 Thank you, everyone. Yes, thank you, representative. I just have to do that. Somebody I've known for years, I think. It's been a long time, Larry. When we start, it's not like everybody know that all the documents are online, but you have to go to the 2018 special session. That's where the documents are, not the current session. Thank you. This is a matter of introduction. Dick Sears, Dick, Senator Van Dinkum. And if you're a state representative in South Brompton. Can I put a plea to Washington? Can I set it up? Telling Kay Allen, Representative Van Dinkum. Van Joseph, representative from Grand Isle. I'm four years old. My last day in the job. Hopefully you'll be memorable. I'm sorry, but Florida could not make it through a family. And I'm Larry Christ, the executive director of the Montparent Representation Center. And I would like to say just for the record that I am not the person who took Senator Sears parking. Let's just be clear. You'll find that person. Good. I will also comment that I mentioned to representative Pugh. It was 33 years ago this week that I walked into this building for the first time. And it seems like it was just yesterday. So first, I want to apologize for having to be here to testify. Because I am probably the individual in the room who is going to be the skunk of the party. I'm here basically to present the findings of a report, which I think most of you or some of you have received copies in the past. The report is based on the experience of this small nonprofit agency that was founded nine years ago with the purpose of assisting parents who were at risk of having their children, particularly very young children, going to state college. And that report is based on the experiences of this small nonprofit agency that was founded nine years ago with the purpose of assisting parents who were having their children, particularly very young children, going to state custody. The report is an analysis of that experience and that experience involved at this juncture over 500 families. And I would also add that that experience mirrors the experience of a sister agency, Ken Can, Vermont, who has served an additional 500 families during that same period with much the same results. My fear in this process is that some of you know me. Others look at me and say, well, who is this guy who's walking into the room and presenting this analysis so he really knows something? First of all, I don't know a lot, but what I think I know, I sometimes know a bit about. But I have a long history in the state government. I have a long history in working with programs and reforming those programs, as I said, going back some 33 years ago now. But I am only the spokesperson for a process that involved a great many writers and reviewers. This document was peer reviewed by individuals, knowledgeable individuals within Vermont and experts in the arena of child protection from outside of the state as well. It's not a document that comes from one person or even two people. And I would have to give most of the credit for this to my predecessor and co-author Trina Beck who has done a tremendous amount of work in this area and who has forgotten more about child protection than I will ever know. The purpose of my being here today is to present an overview of the nine-year analysis, present an overview of the recommendations, and frankly to urge the legislature to take affirmative action so as to avoid future litigation in this arena. Overwatching findings from this report. But I want to couch this with just a couple of data points. For the past 12 years at least, our reports of child abuse and neglect have increased by about 1,000 to 1,500 every year. That data is there. At the same time, those of you who sit on this panel are aware, the state's population has not changed. It's remained static. So somehow, Vermont is managing to generate 1,000 to 1,500 new abuse reports and neglect reports each year with a population that remains almost exactly the same. However, with the increase in reports of child abuse and neglect, our rate of investigations has remained almost exactly the same. And our rate of substantiations has remained almost exactly the same. But the system has been flooded with new cases. And as I think we all know, the courts are backlogged. DCF is awash with cases that usually exceed the national standards for caseloads. But all of that's happened in an arena where Vermont is ranked as one of the best states to live in, and we are one of the most family-friendly and healthy states to be in. This is where we disconnect some place in this process. You can't have a static population but increase rates of abuse and neglect at the same time that you're one of the best places in the country to live in. Those just don't compute. Overarch and findings from this report, and I want to be clear, this report doesn't point a finger at anyone. It points fingers at the system as a whole. A system that has existed for several decades now. A system that many of you are trying to figure out how to make it work in a way that benefits our children and our families and the state as a whole. This is not directed at current administration or pre-use administrations. There is a great deal of responsibility that covers a great many people, not any one individual. The first and most important finding of this report is the fact that there is no place in this system where the system is held accountable. No one does. No one is really responsible for the outcomes. The system is broken into categories. We have a child protection agency. We have a prosecutor's system in the state. We have a judiciary system in the state. But no one is really responsible for the outcomes. Most people point even sure what the outcomes are. Current oversight by the administration is virtually nonexistent for some time. And oversight by the legislature, pardon me, is ineffective because the enormity of the task you're trying to deal with outstrips the resources that you have to monitor the system. The system operates essentially on a basis of trust, but don't verify. And the reason that verification isn't there is because the system operates in almost total confidentiality. And I'll make an analysis. The Chinese built a wall once, a great wall. The goal was to keep the Mongols out. For those of you who are versed in Chinese history, what you realize is the wall didn't keep the Mongols out. They kept the Chinese in. We have a system of confidentiality now where no one can look at the system to see what's going on because everything is confidential. It is virtually impossible to actually review cases. It is impossible to be able to track complaints. And it is impossible to verify what has been done to address situations that are brought to the surface where people say this is a problem. It just is not possible to regulate and monitor a system when you can't look inside that system. Performance measures focus on process, not outcomes. You will find virtually no outcomes in any of the systems that we operate with. In many cases, even process is absent. The veil of confidentiality protects the system, not the people in it. Decision-making and interpretation of laws and policies is arbitrary and capricious. Misfeasants, and I'm sorry to say, in some cases, malfeasants have become the norm rather than the exception in the system. Individual workers are largely untrained and inadequate to the tasks that they're assigned. Inigent families operate largely without an understanding of the system. They don't understand what their rights are and there's no place for them to go other than a small non-profit to find out what those rights are in a timely fashion. And they have no access to clarifying information that is provided in a thorough and neutral manner. They're generally often operated under exactly the same handicaps. Internal reform is precluded by a pervasive culture more reminiscent, and I hesitate to use this word, but it is what we have experienced of Vermont's early eugenics movement. We're not talking about Native Americans. We're not talking about Indigenous people. We're talking about poor people at this point. Assigned attorneys with some exceptions, and I want to be very clear about outstanding assigned attorneys who represent Indigenous people in this system. But, as a category, assigned attorneys with few exceptions fail to adequately represent their clients leading parents defenseless and confronting the power of the state. And we have given the state dramatic power in this arena. Power that most other agencies never get. In those instances where the system is confronted by confident, legal professionals supported by competent social work professionals, early in the interaction with families in the state, children are typically not removed, and when they are, the removal is reversed in short order. Otherwise, children remain in out-of-home placements for extended periods, families operating turmoil, backlogs amount, and successful outcomes diminish accordingly. Relative to the system itself and the components of the system, our child protection agency consistently demonstrates an inability or an unwillingness, in some cases both, to fulfill its basic obligation of investigating allegations of abuse and neglect. In three years of doing this job and working with over 150 families in the three-year period, I have yet to see a competent investigative report. Not one. The system denies parents due process and reviews and fair hearings by violating state statutes and fair hearing standards, and all one has to do is look at some of the footnotes from the Vermont Supreme Court to see where this has been identified. It operates absent meaningful oversight and without discernible quality assurance, or complaint resolution process. If you have a complaint with regard to DCF, there is virtually no place to go where you can be guaranteed that that complaint will be addressed. The system has a pervasive culture of we don't need to investigate allegations. We know these families and it operates under a veil of confidentiality that serves to protect both misfeasance and malfeasance when that does occur, and I have experienced it in the process of this job. One, but one brief example. Two years is found to have multiple concussions. The two-year-old is reported as possibly suffering from abuse and neglect. Through a process, a dual state process, the two-year-old and another child are allowed to leave Vermont, go to another state where they are supposed to be housed when in fact they're brought to a homeless shelter. No one bothers to find out whether there's actually housing for these folks or not. The parent who resides in Vermont was the subject of a four-and-a-half month investigation in which witness testimony was not truthfully reported by the DCF investigator and in which a doctor's report was basically turned around. A doctor who said this does not appear to be non-accidental was transformed into this appears to be a non-accidental accident. In effect, after four-and-a-half months of children being spirited away from the state, the mother who had taken the children out of state is found to have abused physically the same child again who winds up with additional fractures. In the end this family in Vermont received the letter saying, we've investigated and we haven't found we have found that there's been abuse that's what the letter said the reality was there was no investigation of significance, multiple witnesses were offered and not interviewed one witness who brought back to Vermont from out of state twice for interviews and was never interviewed