 This is Senate Health and Welfare. It is March 18th. And excuse me committee, frog need to get we like frogs, but not in our throats. Okay. So good morning. We're, you know, we had a very long session yesterday with Senate judiciary and Senate education. In hearing about some of the regulatory events associated with the Kern-Hatton School. And I thought so I thought we'd just spend a few minutes this morning going through and listing some of the questions that we might like to ask or some of the open areas for questioning. For the DCF related to their investigation or the regulatory authority that they have. We may not have a lot at this point. It may have to wait until DCF and others come in. But I thought it might be helpful just to get your questions. And I asked Ruth to write some down yesterday as we went through. And the questions that there were some questions that I asked that I think are pretty important. I think actually Ruth identified one of those. So what we'll do is excuse me. We'll just take a couple of minutes to do this. I don't want to spend a lot of time on it. But because I will be working with the other chairs to establish a timeline and some testimony that we'll be taking in committee to help us make further recommendations for improvements. This is a difficult situation simply because we are not the judge and jury. We're not really taking testimony about the historical development of this. But we are interested in how our state administration handled this. And also what oversight may or may not have been provided. So and that you know that that is our job as well. So we have to I think that we should as going forward we need to keep all those things in mind. So committee I'll I'll open it up and ask you for your thoughts. I did want to Well I have some questions but I guess why don't I open it up and let you offer your your thoughts on questions that you'd like to have answered who do who you think we should be hearing from and the direction we might be taking. I value your input on this. Maybe Ruth could read the questions that you have so that we know I was hoping Ruth would raise your hand. I was looking through my notes. The main question I think that I identified in our specific jurisdiction is the the re licensing of the Treatment of the residential care facility and whether or not when they relinquish that license how it was done and why it was done and if it was done in order to avoid further oversight or if it was done because violations were found or if it was done for other reasons. So sort of like the crux of that because that's the role that DCF plays in terms of oversight of the facility itself. And then there's the other question about the training and reporting of abuse and neglect and whether or not that has been done correctly by staff at the facility and also whether or not in the past and and currently and whether or not DCF has responded appropriately to those complaints. So those were the two sort of areas that seems like in our jurisdiction. There were other questions about AOE's role and judiciary's role but those were the two that I identified as specific to regulatory oversight in our committee's area. Yeah, I think that's good. I think from that for my as we identify that then a whole lot of other questions fall out so if they were licensed to provide treatment services were adequate treatment services available. So that's under our jurisdiction. What role if any does did the district office play in reporting because that's also key. And then the the relicensure every two years and how were the the complaints dealt with during the relicensure process and and then you know finally it's a two year licensing process and the review is only within the two years. So I guess I might ask the question about cumulative effect. So are there little tiny or there are few complaints every two years and are they repeated. So those are the kinds of questions I think we want to get at and and ask among others but your that that is our jurisdiction and we do need to pay attention to it. Go ahead Cheryl. I just was curious to know how long they had had the treatment center you know the license for the treatment center and and then it just plays into you know why at this time is it being not revoked but not relicens not relicensed. Yeah. And yeah. So I think what you're raising is a good question. It's it's characterizing the treatment services that were required. So we need to understand what exactly were the treatment services required. Right. And you said something else that sparked a question. But now I can't think of it. District offices. Yeah cumulative effect. All of those. Excuse me. I'm I'm I'm really sorry you guys. I just got some really bad news that I need to leave the committee for now. I'm sorry. Thank you. Thank you Senator. I'll be back when I can. Not a problem. Not a problem. Take care. All right. A two year review. Two year review. Oh there you go. Yes. The two year review. No isn't the two year review looking back. I mean yeah. Talking about the two year review is if it were looking forward but it isn't you know what what are we what are we looking at when we're. Yeah. That is a question. You know if it's only the two years that they're looking at and or how do they how do they deal with that time frame and how do they deal with prior time frames and prior complaints. And the director had talked about the number of complaints per year which he said we're between six and nine I believe. Yeah. You know who do we have documents that show that you know have we seen this how many of them have actually been reported. Yeah. I think I think now everything is on is electronic but we did hear that the there was some flooding in Waterbury that did take out much of the you know the paper. But we we want to know if district offices still retain records we don't you know so that that the whole record keeping area you're right so probably important. OK. Josh did you want to have anything. You know to be honest Senator Lyons and Senator Hooker all I would defer to you on most of this because unfortunately of as you and Senator Campion know my technology issues we've had the last two days