Maine struggling with child abuse, neglect

AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — Maine is struggling with an uptick in alleged child abuse and neglect, a legislative watchdog agency said Thursday.

The Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability is investigating Maine’s child welfare system following the deaths of 10-year-old Marissa Kennedy in February in Stockton Springs and 4-year-old Kendall Chick in December in Wiscasset. The Legislature’s Government Oversight Committee on Thursday discussed plans to gather anonymous input from workers on the front line of the issue: Maine’s child protective caseworkers.

“That’s the crux of the issue,” Republican Sen. Thomas Saviello said. “Do they have the training, staffing, resources to do the job right?”

Caseworkers’ workloads are increasing as call volumes go up and new policy changes require more investigations of some allegations, according to information given to lawmakers by Beth Ashcroft, director of the Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability.

Maine had 6,159 cases being investigated as of mid-June, a figure that’s more than double the number of cases in January 2017.

Republican Sen. Roger Katz and Democratic Rep. Anne-Marie Mastraccio, who chair the Government Oversight Committee, said Republican Gov. Paul LePage told them Department of Health and Human Services Commissioner Ricker Hamilton would speak before the committee Thursday.