Connecticut House approves bill creating new child welfare oversight

Just as Connecticut lawmakers were preparing to debate a bill Thursday that would create new oversight for the state Department of Children and Families, the watchdog Office of the Child Advocate released a public letter criticizing what it described as failures in DCF casework. The letter, released by the Office of the Child Advocate ahead of the House action, drew attention to child fatalities and detailed alleged decision-making it said departed from policy, including an apparent suicide last week of a child who died within an hour of asking to be moved into foster care.

In the letter, the Office of the Child Advocate described the incident as alarming and said its own reviews of critical incidents and child fatalities had led to growing concern about the quality of case practice it observed. The letter said DCF made a decision to leave the child with the parent, stating that “coming into care was not an option,” and it criticized what it described as a pattern of social workers diverging from policy while facing few repercussions. The Office of the Child Advocate said supervisors, meanwhile, often considered the work to be “adequate.”

The advocacy office also cited a decline in home visits with children and in how quickly casework begins. The letter said one rating for contact with children fell from 85% to 58% between the beginning of 2022 and the beginning of 2025, and it said some children in DCF care and their caregivers had gone without any documented visits with caseworkers in a given month. It further said it had tried to work with DCF on improvements without success, writing that “Despite expression of shared concern by DCF Executive Leadership, OCA finds that DCF has been unable to demonstrate improvements and the currently identified action steps are not adequate.”

In a statement Thursday, DCF Commissioner Susan Hamilton said the agency had launched “a multidisciplinary review” and that since she assumed the role of commissioner last September, DCF has reviewed the data cited by the Office of the Child Advocate along with other information from its continuous quality improvement activities. Hamilton said DCF determined “tangible and measurable changes are needed” to elevate the quality of its work, and she said the agency was already pursuing “improvement strategies.” She also said the agency is committed to collaboration with the Office of the Child Advocate, legislators and other system partners, as well as families and youth with lived expertise, to address gaps in the system.

Even as DCF disputed that its improvements were adequate, lawmakers said the Office of the Child Advocate’s findings reinforced the need for legislative changes. Senate Minority Leader Stephen Harding called the child suicide described in the letter “Absolutely tragic. Awful, alarming and preventable,” while Sen. Ceci Maher said the situation showed an ongoing pattern in which DCF does not meet the moment and children in Connecticut suffer. Maher, a Democrat, said H.B. 5004 “is set to address issues at DCF and work with them to protect our children,” adding that the commissioner and her agency owe lawmakers “answers and accountability.”

The bipartisan support in the House reflected the focus lawmakers put on creating additional oversight and accountability mechanisms. Rep. Corey Paris, a co-chair of the Committee on Children, called H.B. 5004 the “most comprehensive effort to create change” at the agency in some time, and said legislators were responding to a set of child abuse and death cases tied to DCF. Rep. Anne Dauphinais, the ranking Republican on the Committee on Children, drew a direct line between deaths described during recent cases, including those tied to the Office of the Child Advocate’s letter, and the need for changes reflected in the bill.

H.B. 5004 contains about two dozen provisions, including creating a new oversight council. The bill would require DCF to place children with kin when possible and to provide explanations when children are not placed with kin. It would also include procedural changes aimed at supporting families, including grants designed to help cover basic necessities and after-school programs, and it would create an internship program with stipends for mentors and mentees intended to support workforce retention. The measure would make some trainings mandatory for DCF employees, including training topics such as cultural sensitivity, perinatal mood and anxiety, and human trafficking.

Lawmakers also said the bill responds directly to individual cases and to public concerns about how DCF tracks children after critical moments. Paris said maintenance care payments for kin have not increased for two decades, and payments for foster families have not increased for a decade, describing the grants as a way to fill that gap. The bill would include changes requiring more accountability when children in DCF care leave the state, including welfare checks by the agency in the child’s new location, and it would require DCF workers to carry emergency communication devices during site visits. Lawmakers said the bill also would create a new public-facing website with updated information and reports on DCF, in response to demands for accountability.

The House approved H.B. 5004 with a 149-0 vote, with two lawmakers not voting, and the bill is set to go to the Senate for final passage. Advocates said the conditions at DCF call for urgent action, and the Office of the Child Advocate described “workers and children … in a near constant state of crisis,” while other needs such as children’s behavioral health and support for foster parents were also highlighted. The Center for Children’s Advocacy, in a statement Thursday, said immediate measures were needed to address DCF workforce gaps, support foster parents and social workers, and enable and empower community human service providers and lawyers to engage and serve children and families needing help and services.