after multiple meetings with the district office, the district director and an investigator. That's not an exception that has become ruled in my experience with this process and our programs experience. Our public defender agency routinely employs private attorneys who in many cases never meet their clients. I'm not kidding never meet their clients until minutes before a court appearance. It doesn't matter if they have represented them for a month, a year or two years. They don't return phone calls, they don't return email messages and they don't know who the clients are. In many cases what you will find is that families are told to plead to the merits simply because the attorney does not want to have to do the research to verify whether what DCF has said is true, is actually true. They don't hold strategy discussions they don't review documents they don't develop evidence and they don't present witnesses in large part because they aren't compensated with sufficient resources to do the level of work that they're required to do. The second largest complaint that we receive through our health line is people calling to say how do I get my attorney to represent me and we have a hold of it and we go through with people as to what they could do and involve sending certified letters and involve then sending certified letters to the office of Defender General and it involves actually developing their defenses and giving it to the attorneys and saying please present this in court and instance after instance it does not happen. Currently contract attorneys are provided virtually no supervision contrast this to states attorneys and to assistant attorney generals who are provided one, the resources that they need to do their job two, supervision three, monitoring and quality communications. None of those exist in this contract system. Human nature being what it is we know what the outcome of that kind of a system is and we have observed it on a regular basis. And finally it's not final but one example of this is a mother of four young children comes down with a flute asks the school for assistance the teacher who was asked files a report with DCF DCF visits the mother and decides on a visual examination that the mother is using drugs the mother has documentation from her physician that she's been suffering from a terrible experience with flute that's not considered four children are taken into custody a minister comes forward to testify on her behalf the minister's wife who has cared for these children as well as host of other community supports and professionals the four children are removed because of suspected substance abuse those four children have been in four different foster homes in four different towns for three years now and are not allowed to visit one another the reason being they're too young to bond with one another that's the process all of this information was provided to an assigned council none of it was presented in court on this client's behalf our state's attorneys and attorney general routinely have to rely on DCF affidavits and testimony that is suspected best and generally goes unchallenged as to its veracity it's the way the systems work when the state's attorney receives a police report they expect that the police have done an investigation and they expect that there is monitoring on the police side to make sure that happens there is no way to go back and verify they don't have the time they don't have the resources that the information they're being given is true the only person who has the opportunity to do that is assigned council and we've just talked about the role that assigned council does or doesn't play in this process without an adversarial system in place there is no justice our judiciary routinely does not hold hearings within the prescribed 72 hours following an emergency removal what we have done instead is decided that within the 72 hour period the judge will set a date for a hearing not hold a hearing set a date for a hearing and the date is always the dates of that date which means there is no testing of whether children should have been removed or not in an emergency hearing children will sit in custody and I would refer to it as custody they'll sit in foster homes maybe several foster homes over a period of two to three months before anyone even has an opportunity to say whether they really should have been removed or not the court system routinely rotates judges we have a rotation process in the state and there are real reasons for that where judges generally sit for approximately two years in a given court what happens though in these cases is that you not only have that rotation but because of the backlog you have multiple judges within that rotation who hear cases it often means that you have a judge sitting on a case who doesn't know what went on before them I can give you an example of one judge who went in a day ahead of time to review the cases that would be coming up then came into court and realized looking around the courtroom there wasn't one person in the courtroom who understood what this case was about everyone had changed the DCF worker had changed multiple times the state's attorney had changed in many cases you can have multiple attorneys representing the parents there was one client I worked with who had four attorneys assigned through no fault of his own over a two and a half year period and he's never met number three but he's working with number four now it makes it impossible for judges to actually manage cases the information they get is questionable there is very little contest around that information and the judges rotate on a regular basis additionally there simply is more work than the court system can manage and there's more work than it can manage because the prevailing thought is we will take kids into custody and then let the court figure out whether we did the right thing or not as opposed to we will investigate allegations we'll write reports that can withstand scrutiny and if those reports contain sufficient information then we will do what needs to be done to ensure protection of the child we do this in reverse we take the kids then we let people figure out whether we should have or not the result being that Vermont has the second highest rate of terminating parental rights in the country and some people will say it shows we do it right and everyone else does it wrong it is hard to comprehend that that is the defense for this process especially in light of what we have found with what actually happens in these cases we have one of if not the highest rate of child removal in the northeast somehow there is something in the water, in the air in this building who knows what it is that causes Vermont parents to be worse than all the other parents in New England and most of the other parents in the country I don't believe that's true I think what we have is a systemic failure a system that has collapsed upon itself and the end result is we have children who come into custody who shouldn't be there I believe we have children who are not brought into custody who should be there talk to teachers sometime if you want to see that side of the equation I don't go any further with that because quite frankly parents who are abusing their children don't call us it's parents who are alleged to have abused their children and say we didn't do it we've come forward and volunteered since by the way I'm abusing my children and nobody has come and taken them away I will also add for the record that our policy is to work with families it is not always to support families I can't tell you the number of times I have told parents I am sorry but we will not work with you and the reason is you haven't told me anything that convinces me that ECF made a mistake in what they're doing and frankly you have to make a choice in your life you either love your kids or you love your boyfriend who was on the abuse registry you cannot love them both because the state is not going to allow that to happen and some parents go well thank you I didn't really understand it that way and other people will use language I won't repeat here and slam the phone down and that's when I know that ECF did the right thing those cases though are not the norm and it is the state quite frankly of having wildly fluctuating rates of removal and detention of children from district to district and I can say this with a sense of confidence we've all heard how terrible Franklin County is with its data how terrible Franklin County is with the number of kids who are in the process of Chin's action however opioid problem than the rest of the state because when you look at the data their deaths and overdoses aren't any greater they're in line with the population secondly Franklin County and Rublin County have very similar demographics when you go through per capita income when you go through a host of features those two counties are quite similar but look at the data as far as Chin's cases there is discrimination of rental rights and children in custody and there is a dramatic difference between what happens in Franklin County and what happens in Rublin County and I will say this in three years of this work I haven't had one parent complain about Rublin County we have a history of substantiating abuse and neglect using standards that are far outside of established legal parameters and I'll give you the biggest example the greatest increase in substantiations has to do with risk of harm and in many cases the risk isn't specified and what the harm is isn't specified either risk of harm has de facto become abuse and neglect unto itself that's not how the statute reads and it certainly is not in the descriptions that are provided in the statute as to what constitutes risk of harm but that's what we substantiate for now, risk of harm I have had families that have been told that hanging their clothes in an indoor line over a wood burning stove is risk of harm having too many pets is risk of harm having to walk a mile from the school bus stop to the house is risk of harm this has really gotten to a point where it doesn't mean anything anymore it has become totally subjective yet people are substantiated and substantiated on a regular basis our system routinely coerces family into open family service cases absent any findings of abuse and neglect once you come to the attention of DCF you are going to have an open case it doesn't matter what an investigation shows or doesn't show and if it turns out that there is no abuse or neglect and there really aren't services needed you are still going to have an open family service if you have been a foster child you have been party to a DCF action with a young child you have anyone in your family who has had a substance abuse issue all because you might commit abuse or neglect not because there is any evidence that you have and that is the use of the standardized tool that issues the only reason for opening a case which is supposed to be a voluntary process it is not I use the term coerced because families are routinely told if you do not agree we may have to go to court and then take your children into custody what parent is not going to agree frankly recommendations and let me just add this before I get to recommendations all of that I have described so far is what we believe is contributed to the monumental backlogs in our system there is no control on the spicket of where the cases originate in the first place and until that is dealt with all of the reforms on the back end are going to be missed in time because as long as the spicket stays wide open we