here. Okay. Sort of impeded me from hearing all of all of yesterday's testimony so I don't want to jump to any conclusions or ask something that may have already been addressed so I'd ask you take the lead on this one. All right. Good. Well yeah. And then when you have a chance to review the meeting that would be probably good. All right. So I think we're just really trying to understand how the DCF process works in licensure and then how it works with real licensure. And then one of the questions that I that I have which I think is important is it sounds it sounded like the decision to go to closure rather than deregulation denying the license and closure meant that there was a mutually agreed upon decision. I'm trying to figure out if the investigation and then the decision making is a negotiated process and what what do our statutes say about that. I don't know what the rules say about that. So is it a negotiated process or is it an inspection and then the conclusions drawn and recommendations for licensure or not made. Does that make sense. Am I making sense there. Yeah. Okay. You know why did this why it was this allowed to happen I guess I mean rather than DCF going in and doing an inspection and then revoking the license what what where's the authority or where's the possibility. How open ended is it I guess you know. Yeah. Yeah. Come to an agreement you know and apparently they came to an agreement. Yeah. Okay I think and then anything anything else I think we're all very concerned about the the employees who were at the school and some of this is going to spill over into what the Education Committee is doing and will will be involved in that as well the three of us but the the idea about background checks and how folks are hired and how they're reviewed as employees all of those things I think that spill over into the educational piece the school piece rather than the DCF piece. I also had a question about what's happened with the kids that were in state custody and now where are they and I'm not sure we got a full answer to that but I didn't understand how many kids were there at that at the time that the license was not renewed. Yeah I don't remember exactly I think I've written down but I think we can ask that question and then look at the disposition for those kids because they're they are in the guardian ship or the care of the state and we want to understand maybe what needs were there or are there and are they being met that that that takes a step away from current hat in itself but it does it does it still within the DCF area. Yeah. All right. Anything else. And you know I do have a question center line. Yeah. Who else are we likely to hear from in as these hearings go on. Well that's a good question and we are formulating our with the other chairs because this is a three committee process where we're working on how to build our testimony but at the same time you know work closely to understand the considerations role. So we'll be we'll be doing that and if you have suggestions for folks you would like to hear from that you know send those to me and to Nellie and we'll and we'll see what we can do with it. Okay. Yeah. My goal at this point is to focus on the real licensure piece and possible recommendations. Obviously judiciary has its own interests and judiciary is what may like to work with us more and have some more joint meetings. Okay. So that's where we are right now and putting and we are at this stage putting together. Our next steps. Okay. But if you have if you have recommendations for for who you'd like to hear from. I'm all for it. And you know it would help significantly. I'm not sure we need to hear directly from complainants. We have a lot of information that we can look at historical data and other information. Okay. From from kids I'm just saying where the people who are older now who are out of the school. Okay. And I do know we also know that the educate the school investigation through a and is is ongoing. I think it will be very interesting for our committee to look at the results of that investigation so I'm going to put that on our list. Certainly the education committee will probably be going through it in more detail. But it may help us to understand what what the results of that investigation are and then there's also the New England accreditation process that is is ongoing and I don't know if we want to stretch ourselves into that area but certainly that we'll see that in education. We do have Nellie did put the report. The closure report on our web page so we have that. So my my suggestion is before we, you know, we might want to go through that go through that individually. And I might ask for. I'm going to go your friends. Close to your, you must be pretty close to the airport then huh. Yeah, I'm not far away. I don't know five, six miles. So, so Senator you said that Nellie had put the report on our website. Nellie is that I'm going to reach out to Nellie is that report on our page. It was posted for yesterday. I can repost for today. Like, I'm just, who's it under Nellie. Jennifer Benedict. Okay. All right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Got it. Thank you. Right. She's the one she is the one who responsible for completing the work. And so we'll definitely hear from her again we'll hear from all of the folks who are on the call yesterday on the zoom yesterday, or DCF. I think it'd be very helpful to go through that report and that might modify some of the sharpen some of the questions that we have so we can get down to where we need to be in under in making improvements to the process should we believe that's necessary and I'm, I'm thinking that there may be some areas for that to happen. But we may want to we may want to ask her to go through that report with us after we've had a chance to look at it. That would be a good idea since it's a long report and information in it. The other thing is to have ledge council and I believe it will be Katie McClendon. Jen, would it be Katie to help us understand what the current statute says around this? Or would that I think it depends whether you're looking at the licensure piece or the sort of treatment child abuse potential