The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
PROBLEMS STILL LINGER
Despite new leadership, significant issues remain at Dept. of Children and Families
When Joette Katz was tapped to lead the state agency that has been under a federal court order for decades for failing too many of the state’s abused and neglected foster children, child advocates and lawmakers were delighted.
The former state Supreme Court justice estimated it would take her a year to turn the agency around enough to shed court over- sight.
Today, 2 1/2 years later, the court monitor reports that significant problems still linger at the state Department of Children and Fam-
“I say to people, this order is not like fine wine, it’s not getting better with age.” — Joette Katz, Department of Children and Families commissioner
ilies.
So is the honeymoon over? Not quite. “You are a breath of fresh air. It’s a big ship to turn, and you really are doing a great job,” the cochairwoman of the legislature’s powerful budget-writing committee, Rep. Toni Walker, D-New Haven, told the commissioner this spring.
“I think her agency is doing extremely well,” Rep. Laura Hoydick, R-Stratford, a member of the Committee on Children, said from the floor of the House.
While praise from lawmakers is not hard to find, the commissioner who left a secure job on the bench at age 57 for the roughand-tumble of running an agency that draws more and harsher public scrutiny than any other is still falling short, several advocates say.
“I guess some say I am a thorn in the side of that state agency,” Martha Stone, an attorney that represents and advocates for foster children, told a roomful of officials at the state Capitol complex recently. Stone’s complaints that day were about long delays in arranging services for chil- dren caught up in the criminal justice system.
The shortfalls — as cited in the court monitor’s recent report cards — include not providing almost half of the foster children in state custody with the education, medical and/or psychological care they need.
Katz clearly keeps the court monitor’s oversight front and center when she discusses her agency’s future.
“I say to people, this order is not like fine wine, it’s not getting better with age.”
Changing how foster children “age out” of DCF
Sitting across the table from a 17-year-old who has been in foster care for years, Katz asked the same question she asked her son and daughter when they were seniors in high school.
“Have you applied yet for college?” she asked the teen, pointing out that deadlines are looming.
“This week. This week. I am going to get them out this week. There was a little mix up,” the Waterbury teenager responded.
The consequences are harsh for the foster children who don’t make it to college. Unless they are enrolled in an educational program when they become 18, they age out of the system, which means they are on their own and have no help with their living and other expenses.
About 15 percent of children who leave DCF care each year do so because they age out of the system, one of the highest rates in the country, according to Fostering Connections, a nonpartisan think tank that focuses on child welfare agencies.
This dubious distinction has followed the state for years.
In response, Katz has launched two initiatives to stop the exodus of children from state custody who lack either a family to support them or a college degree.
The first is aimed at keeping more families together. When Katz took office in January 2011, a national advocacy group reported that Connecticut ranked well above the national average in removing children from their homes, and it ranked near the bottom in terms of placing those children with other relatives.
With the number of children now in state custody down to 4,022 children in June (a 16 percent decrease since Katz took office) and one in four foster children now living with another relative (compared with one in six in January 2011), Katz has won the praise of both lawmakers and advocates.
But these shifts haven’t solved the problem completely.