are always going to be flooded with cases key recommendations in the report that you have there are some 60 findings and I think 80 recommendations are 70 I lost track at this point I would recommend that if you have not read that report from cover to cover please take the time to do that and you will know more about the child protection system at large than you ever wanted to know but if I was to identify key recommendations the first is to establish some oversight capability by a child a child advocate or an ombudsman office right now there is no oversight of this system and I can't think of another governmental system that we can say that about replace the current contract system of attorneys with a parent representation program or a division it can either be a free standing entity with dedicated staff who are provided the same supports and resources as are the state's attorneys and as are the assistant attorney generals and it can either be separate or it could be part of the defender general's office however it needs to be dedicated staff it cannot be contract staff because the service that you get from dedicated staff who become experts in this field is dramatically better and is on a much greater part to what you have in the state's attorney's office and in the attorney general's office retrain DCF employees at all levels as to the requirements for conducting thorough, competent and balanced investigations and the laws they operate retrain the DCF substantiation review officers and the fair hearing human service board officers and meet statutory timelines for hearings you have created in this legislature a requirement that a review of substantiation is to be held within 35 days of a person asking for the review the wait is now between six and eight months so if you are an educator and you are in the process of being substantiated and you have to re-up for the next school year uh-huh if you're an employee of a human service organization and you've lost your job because of the pending substantiation you can't work until that is resolved six to eight months that's the operation the answer when it is questioning why the delay it's because DCF can't keep up with the number of appeals that is not a rationale for not following the law the second piece and as I referenced the Vermont Supreme Court it has come to light at times now that in fact the review and hearing officers are meeting with parents asking them to defend themselves without a clear sense of what they're being substantiated for and then holding ex parte communication with DCF to find out what's not really in the record and what haven't they been told before they make their decision that is not due process it's a violation of state and federal yeah Tom okay the last piece of this is that given the grievous nature of our findings it can be assumed that Vermont is vulnerable to litigation involving systemic violation of individual rights guaranteed at the federal and state levels this report gives the state an opportunity to get ahead of that process and I'm going to close by saying this we are now at a point where no one can say I didn't know this system was that bad no one can say that now this report is public too many people have seen it and we will all be held eventually accountable for what we do with this information thank you and I thank you for your questions I get one question pops up is I agree that confidentiality does prevent real review but you only get a certain number of cases you don't hear correct whatever the number of cases it's only people that come to your agency to complain that's actually not totally accurate how do you our clientele have come from a variety of sources referrals from other professionals referrals from other agencies referrals from schools so they are referrals that are made to us we also in the early stages of our pilot projects receive referrals from PCF workers as well we receive referrals through our helpline and we initiated three pilot projects in which agencies primarily in Franklin and Addison counties made referrals to us all of those together have been make up a mix it's not a self-selected group of people it is a variety of people who have come to us through a variety of sources and you're right we don't see every case we don't pretend to see every case but when you take our 500 families we've worked with and you match that with Kincan's 500 families a thousand families can't be the exception they simply can't they're an indicator and they're a bellwether indicator and a big piece of this is because no one can look at the system no one can go internally and look at it and that's what needs to be fixed if nothing else at least an external oversight and complaint resolution process and that would give you the information you need to make the legislative decisions that you need to make I'm interested to be said there wasn't any cases out of complaints from Ruffin County since the reason for this committee originally was cases from Ruffin County Desiree Sheldon there was another case in Ruffin County so that shows some progress it shows something I don't know how far I go with that information but it does show where there hasn't been a spotlight on a particular district but we notice throughout the judicial system whether it's the juvenile, the adult whatever there are variances county to county and a lot depends on the culture of that county who's the state's attorney with the defense attorneys who are the judges that get there and I agree with you about a lot of that but I did need to point out that Ruffin County was actually the bad bolster child at the time and I'm aware of that and I've been surprised to see a lot come up on my radar screen Judge? Yes, I wanted to ask you if anything keeps occurring to me not just on basis of your report but in my own experience it seems to me that there's just a lack of resources across the board there's not enough judicial resource there's not enough time spent by the attorneys I had a case in which I was the only person in the courtroom who'd read the whole file the attorney hadn't read the file the attorney hadn't read the file I was the only one who read the whole file and that was because of the pressure of the backlog have you costed out what it would take to have adequate resources? We have done some costing which you will see in that report many of the most of the recommendations we have do not have cost associated with them however we have an opportunity and I'll do this very quickly an opportunity that is probably for all of us a once in a lifetime opportunity at this point which is the federal change with regard to Social Security Act and 4E money as you know 4E money is used for foster care it's also used for prosecutorial care our assistance 4E money is now being made available for parent defense and in its wisdom as they're writing the rules the feds who are writing the rules are looking at combining that to say it's not only attorneys it's also social service personnel who will work with those attorneys because what they have found is what we have found in our pilot projects here in Vermont when you combine attorneys and social service personnel on the front end kids don't go into custody you're the legislature you do what you think is best the tendency in my 33 years being in Vermont is that we will say ah there's now federal money available to bolster at least a portion of this system at a 50-50 rap match so we will take half of the defender general's money and put it back in the general fund and match the other half with federal money so it's whole it is not whole now so there needs to be a process of looking at how much money are we spending now in the system which as you rightly point out is under resourced and what will the 4e money allow us to do in building that system not holding it the same because holding it the same is falling back relative to the judges that is a process which in our report we say needs to be looked at how many judges would you need to bring in to deal with the backlog if in fact you had the other pieces in place where is an investigative report on each of these cases my last example to that is we cannot we cannot have a system where a parent loses their child and after three and a half years a TPR has finally moved forward only to discover that there hasn't been an entry and a case filed for three years but DCF said there has been no progress in this case they were right but not for the right reasons not one entry in three years but we're moving toward TPR why that winds up going into court because nobody checks the system doesn't work and it doesn't work for the reasons we've outlined in the report I don't know if I've answered your question or not I'm very impressed with your presentation and what you just said that even if there were additional judicial resources there has to be a lot of other resources involved so we can't just focus on the lack of judicial resources although I would say that 40 money being used both not just for attorneys but for social service personnel will serve as a release to what is now a pressure cooker thank you thank you very much thank you we get complaints on both sides I've got a complaint from a foster parent right now a foster family right now that they don't understand why they can't keep this kid they want to adopt a child they aren't able to because the father is holding up a system they're blaming the court so I'm dealing with them so it cuts both ways and we as legislators get complaints on both sides and it's really difficult to appreciate the report I appreciate the effort put into it I see a former commissioner behind me and I'm assuming that he had something to do with this report he's just here to keep an eye on me to see if I've improved in 33 years alright thank you that's not really a question I'm going to respond to it seems like the report outlines problems at every level yes DCF, the judges, the lawyers something like a conspiracy of silence in a sense like why is this not come forward sooner where is the whole student you're saying all systems are totally broken I think that it has not come forward in whole cloth simply because there are very few agencies that have seen all of the pieces of this and the best response is the editor of one of the state's leading papers called me and said we have grappled with these pieces of the puzzle for years this report finally puts a picture together to show us that it's a systemic failure it's not just a problem with DCF or just a problem with the courts or just a problem with parents it is a systemic collapse is what it is before someone else comes in and makes us fix it and it costs us a lot of money thank you thank you thank you is everyone great just put an addition on his business his business is so good for him the last text I had is holding a couple of pigs thank you for the chance to be here I appreciate you giving me this time here and I would just like to share that I think my testimony is going to take about 8 minutes to start I want to emphasize I'm here to share my own experience working in child protection at different levels for different decades and how that might help contribute to the bigger picture of improving services to Vermont children and families my experience includes work at the ground level during direct service to policy level work on the house human services committee and I note that I am not here to speak for any other individual nor any agency or department within Vermont government as someone who's worked with children and families for several decades I add my voice to those who've