child abuse or neglect aspect. Okay, and then what what who would go through the licensure report the licensure piece itself, all of it. So I think the courts of child abuse and neglect. So Katie would be Katie would work with you, I believe on licensure issues DCF licensure issues, although if there's a report from somebody else I think it would make sense to have whoever wrote the report go through the report with you. Yeah, so yeah, I was thinking of our Oh, her first name just escaped me. The person who was on our call yesterday Benedict Jennifer. Jennifer, thank you. I knew it was a jail is going to call her Jacqueline. Okay, Jennifer Benedict. It's an easy one for me to remember. Yeah, got it. Okay, so yeah, so we'll have her command to it's, but I think we do want Katie to go through and share with us a little bit about the licensure procedure as much as she can. There are rules that guide this so the the issue around rules becomes interesting and so I think the rule, the rules probably are best handled through the Department of Children and Families so and I will have to ask someone from the department to come in and talk about the rules that are in place because they did talk about changing those rules and I'm curious to know what changes they're going to make and how much and what they are so maybe we can determine how that we should have some influence on that the changes. The rulemaking process is separate from our committee until it gets to the legislative committee on rules, and then it goes through the chair so any rule changes would come to me and go to amp you and then we would say yes it is or is not consistent with the statutes with legislation so before it gets that far I think we want to know that we've looked at the statute and we've looked at the rules and we've looked at the process. So we have an idea of how those changes are being made and whether we'd like to influence those changes through legislation. So I think we'll ask Sean Brown and he can provide us with the right person from DCF to go through the rules that exist for this. Send us that survey Senator. Well let's see they're just when I forget how many millions of dollars every time it applies. It's pretty loud. Okay, which is why being in the state house makes it a lot easier. One of the reasons. Is there anything else regarding the statutory review or rules that you can think of that would help us as we're going through this. I mean it sounds like you were asking the right questions. As far as looking into what the licensure and the parameters for the licensure issues are now so that you can understand potential changes and also to understand sort of what goes into that licensure process. So I think you're asking good questions that sound like they're designed to get you more information so that you can make decisions about whether there need to be changes in the legislation or through legislation. So and then what another question that I think as we as we dive into the whole area of child abuse and neglect and getting perhaps getting Linda Johnson and because she's her organization works on this all the time, but also DCF folks is how, and I don't know maybe and this is also Katie question, our definition of child abuse and neglect. That would be a brand question. Is that a brand question. That's a brand question. We'll get a brand in here. And we do have statute specifically on that with definitions. Included. That one and then I'd also like to have. Who is it brand or Katie or you on mandatory reporters. That would be brand as well that's related to the child abuse and neglect. I think that judiciary is also interest, interested in that so it's sounding like we're, we're building some topics for joint meeting with them and I'll take that to the chairs meeting when we talk together. So it, yeah, it seems to me. We're going to have to, we're going to have to consider and talk first with Bryn on the definition. What's in statute and I'm going to stop talking for a minute, please. What's in statute and then talk with DCF about how talk with DCF about how their rules interpret that statute. I'm not sure when those rules were written, they may have been updated a few years ago and I'm not sure how them. I remember when we went through mandatory reporter several years ago and added some mandatory reporters into that into that statute through health and welfare committee and I was involved in that so it will be important to have Bryn go through that with us, but then to ask DCF how, how that fits with what what's happened at current hot and so this one get this one really dives down into the complaints that we've heard. We're moving, we just moved from a very high level of relicensure issues, and now we're moving slowly down into the very specific and trying to understand the relationship between our statutes, the rules and boots on the ground what's actually happened. So after Bryn on that mandatory reporters and abuse and neglect we're going to have DCF and to talk about that. So there are I think 18 or 20 of these jets and if they all take off at once or we get more than eight or 10 of them that takes time. And then they come back and land what I'm talking on the floor. Good timing. All right, one more. So, Josh, you're muted to go for it. I was just going to ask if they if they ever offered to take the senior senator from Chinden County for a ride. No, but my husband's gone up on the f 16s I think with the f 16s or the ones before yeah he's done that he did some. He talked with them with them about balance issues as he he's an ear nose throat position so he talked to them. Oh yeah. Yeah. All right. That was a while ago. Okay, anything else committee on this seems like the appropriate direction for us I would think. Is there anything that we're sort of missing here and I know that as we hear from the mandatory reporting piece will also be in education it will be in judiciary and it'll be with us so we'll try to coordinate that that's the reason for our list. And coordinate with other committees about meeting together to be more efficient in the use of our time and the time of others. And Senator, despite the fact that the license has not been renewed