DCF: Lawmakers want DCF to bring children home - Courant.com

DCF: Lawmakers want DCF to bring children home - Courant.com


HARTFORD — For the second time in two years, the legislature is asking state child-protection officials to bring home the more than 350 troubled Connecticut children in out-of-state treatment centers and either reunite them with their families, or get them into foster care, group homes, or in-state residential programs.

A 2009 law required the Department of Children and Families to produce a plan by the summer of that year to bring the children home, with a goal of doing it by 2011. In a July 2009 e-mail recently obtained by The Courant, a top DCF official says that DCF didn't follow the mandate because the legislature didn't give the department more money to implement a plan. DCF's budget is about $900 million a year.

A new bill now on its way to the legislature's human-services committee would direct DCF to bring all the children home by 2013, with the exception of the outside placements endorsed by the juvenile court.

DCF Commissioner Joette Katz, who took the helm in January, said Thursday that this time the agency would work "to bring a significant number of the children home.''

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Katz said she would accomplish this by reallocating money within the agency budget and by beginning to channel some of the $35 million spent annually on the outside placements back into Connecticut.

"I'm not getting more money and I'm not asking for more money,'' Katz said.

But she stopped short of committing to bringing every child home. In testimony before the select committee on children, Katz asked lawmakers to modify the bill and remove the mandate that all the children be removed from the outside placements.

She said some deeply troubled children — including fire-starters, sexually aggressive kids, and some children in the autism spectrum — may be better served in out-of-state programs that have had success in treating children like them. And she said that some northern Connecticut families and guardians with children in Massachusetts programs prefer that the kids remain there, rather than be placed in Bridgeport or some other less convenient location.

State Sen. Anthony J. Musto, a Democrat fromTrumbull and vice chair of the select committee, said he wasn't inclined to back off from the panel's goal of bringing every possible child home, even those just over the border. He said treatment programs should be developed in Connecticut to treat Connecticut kids, and the money should be spent here, not out of state.

"This bill is part of our overall scheme to have as many kids as possible in smaller placements close to home," said Musto. "Two years should be plenty of time for DCF to move these kids back into the state and create programs that would serve their needs.''

Musto, referring to the lack of agency action in 2009, said, "We're hoping with the new commissioner that they'll focus on this as a priority.''

Katz said she already has.

"Everyone involved wants the kids home, and no one wants them home more than I do. We can make a significant dent in the number,'' said Katz, "but we need to do it carefully, thoughtfully, and constructively.''

For example, 27 of the 40 beds at the state-owned Connecticut Children's Place in East Windsor are empty. Katz said before those treatment slots could be used, the staff there would have to be trained to deal with some of the very troubled children who are out of state. Once that training was paid for and completed, then a group of children could be brought back to Connecticut.

At the same time, Katz said, she and her staff are working with private providers to develop programs for the children in outside placements, and are working to recruit and train more foster families, particularly relatives of the children.

"If we can engage more kinship care, that's going to free up some of these treatment facilities, because you can move kids out who don't need to be there. You work to eliminate the bottlenecks along the way,'' Katz said.

Katz said two top agency officials are looking in detail at every child in an outside placement with a goal of finding the right place for many of them in Connecticut.

The number of children in the outside programs increased from 280 in 2008 to 367 this winter, and the annual cost ballooned to at least $35 million. Meanwhile, problems with state treatment and foster-care systems have deepened.

There are empty beds in some of the programs, in part because private providers and DCF haven't developed programs to suit the needs of kids with complex behavior problems who have traditionally been sent away. And the shortage of foster parents is robbing DCF of options to place the children in Connecticut.