seen a profound change in the landscape regarding child protection looking back to provodical insight into my experience with children and families my first work in helping keep children safe was volunteering for a group then called Parents Anonymous and which has since evolved into the present day prevent child abuse Vermont and not to date myself but when I took my first training to work with this group one of the board members of Parents Anonymous joined and it's the first time I got to meet Joan Hoff former governor's wife so it was a little while ago and she was there as a board member to learn more about what the group did and it always impressed me to see somebody at that level coming to see what was happening on the ground level at the time we were being trained to provide parent education and support groups for parents who felt they needed more to learn about parenting those parents that were referred and mandated by courts that was a time when the challenge was primarily keeping kids safe from physical and sexual violence the kind of abject neglect we see as prevalent today was more rare then and during that time I first experienced how important modeling from parents is and instilling our ways of parenting or not a mom in the group I was working with child's birthday was happening next week the other parent asked whether she was going to have a large or small birthday party and her response was why should they give them a birthday party nobody ever gave me one well the therapist who was running the group quickly saw the question behind the statement was really I don't know how to run a birthday party can you help me and that's what the group did they came together helped to throw a birthday party for her kid the importance of modeling was highlighted and continues to show up now and what are generational legacies of parents struggling to find out how to parent children over approximately the past 10 years though the Vermont landscape has changed radically with the effects of addiction adding another significant value to parents being able to safely and effectively parent abject neglect is as large a factor as anything most often the collateral damage from parents were consumed by addiction that even precludes prioritizing the welfare of their own children even in utero the number of mothers who continue to use opioids right through pregnancy resulting in children being born addicted is alarming then these children are needing to be detoxed right from birth at the hospital with a team of specialists to understand neonatology and addiction and withdrawal procedures all at an enormous cost I see several factors contributing to the changes we see generational trauma is a huge part of this trauma that leads to generational poverty homelessness, addiction, incarceration and other maladies that's contributed to now multi-generations of families seemingly embedded in the child protection system and as our services offer more and more training to educators and service providers in trauma informed services I add my voice to the chorus singing the praise of such services and recognizing we need more trauma informed services addiction is the most prevalent problem I see but as I just mentioned it's often a mask to cover the other difficulties for individuals and families and it's the behaviors associated with addiction not the fact that individuals suffer from the chronic illness of addiction and that necessitates the removal of children from their parents without getting into the specifics of cases I will say the experiences children are being put through are unbelievable and it's a testimony to the spirit and these children that they survive at all what I primarily want to hold up for your attention is an aspect that is in the system that the judge reflected on a little bit and I want to specify a little bit more resources are scarce and getting scarcer and as we head into the session first thing we're going to be talking about is budget and if we hear talk about level funded budgets it means cuts the reality that I want to talk about is case load overload for those working in the family services division I hope to shine a little light on case load overload and the reality that how we count case loads helps to mask the reality of case load overload all too often family services workers are criticized for not doing enough not being timely and for too many people falling through the cracks I'm not here to debate what's expected of family service workers or their work output I'm here to point out that case load overload is a low hanging fruit for which we can make positive change my main point is currently we count case loads by the family thus we can say that a family service worker has 15 families for a case load the recommended number and on the surface does not sound like a lot but here's what it means in real terms well many of us think of a family as two parents and two children or a single parent and a child or two that just isn't so a more common complex configuration could be a mom four children four fathers for a total of nine people that means one in the count for family case loads and here are some real numbers 14 families for a total of nine workers for a three day per week worker 17 families 77 people for a full time worker and 16 families and 64 people for a full time worker we count those case loads as 14, 17, 16 yet we add it all up it's 190 people each of those is served by a family service worker each of those is assigned a lawyer each child has a guardian at Lightham and if the child is in custody because of a judge's emergency care order or foster care then you add foster parents to that mix all of whom are served by one family service worker a worker who has to coordinate services whether the child is under a CCO or ECO and has to communicate all that to the parties mentioned above has to communicate regularly for all the family femurs, lawyers, and at least once a month have face to face meetings along with that if a child is in custody they have to help the fosters get the child into a school or child care setting make sure financials are taken care of medical and dental services attended to or therapy and be available for court appearances and if judges conditions for reunification aren't met they need to move forward legally with coordination of TPR procedure determination of parental rights and if the parent is an active addict it may require trying to get the parent tested and into treatment if the parent is interested in getting into treatment the caveat here being what we're experiencing all across the spectrum is that only about 30% want to get into treatment and those that do about 20% are successful in staying clean and sober so we can have all the treatment slots we want but we can't force a parent into treatment even when they know one of the consequences of not being treatment could be losing their children adding to those services are organizational parental visitation if a case age isn't available the family service worker has to coordinate and supervise visits including transporting in one case a child had to be transported from their placement in Rutland to Brattleboro a trip that takes about 90 minutes each way for 90 minute visit of parents that's three hours in the car for a young child several times a week that's because of the shortage of foster families another was providing visits for an infant to a parent incarcerated in South Burlington a two hour ride each way from Brattleboro and lastly another visit entailed four children and four different foster homes this is not an unusual configuration the reason is there's very few foster homes that can take four children to keep the children in one family these are complex accommodations further complicated that there are not enough visitation rooms at most of these places so we have to find places in the community for these visits to happen that's a quick glimpse into a day in the life of what happens in child protective services and there are many other things that happen as well so yes things fall through the cracks and caseload overload is most often why these things are falling through the cracks there have been many reports and suggestions on ways to improve child protection services and I go back to saying more resources are needed nowhere have I seen the suggestions though that we need to look at caseload overload it's a major factor in what is not happening in cases and it's the low hanging fruit I would hope that this committee and the legislative committees of jurisdiction would take a further look into this bottom line is we need more workers we need more people in the courts we need more GALs we need more foster homes there are things that happen that fall between the cracks but this is a marathon and we're running a marathon not a sprint and what I would suggest is we're asking our workers to run a marathon wearing only one shoe and I might not think that's a big deal but try running even a short distance with one shoe in closing I'd like to emphasize caseload overload is real caseload overload is a large factor and children and families not getting needed services and caseload overload deserves furthest scrutiny so we can get real numbers of people needing services and budget and plan accordingly until we change the misguided and ongoing premise that people in state and state government can continue to do more with less which is what level funding budget means our expectations should be not to expect better changes until we can address this it would be extremely difficult to think the system is going to improve and so I hope as we move forward with this committee and committees of jurisdiction we can continue to take a look at the resources that are needed thank you thank you Mike thank you thank you what you remind me of is I worked with the Lincoln kids and there was less question you still do you still do but there was less question they were places wherever they were placed sometimes at home, sometimes out of home wherever but based upon many factors but not the least of which were they at the Lincoln Act so there's a different process there it sounds like that process doesn't really occur I remember talking about social work and I remember I had judges and social workers through a bound visit program I remember I'm not going to send anybody I'm glad I visited myself you came to visit me you did well I can say I visited depot street but the point is that we had case work which we were preparing to visit once a month and it was almost impossible for somebody from Newport to get to Bennington to visit a child that was placed there with unrealistic expectation so I think even then that case for an overload was real that's a whole day to visit one kid down there when you can talk to a client I will say they made contact but it was impossible impossible to visit them thank you Mike Judge Bredesen he will pass to lead the effort for the group I got my documents about your report and I got them there I appreciate it they're over inside do you have documents? I've got a copy if you want I've got it here Mike thank you this one here thank you Judge I think they wanted me to go first because last time you took the breath of the right it was the I think they wanted me to be the Eddie Haskell of the June Ward Cleaver scenario that you described but to start for the record Brian Bredesen Chief Superior Judge here on behalf or as one member of the Chins Reform Committee to speak to the report in your hands December 1st I believe it's dated and before I get into the details of the report I know