for for residential treatment center. There's still the mandatory reporting that goes on from the facility to the state. There's an issue. So that. So now, now that it would be the school teachers and the school counselors who have that responsibility so I think the reporting goes to the AOE. In the case of DCF, where were whether the children in the care of the state that reporting would go to DCF. I think it will have to clarify that with Brett because just, I mean, regardless if it's a, if it's a child abuse issue. It should go. That's why I, I'm going to we're going to have to wait and go back and look at that statue. I'm not clear. I don't remember exactly the, the language in the statute. Unless Jen does we will just, no, I know it's not will defer to bring for that discussion. Yeah, so once we, you know, I think that generally people do not understand that once, once we write statutes and we ask for rules and we approve the rules, then the work is done by the administration. So, but it's important for us to maintain an oversight role. So I guess the question that we have to ask ourselves is how frequently are we providing oversight. And once the relicensure has happened those every two years, do we get notice of that. And if we get notice of that. I don't know. I don't think I don't think I've ever seen notice of that. And, and, but we should probably consider whether or not notice of relicensure for any of our organizations might suggest some kind of review on our part. Does that make sense. Well, I don't know. I know I don't either. I, we're going to have to look. I'm wondering if it's just up to DCF to, to do the review and, you know, do. Yeah. Oh, I think you misinterpret what I said, but go ahead. No, I'm just wondering, you know, how much of it has to come back to the legislature and where, where does this, you know, how do I guess it would be a quick email to us to the chairs of committees that say, this, this private institution has been renewed and DCF has a relicensed period. I mean, that, that would be sufficient. And I think my big concern is just how much oversight does DCF is DCF able to do. And how much do they have that do they have have the authority to do it. And they've been doing it. I don't, I guess those are the questions. I mean, after they're after the closure piece, after they're no longer, I mean, even, you know, once in with a licensed institution. Yeah. Okay. And how many times are they allowed to go in and do spot checks investigations, respond to complaints. Yes. There are lots of complaints and they seem to have been accumulating. Yeah. That's the key. That's an important question. All right. So, All right. So I've been making notes of all of this. I'm going to send it to a friend and Katie so that So that they are at least aware of what you're thinking. Excellent. Thanks. Can you send that to me as well. I'll use it in my meat. I have it all written. I have a lot written down, but I'll use it when I meet with the chairs. Sure. Well, I'll, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll always add no question. Josh or Sheryl, Senator Hooker, Senator Taranzini. There's a lot. There is a lot. And I mean, I think, I think our goal is to ensure that whenever children in the care of the state are placed in any facility that there's, there's a positive culture. And that, that children are, are well served. That, that's the goal. We want to make sure that that happens. And especially, especially when we're placing children in the private sector, I mean, private sector. And so, and that actually, that would be a good question to ask is what's the difference between the public and private sector with all of this. What kind of access does DCF authority to see? Yeah, that's your question. That's very good. Anything else? Anything else? No. This is a, this is a very good, this is a good start. We need to continue to focus on our role and our responsibilities. And it, it, it, we, it could get difficult. It's interesting because I keep going back and forth with the three of us on education. It's hard to differentiate, you know, the committee that it won't. Yeah, you're right. But when we hear from, when we hear the report that's coming to us from AOE. And then we, we start learning about mandatory reporters, it's going to get even worse. But overall, we'll have to hopefully find some, something that covers everything. No, certainly it's going to have to be coordinated. So it's a good thing that we're here together. We don't have anyone from judiciary, but I think we'll be able to meet with them and we'll, we'll stay, stay coordinated. And the civil and criminal penalty piece is really within the judicial area, but it does link in with how we define child abuse and neglect and how, how it is responded to. So there's a, there's a, there's a flow there from one to the other. So I'm, I'm, I'm ready to give ourselves a break until we hear from Commissioner squirrel, unless there's anything further you'd like to discuss on this issue. Jen, how are you. Just one unrelated update in case you're not aware. Okay. Yeah, I was going to bring that up when we got back together, but I'm happy to do it now. But let's do that when we come back together because our minds are not, are not there right now. That's fine. Let me know when to three bills I wanted to talk about. So, yeah, thank you. I'm going to jump over to another meeting, but okay. You understand your radar. We're good. It is. Unfortunately. My, and my, my, my little hamsters been thinking about how to resolve that issue, but so we'll see how it goes. Anything, anything else committee, are you, are you fine with taking a little break. Good. So we'll, we'll, we'll take a break here until about 1020 come back a little bit before our Nellie is at 1030 that we have Commissioner squirrel. Yes. Okay, good. So, okay, so we'll take a break until about 1020. In the meantime, Nellie has put a bill that we're going to get each to 10 up on the chat and that Josh you were interested in that so we'll, but we're going to talk about that later. Nellie we'll, we'll go, we'll go on break off of YouTube and then we'll come back about 1020 to complete our work for the day.