Gov: ‘We need to move quickly’ on DCF changes
The Department of Children and Families is now reviewing its handling of “Baby Doe,” while Gov. Charlie Baker says rewriting the DCF “playbook” for keeping kids safe is a top priority.
Bella Bond, the 2 1⁄2- year-old girl who was found dead in a trash bag on Deer Island in June, was twice the subject of DCF scrutiny in 2012 and 2013, but her closed case was overlooked during the desperate search for her identity.
Her mother’s boyfriend, Michael P. McCarthy, 35, is being arraigned today on a murder charge. Her mother, Rachelle Bond, 40, is being arraigned on an accessory after the fact charge.
DCF spokeswoman Andrea Grossman told the Herald in an email yesterday, “The Department is currently examining the case” — going beyond a prior statement in which the agency outlined its “brief involvement” with the girl.
Baker said yesterday, “We’re going to have DCF take a good look at the case, of course. This just speaks to, frankly, some of the recommendations we made recently which involve the fact that the in-take process at DCF hasn’t been updated in 12 years. That’s a No. 1 priority for us.”
Baker added, “There’s so much in what I would call the basic playbook for child welfare that hasn’t been updated in so long at DCF. We’ve got to get on with it because that’s the document that, on the ground, everybody uses when they make these decisions. And it can’t happen fast enough.
“We’re going to move very aggressively working with the department to pursue this, and frankly, working with the unions and others,” Baker continued. “This is sort of the core of how you keep kids safe. We’re on it, but we need to move quickly.”
DCF had worked with the family of Bella Bond on neglect issues in 2012 and 2013, but acknowledged Friday after she was publicly identified that because her case was closed, it was not reviewed when authorities were trying to determine the identity of “Baby Doe.”
“The Department would have no legal authority to initiate new contact with a family with a closed case without a report of abuse or neglect,” Grossman wrote yesterday. But, again elaborating on the earlier statement, Grossman revealed that some closed cases were reviewed: “When we did learn about Baby Doe, the Department did look at recently closed cases and examine every open case involving a child under the age of 5 and ensured a social worker had actually visited that child. This sweep involved thousands of children.”
Patricia Quinn, 59 of Lynn, Bella’s paternal grandmother, told the Herald yesterday she contacted DCF twice in mid2013 — during a period when the case was open — after Bella’s mother stopped responding to her texts and phone calls.
“I told them I was the grandmother of Bella and I need to know what’s going on and there is something very wrong. They didn’t want to hear it.”