some of you have seen it before we've talked about it before I just want to emphasize that nobody on this committee I dare say no one in this room underestimates the impact of the opiate epidemic on the juvenile system as a whole in the Chins docket in terms of the number of cases filed in those cases this is the complexity of juvenile cases in Chins particular much more much different and much more difficult than it was when I first came on the bench and that's due in no small part to the numbers but also the nature of opiate epidemic what our report is although we don't all agree on all the details of it I think collectively we see this report a preliminary report that tries to identify strategies both long term short term that we think can make a difference while each of us the members of this committee come to the committee with a different perspective on maybe what the solutions are I think we all agree on the underlying issues obviously child safety is a paramount concern and the goal is through parenting and engaging parents and safe parenting it would be overall the goals are to prevent cases from coming into the system and where those prevention efforts fail we will address the issues in the system with the idea obviously keeping families out of the system altogether or if not to restore those families if we can do so safely I think and I would ask the committee as to reviewing our report and to review it or to consider it as a preliminary report to remind and review the legislation that brought us here it very specifically says that this group this committee of four is to review and propose changes to the systems by which CHIN's cases are processed and adjudicated specifically act 11 directs the work group to evaluate successful models used in other country states or cities and the proposal shall incorporate innovative approaches to holistic reform and strategies to reduce the need for court intervention so what we have attempted to do in that report is to outline the areas where we think it can make a difference in the system and the first three or four sections I'll touch on really speak to what we look as short-term approaches or approaches we'd like to get into very quickly the first one under section one is universal home welfare system visits these are not health visits they're a much broader concept and there are certainly members of the committee that have much more experience in this area than I have but the idea is again is to try to identify families and the issues that bring them to the attention of the department children and families and try to avoid that contact and so the first step would be to embark on a study of the existing programs that are in the state but also to look outside Vermont to see what other programs are available and have proved effective in this area it's one certainly that we think needs to be explored if we really want to start focusing on prevention and keeping families out of the system that's not always going to be successful as we know and when we come to the system as it exists the next two steps we really talk about we think some changes that we want to start as soon as we can and we'll be going to the appropriate committees both policy and appropriations to seek funding to get this process started a bidding process to get a study done of the universal home visiting programs number two would be the introduction of the judicial master to the system and we think I think we're talking if we can if we can the ADR the alternative disputes in other words the more mediation home family group conferencing to explore areas where it doesn't require the hands on role of a judge every step of the way but to direct them that's where the judicial master could have a role in that in monitoring that process and getting families to engage in monitoring their progress through those systems so there'd be a place for the judicial master but the idea would be to get it in the hands of people separate and apart from litigation atmosphere the adversarial atmosphere and try to resolve cases through that means so those two steps in some respects go hand in hand the judicial master would have a broader could have a broader concept of being involved in the chins process as it exists and this is an area where I would say there's not 100% agreement by all of the parties what role that person would play but I believe there's a role to be played you can liken that individual to a case manager triage these cases those families that are engaging either in mediation substance abuse mental health counseling that case that judicial master could oversee that engagement and at the same time if the families are not engaging move those cases out of that process to the sitting judge to make the major decisions temporary care orders, merits and disposition so I think there's room for that role to be discussed even more one of the things as a short-term we'd like to get that process started both the mediation and the judicial master the next section speaks to the use of peer navigators which although new to Vermont has been utilized in other states with success and peer navigators essentially are individuals who have been through the system and assist parents that are going through this process understand I don't want to say better but help them understand the process that they find themselves in there's no question that coming into a Chin's process for anyone who does not work in it every day like the attorneys like the guardians, like the judge, social workers this is a foreign land it's almost a foreign language that everybody in that courtroom is familiar with except the individuals who are most impacted by it and that's the parents so the idea behind peer navigation is to have someone to assist them in understanding the process I got an email the other day from a constituent who was upset that DCI said that she couldn't have her children and her boyfriend who was on a sex abuse registry at the same time similar to what Mr. Chris talked about how does a peer navigator do any more than you say you got two choices I understand what you're saying but it just seems like to spend 900,000 I'd rather spend 900,000 on a more judicial master, frankly a peer navigator is great but I told DCS DCS has a responsibility on sex predator registry for abusing the child my response what does a peer navigator do that they share a desk with the person from the department of labor who is now in all of the recovery centers helping people get jobs you're serious uh-huh we're already having people we're taking people DOL is having individuals in recovery centers maybe not all of them maybe a pilot to help people in recovery centers no, no, I'm just commenting on the number of resources that we are putting into recovery centers this isn't that change and I have a question for Karen which is how many of the cases are related to and other issues and so is this where we should center what is number two and three provide early screening and provide early access to services you don't have any and I can apologize if I have to leave at 2.30 so I'm just getting my question at this so we can take notes I'll let Karen or Ken answer that question but to answer your question, Senator sometimes it's how that message is heard and delivered and I can tell that person and I have told individuals if you want those children to be with you you've got to terminate your relationship with that he cannot be in the house sometimes there's a difference between then someone who has been through that process and can understand it better that's the way I view all I have over here but I understand what your point is I think my concern I haven't been convinced that peer navigators are more important than people masters I would rather see double A in the judicial masters and that's I'm just remembering those and Senator I'm just a member and as I said earlier while this is a collective report there are certainly areas that I feel stronger about than others and I will I do so moving on from peer navigators section 5 really talks about what we would like to do with all of these areas that I've just described is a pilot in one multiple counties to see if these processes can work and make a difference and the idea would be to evaluate programs but we still have room remember the domestic violence banning court I do there were evaluations that showed how successful they were and how it works very well and we still have room you know that that's the reality of a lot of different factors but certainly related to child abuse etc we have a program that we really want I'm familiar with the reports I'm familiar with the personalities I'm glad to evaluate the programs I just hope that if they're successful we keep them so do I section 6 quite frankly in my view and only my view this may be the most difficult concept for the committee as a whole to agree upon because it really calls upon us to do something that is extremely difficult and that is look at ourselves in the mirror and say this is my role now how could I do my job, my role differently and what impact would it have and you know Mr. Christ made the point of saying this is the the first time that this has ever been studied or discussed and it's not there's reports from 10 or 13 years ago that talk about many of the same issues that he's raised many of the same areas that we're talking about here I think the real difference is with the legislative input you've given us the opportunity to explore some of these concepts and these ideas that have really been talked about for 10 or 12 or 15 years and I think that's the difference we have the opportunity to do that and I think we should examine the role of the judiciary do they need more training should they be a specialized docket look at the role of the state's attorney versus the attorney general is there something that could change in that role and look at the defender's system and the idea certainly the idea of children being represented by specialized attorneys is not a new one it's not in this report it's not Mr. Chris's report it's been discussed a number of times I think this is the opportunity to look at all of those roles that's what the legislature in my view anyway talked about look at the system is there a way to change it that includes geographic bias it might as well if you're looking at regional I wasn't sure what he was getting out there he talked about regional he highlighted Rotland and Franklin County whether it's judges, whether it's state's attorney whether it's the defense bar whether it's the case workers supervisor why is Rotland now the one that's doing well or is it because the department shook off Rotland following the tragedies down there I think so I wasn't glad for Rotland but we did our listening to her to remember her complaints about Rotland and Windsor County were huge I think his report referred to regionalization to some extent and again going back to the judicial master the idea behind what we're proposing is looking at multiple counties and I think that's where a master going from one county to another give the consistency that is sometimes lacking in the system to the extent that they play a role in the Chin's docket I think that's another place where we could reduce that geographic disparity but I think this is an opportunity to look at everyone's roles and decide if there's a better way of doing things Section 7 talks about a listening tour and that would include both members of the public and also providers within areas throughout the state as to what resources are there is there a better way to align