there are few choices left to them other than going over their supervisor’s head, which of course potentially risks their own professional future and employment.
The Office of Child Youth and Family Advocate would empower those in this office to answer and respond to concerns by families and children. It would give children and families in Vermont a voice when they have concerns with DCF.
The Child and Family Advocate would be outside the DCF power structure and funding structure. There is something very healthy about knowing that, as you make decisions, life-changing decisions, there is the possibility that someone outside of the closed system you work in could be looking at your work and your decisions if needed. Knowing that, when they do look at your work and decisions, you are aware that they will either be applauding your decisions or challenging them.
Just knowing this can help workers to make better decisions and to sometimes fight for what is really in the best interest of children. In fact, it opens up the closed political nature of DCF to even DCF workers, who might need someone to intervene on the behalf of the children and families they are working hard to help, but have a supervisor who they feel are making decisions that endanger children.
Not all supervisors and leaders make good decisions. Some make decisions that end up in the death of the innocent. That was the case in 2014 and it can be the case today. It is time to fund this very needed position to ensure oversight and intervention in the lives of Vermont’s children and families.
Please, I encourage you to vote in favor of funding this office.