those resources with the demands I'm going to ask my question to you listening tour on the impact of the opioid crisis is that the only impact on the family court and the issues my quick reading of this looks like we are only looking at one issue that is impacting which is the opioid crisis and that is troublesome to me and I'm not saying we don't have a crisis but everything seems to be focused on that and I need to be persuaded that that is the only issue that we need to be paying attention to I don't think anyone on this committee would say that that is the only issue that we are listening to and the impact of the opioid crisis that would be peer navigators is to be inserted in the recovery centers not necessarily in the recovery center I've said that long maybe I need to re-read that portion but I wouldn't see the peer navigators necessarily in the recovery center they could be right in the court when these people are but I would say no certainly the influx in filings is clearly driven to a great extent by opioid epidemic but that is not the only issue but that's certainly the one that is driving the caseload and is a major significant factor in Chin's cases that's where we've seen the greatest surge in filings since the opioid epidemic hit that's why I think there's a lot in this report to that effect and we have the data when I ask for the data tomorrow or the next day you can ask for the data tomorrow or the next day and we'll get it to you as soon as we can pull it together you're basing this on the increases based on the number of all of that and thank you trust and verify and I believe we have the data to support it overall we would need someone if we ultimately get to that point to have a project manager oversee all of this because the four of us are not in the position to do that before representing a few groups for early leadership on this committee we'll be asked for four years it's been a pleasure who would have thought that you and I would come together we'd never work together on the other hand there's a senate chair of all fair that four of us could sit down and talk about I agree I look forward to working with you again and we'll have a little better if we ever want to build homes one thing that I'm sure will be in it maybe fifth time around we could get a big move on thank you who would have thought the data before we're starting we have too many meetings that's my overview unless the committee has a question thank you thank you sir I think 10 shafts Karen and Shay are coming together or assembly or Karen doesn't want to be with us yes we can do it so let me start for the record my name is commissioner of the department for children and families I'm Karen so I want to start by thanking you as members of the legislature I think you in creating this workgroup and asking us to provide this report to you actually did listen and recognize that we do have a crisis in our child welfare system and then he did ask us for stakeholders to try to do our best to come together to look at that system to try to come forward with transformative ideas recognizing that this is an extremely complex system challenging system with a variety of issues that are involved and to do and you asked us to do our best to present ideas to you with some specific dollar amounts to address those issues we've come forward as Judge Greerson has described of approaches recognizing that this is not a simple situation nor is it a simple solution what I would say to you is that just partly in response to representative Pugh that actually while the opioid epidemic is an incredibly significant factor involved in our child welfare system and the rise in the number of cases coming into our system it is not the only issue let me be clear homelessness other barriers transportation, child care are factors that are very much involved in some of the issues and challenges that some of our families face who come to our attention and into our system what we've tried to do is come forward with a proposal that really recognizes that we can't just fix this system with little band-aids that we need to recognize the numbers and I agree with the issues regarding resources you've heard me come to you on numerous occasions as a committee with Karen and I showing you data regarding the case loads and workloads of our staff, of the court system of all the lawyers involved indicating that we are all overwhelmed but just providing more resources and we do need more resources to be clear but just providing that is not the answer that's why as judge Greerson indicated and I appreciate the fact that the four of us were able to come together to think about and recommend to you the first approach is to recognize we need to do something to support children and their parents to try to avoid abuse and neglect avoid coming to the attention of the system in the first place and that's why we had agreement with respect to this home visiting approach in terms of looking at how we can address issues upstream as it's described or early on to try to avoid those problems and let me be clear, the focus is on the child we need to look at the child's health and issues that the family may face that may put the child at risk of abuse and the home visiting models that will be looked at as part of this process do look at issues regarding homelessness and fragile housing, they look at issues about whether or not there are challenges with respect that related to poverty and child care and that kind of early on approach recognizing we have and you've supported as a legislature an array of services and programs in our state that are far from perfect to be sure but sometimes people need assistance in connecting to some of those existing services and programs that are out there and so with respect to those programs we do think that home visiting is an incredible significant approach so I'm not going to go through these programs or the proposals in depth, Karen will touch on more of those in terms of specifically how they will benefit the children that we're serving and the families that we're supporting but we recognize that we need to look at this system as a whole both in terms of the need to address issues upstream but also frankly as Judge Gerson has indicated we do have challenges that need some immediate attention in our court system and I appreciate some of the comments that have been made already with respect to some of those proposals and I think before Karen gets into more specific descriptions what I want to say to you is legislature initiated this process I look forward to conversations with you and as we go forward into this next session to have a dynamic approach to what does work I look to you as the Child Protective Oversight Committee as the champions I hope that you recognize that we do need to make some very significant changes to our system as described in this approach but you may have a different idea about how best to address this problem and I just want you to know I for one am really interested, willing and open to hearing those thoughts and conversations about how we can better approach the changes in the system and so with that let me sort of turn to Karen to sort of talk a little bit more specifically about the proposals and our thought as far as the department is concerned thank you so just to jump off of what Ken said there is no doubt that our entire Child Protection System has considerable challenges and the fact that we have seen a significant caseload increase over the last five years has contributed to us being where we are now and when we're thinking about what's needed in our system it's often very difficult to think about transformative work when you're in the midst of a crisis and really trying to grapple with the cases that are actually already in the pipeline and the kids who are already in need of the system to work in a different way so they can have the best outcomes but I think that when you really look at what was offered in terms of an opportunity from the legislation that brought the four parties together to talk about a path forward has it really challenged us to look at how do we transform the system so that those who actually are in it over the long run have a different experience in my own mind I think about it almost as though we're on a clock freeway and that we need to think about different exit ramps if you will different strategies that will allow us to have to relieve the pressure and what I think is so holds a much promise about this is that the group has come forward with a number of different ideas that we think over time may help to alleviate the numbers of children and families flowing into the system shorten the length of time that they spend in the system if they have to come in and ultimately influence the number of exits because the three of those different factors ultimately really are impact your overall caseload the numbers coming in how long they stay and how many exit so I think that in looking at this report what I felt was most promising is that it actually directly impacts all three of those factors so when you look at the proposed home visiting I think that holds a great deal of promise because if we can get to families and children sooner and equip those parents with information we can change the experience of those children and what we're looking to do is really think about giving parents real skills so that they can better interact with their children and meet their needs which ultimately is what we all want is for kids to do well in their communities and their families and many times I think we forget that positive parenting isn't always intuitive and that many of these parents have grown up in situations that were less than positive and so in some ways the home visiting really helps to teach them how to engage with their infants in a way that they didn't ever benefit from themselves and it teaches them concepts like serve and return which again is very basic and many parents in this room will understand that that's the whole process of looking at your baby and smiling and talking with your baby but for a lot of the parents we work with that's not intuitive and they don't necessarily understand that that impacts the brain development of their child and it impacts the relationship between the parent and child in a way that over time has shown positive outcomes so if we can start to get two parents earlier to help them learn those skills there's a lot of research that shows that that is a way to stem the tide of cases into the child welfare system additionally it helps that those home visitors can also help parents to navigate complex systems and help them to access resources that are available within the systems but that really sometimes parents are challenged to understand how to get access to so things like housing or financial benefits in the community home visitors in their process of having a relationship with a parent can identify those things that are needed and make referrals and connections that might otherwise those opportunities could be missed and there's also I think the benefit of home visiting is early identification of our problems if there's patterns of behaviors substance use disorders, mental health issues those home visitors can identify those things earlier and help make connections to available resources and can get to problems before they become attractable and often try to they would stem the tide of the case coming towards the child welfare system home visiting also normalizes the use of help it normalizes the experience of parents in accessing information because in that relationship they are able to ask questions and gain information in a way that feels safe and less intimidating and so I also think that none of the members of this group believe that home visiting is going to be the only answer but again it is responsive to addressing the flow of cases in and I think that in combination with other parts of the proposal like alternative dispute resolution there's a potential to have fewer cases coming in and if they do come in having them stay for a shorter period of time. I have a number of stream checkers so this is an unliked that but you would have a stream checker for corporations the precursor to our barge program so it's not unliked that where you would have somebody who would have those stream checkers we still have the barge program balance and restorative justice program and those folks do a lot of the work that used to be called street checkers. Just evolved into a larger program actually some respects I think the indication of its success. Moving on to alternative dispute resolution I think that going back to the earlier testimony I would never assume that every time I'm talking about the alternative dispute resolution first. Going back to earlier testimony from today it's not unusual for us to hear about people that we work with that feel misunderstood feel like we're not being fair feel that their their issues are not being taken seriously and sometimes we're able to address their concerns through dialogue and through discussion and other times the relationship becomes very difficult and when that relationship becomes difficult often people become polarized and then the staff family services they end up having fewer options and bring things to court so that others can help make decisions and I think that there are times that alternative dispute resolution could be applied early in a case or before filing that might alleviate the need for the court process entirely so if you think about before the filing of a petition perhaps there could be a family group conference where families come together with a neutral party to try to sort out the issues or some type of mediation I think that there could be great potential there to have fewer cases flowing into the overburden system and have again address those issues earlier or if they do come into the system to narrow the issues that the parties are working on the judicial master I think is another approach that I think would be getting at cases at a different stage ultimately those would already be in the Chin's process but if we could carve off or create an opportunity for some of the issues that are taking up valuable court time valuable judicial time valuable attorney time ultimately we could see ease in processing the cases that need to be in the formal process and have people have a different experience in their life of their case going to the issue of peer navigators I think there is no denying that the opioid crisis is a factor in the increase in our case load we continue to have issues with mental health homelessness a variety of factors that lead families to come to our door the idea of peer navigators the reason it was written in the report and the way it was was to try to capitalize on some of the work that is actually happening in recovery centers think about how could we ensure that we are not duplicating services and also benefiting from some of the work that has already been done around identifying different approaches to peer navigation all of that we can maintain flexibility around where to best think about inserting peer navigation but the idea of peer navigators themselves irrespective of where they end up being placed within the system is an approach that has been shown to have great impact in systems and our state I think is unique in how limited our peer support peer navigation actually is in the child welfare system people who have lived experience have a perspective about being in the system that is really important for parents who are coming into the system to benefit from they can talk to parents in a different way about why they should engage with services earlier and help them understand that their fears are valid about being in the system and that they need to think about how they're going to work effectively with VCF or effectively with their service providers to try to address the issues this is about encouraging engagement early so that we can try to address those opportunities for polarization and for people to become disconnected from the process the listening tour I also attended all nine of the meetings several years ago and found them incredibly impactful and valuable I think that hearing from people who have experienced our system is really the only way that you can ever truly understand the impact that we have and think about how to adjust your processes to meet their needs and I think that in adding it into this report it creates an opportunity for all of the players in the system to hear from the people that are impacted by our system and also it gives us an opportunity to course correct in our work as we go forward to make sure that we are adjusting as needed since the focus should be on the child wondering if your navigator wouldn't be better to be focused on people who have been children in the system so that they can help the other children in that system understand what they're going through I'm frustrated by the idea we're going to spend $900,000 on the peer navigating with parents and I tend to focus on those kids that are going through a system that is very difficult to understand whether you're two years old or 16 years old to judge I do not disagree with you I think that ultimately the needs of kids in the system are best met if their parents can get the support that they need to be better parents and that's the intention So let me just say I do appreciate that suggestion about having an approach that recognizes kids who have been through the system could also be very helpful in terms of both providing support for new parents and also for youth in our system so I do appreciate that and I think that as Karen indicated I think we're also recognizing that part of the growth in our case load and in the court system our parents are very young children and so part of what our focus is in terms of trying to keep the focus on children is recognizing that in order to keep children safe we do need to pay attention to the need to parents also well but the support for those people who are taking care of the child while the child is not living with these parents so we're going to get bigger navigators because it seems to be lacking to me Appreciate that Anyway I just might go back a little bit I had not the policy of weather report itself so you may have already answered this question right but where did the home visitors fit into the system and how do we know which families are going to get home visits so I do actually appreciate that question and frankly what we what we did as a work group we did hear from representatives of the Department of Health and Child Development Division who do have a system of home visiting in mind and infrastructure in mind but as a committee what we wanted to do was first before we landed on utilizing that system that infrastructure to have a consultant review what we have in Vermont to compare that to some existing and the best practices and research on home visiting before making a specific proposal but to summarize very quickly the existing system or infrastructure that we at AHS have been talking about is recognizing taking advantage of the very positive that we have in Vermont where something like over 95% of new mourns actually do have their pediatric they have visits with their pediatricians within the first six months so the idea would be to embed family support workers in pediatric practices and then to have there be referrals to home visiting programs based on the specific need of the family so that some might need a very light touch but others might need more sustained home visiting if there are significant issues or challenges with the child or the family's ability to support the child but that's as you may have heard in other contexts that's the infrastructure that we've already been talking about and working on in the agency but before moving forward with that specific one what the report talks about is engaging a consultant and then coming forward based on the consultant's report with a specific proposal of a model Most of what we were going to go back to what Larry Chris was talking about about child care advocates something crazy or something like that so what would be how to healthcare and how to get reality to work together first and not saying it's good not just saying and suggesting it I was just wondering if you thought about that two years and it's interesting that you mentioned that model healthcare advocates exist and make sense because there isn't a legal system in place for people who are receiving healthcare in fact in this system we do have a lot of players a lot of accountability specifically in terms of our court system and so that every case does go through a process of involvement of obviously DCF a state's attorney a guardian at Lydrum for the child a parent's attorney and so we do have a substantial level of accountability in our system as it exists now we have the Supreme Court who hears appeals on a regular basis a human service board in certain situations that hears appeals of other matters what I would say to you if anything with respect to I don't believe we need another ombudsman to say disagree with the attorneys involved the judges involved or for that matter DCF if in fact we've already been through this process of having a court make decisions in the case what I do think that might make sense and depends on where we go with this is somebody looking at the system as a whole rather than individual cases that is that as we go forward in looking through your direction to us to come up with a transformative approach to our system we may want to talk about at some point somebody continuing to look at the system as a whole now having said that we do have committees that already do that the Vermont Citizens Advisory Board the Supreme Court's task force on children already do that to a certain extent we may want to talk about something a little different but my perspective is we actually already have a tremendous number of players looking at the system but as Judge Greerson indicated it's not as if we're saying all that's working perfectly one of the reasons in the report that we do talk about a review of the whole system is to recognize that we also want to take a look at that as a whole it could be as a result of that report there might be some but a recommendation that would come forward that would be a little bit different thank you very much Marshall good afternoon Marshall Paul from the Office of the Attorney General rather than going since we've sort of walked through the report a couple of times now rather than going through the report yet another time if it's okay with the committee would I sort of rather do this share rather than sharing our sort of specific interpretation of each one of these items in the report tell you just a little bit more about sort of our approach to what this problem is what this report's intended to solve and the way that I would characterize that is that from our perspective there's really two problems that when you take the charge to the committee and look at how does that break down in practice there's really two problems one is the number of cases coming into the system and the other is the number of cases that are currently in the system and specifically what I'd say is exactly what I said when we were here a few weeks ago for Joint Justice Oversight which is that there's been a lot of suggestion about ways to build up bulk up the system so that it can handle the number of cases that are coming in or arguably could handle the number of cases that are coming in I don't believe that's actually possible I don't believe that's possible even if we could hire the attorneys we needed the judges we needed the social workers we needed and then all of the collateral resources that go along with that court clerks court security attorney staff social services staff even if we could hire all of those people we simply wouldn't even have the physical infrastructure to do it we ran into that problem when we were addressing one of the first places that the bubble the increase in Chin's filings hit in a really dramatic way was Franklin County and we ran into that problem up there we had the resources we had the ability to hire more attorneys to bring in more judges and we didn't even have the court space to do it it ended up having to take an extra period of time to convert jury rooms in the court space and that's not something you can do everywhere and so from our office's perspective this is at its core this is a problem that can only be solved by reducing the number of cases coming in which really means that this is a prevention problem and that's why there are this report reflects an emphasis in some areas on prevention is because without prevention we can keep doing everything that we can do to try to make cases move faster to try to hear the cases more effectively, more efficiently and more accurately but we will never be able to address the backlog of cases that as Representative Marwicky described it, I think the caseload overload we'll never be able to address that unless we have a really strong prevention component when it comes to the question of the cases that are in the system now I think that this sort of because we recognizing that prevention is a long term thing you can't you can't prevent your way out of a problem this year prevent your way out of a problem in the next few months that that's a long term thing and so the question of what are the short term ways to address not the cases coming in but the cases that are already in the system the one that I would want to highlight in there because I think it's a particularly interesting one it's one that we've had discussions on since this report was written and I think come up with even a little bit more refined of a direction is the idea of using alternative dispute resolution to get some of these cases that could be resolved without the adversarial process of the court system out of the court system and I think that one of the one of the most interesting solutions to that that's really been proven in a bunch of different locations is using something that's either mediation or family group conferencing a different form of alternative dispute resolution that's designed specifically for child welfare cases that actually has a pretty long history and one of the things that I think is very appealing about it is it's because it has it's you know probably the form of alternative dispute resolution in child welfare cases that hasn't been the longest history it also has been studied a lot the model has been refined a lot and so there's a real you don't have to build up something from scratch there's really been a proven model there's you know trainings are available so it's very easy to get somebody trained up to to facilitate a family group conference and so the idea of providing an opportunity for every case to go to some form of alternative dispute resolution before you know before it hits that before it goes to trial in the CHIN system and to sort out those cases that can be resolved in other ways I think is a really important one and really reflects really reflects I think at its core the you know all of the interests that have been represented here today I mean we've heard from Larry Chris from the parent representation center representative Marwicky from the social services side the judiciary the department for children and families and what I think is so valuable about the alternative dispute resolution models is that it's a way to address that backlog of cases that doesn't take anything away from anyone it's not something there's been discussion about ways to do it by speeding up the process by creating presumptions within the law that would you know eliminate hearings things like that it doesn't do anything like that instead it's just about seeing whether or not there is some overlap that between everybody's interests that rather than focusing in a you know in a particular child welfare case on where there is disagreement and litigating that disagreement to see if there's areas of agreement that can be kind of capitalized on and used to resolve the case in a way that doesn't require going through the court system so that's been our office's approach to this entire process is that you know those are really the two areas that we are interested in pursuing as others have said we don't have universal agreement on everything that's contained in this document and I don't think it's you know I think because this is a document that is still in a process that is still ongoing we're still having those discussions you know it's not going to be productive for us to sort of you know identify and hash out every disagreement that we have here in this committee but I do think that the important thing is that what this document is a reflection of is sort of our shared commitment to finding solutions to this and really it's sort of you know it's surprising and it's you know I'm very impressed with the work the committee has done in the sense that we're four people you know four organizations that have very different approaches to this work and very different roles within this work and yet you know on those core issues of prevention and finding ways to use alternatives to the adversarial court process to resolve these cases there's actually been you know a lot of agreement on specific questions I'm happy to answer for general questions on prevention I think prevention is and I think just you know from a macro scale perspective one of the things that's really interesting is that's also become a focus at the federal level there's a you know in the past the guidance that's provided around federal money has not been as focused on prevention as it is now so it's really it's not just here that we're seeing prevention as being a really critical part of the child welfare system that's a that's it's it's a nationwide thing at this point thank you James James Pepper Department of State Strange and Chariffs and there's really at this point not a lot that we can add we came to the start of the stakeholder meetings with a very similar position that the defender general's office just described that adding new judges more court days more attorneys would help clear back logs and speed up processes but that ultimately it would be treating symptoms and not root causes and that we believed that prevention avoiding the filing of a petition was this most logical place to actually have system-wide reform we've been convinced that through studying the research that home visiting universal home visiting has worked in other states it could work in Vermont we don't want to be too hasty about adopting other states programs we really think that bringing in a consultant to look at the unique challenges of our state and designing a system looking at what we have in place already but ultimately designing a system that fits Vermont is the correct approach we after our last kind of joint justice oversight meeting we realized that we're kind of ignoring some of the charge and that we really need to find ways the cases can be processed and adjudicated more efficiently that have better outcomes and so that's why we really took a second look a deeper dive into the idea of alternative dispute resolution one thing that has kind of been hammered into my head is that people that don't have the high needs high risk don't need the heavy touch and that there are alternative methods that can like family group conferencing like mediation that are more appropriate for those cases that can kind of help avoid the court days free up judges and attorneys to deal with the more high risk or high needs cases that is a question for me it's it's all the members of the working group one of that I spoke about the program that was based on domestic violence and the county's being successful and one of the things that made them successful was every all the cases were by one judge so the family court case the criminal case whatever it was is there any thought of having a focus on the family and the children in that family all done by one judge whether it's from I think or Larry about a case that where the mother with the child hadn't been transported because the mother was at South Burlington all of that put the whole thing together the mother's in jail the father's trying to take care of three kids maybe the father's got an opiate problem how do you put everything together combine all the processes is there any thought to that I well I can just say that we have been talking about that we have been talking about regional models and I think one of the impetus behind the reviewing the roles of all roles in the Chin's process was to look at that very issue and seeing if there was a way to have dedicated staff I was going to say the exact same thing but we've definitely talked about if you're going to mention to his testimony too the role and the way we set up the system with respect to the judiciary and clearly part of the idea of reviewing the whole Chin system includes looking at different models to including the issue that you're mentioning Senator Sears I don't respond to that there's a place to look at that and that's really why I was talking a different way of looking at these cases maybe the judicial master could I think it could bring everybody together that it wasn't unusual it's not unusual to have you know various members of the family and in some cases the extended family involved in the system itself in various ways I think just piggybacking on something that Marshall said in Arizona for instance is embedded in the Chin's process it's a requirement and it's something that we could certainly I think benefit from looking at how Arizona does it and see if that makes sense here but again you know the report again I would just echo something that was said by Judge Pearson is a work in progress right now we're still not there we don't have full agreement we think that this is going to have to be a multi-year solution Brendan, do we have some I mean the idea was to connect to the appropriations committee to the standing committee with this report but the report is still a work in progress I think there's aspects of it that we would like to move on including bringing in a consultant to help develop a prevention style home visiting process getting the judicial masters at least want some pilots with judicial masters in various counties there's aspects that I think are ready to be brought to the committees I think in our last meeting we talked about putting together BAA on some parts of what we have in front of you to try to move forward on some parts right away so I think the committee has to I interrupted you I think I was rapping appreciate it thank you very much