The Connecticut House of Representatives voted 149–0 on Thursday to pass a bill that would create a new oversight council for the Department of Children and Families, after the state’s child-advocacy watchdog released a public letter detailing a child’s apparent suicide and a years-long deterioration in the quality of the agency’s casework. The Office of the Child Advocate said it has grown “increasingly alarmed at the quality of case practice” and that DCF has been unable to demonstrate improvements despite repeated attempts at collaboration.
The OCA letter, which surfaced as lawmakers prepared to debate H.B. 5004, described the April suicide of a child who had asked to be moved into foster care but was left with a parent after DCF decided “that coming into care was not an option.” The Child Advocate called the incident alarming and said it reflected a pattern of declining quality in the “most meaningful” elements of casework, including a sharp drop in home visits with children and in how quickly work begins.
According to the letter, the share of cases where caseworkers made contact with children fell from 85 percent at the start of 2022 to 58 percent at the beginning of 2025. Some children in DCF care and their caregivers went without any documented visits in a given month, a circumstance the OCA said was particularly concerning. The Office noted that it had attempted to work with DCF on improvements, but “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.”
DCF Commissioner Susan Hamilton, in a statement Thursday, said the agency had launched “a multidisciplinary review” and that since she assumed her role last September DCF “has undertaken a thorough review of this data … and determined that tangible and measurable changes are needed to elevate the quality of our work.” Hamilton said DCF was already implementing improvement strategies and takes the OCA findings seriously. “We are committed to ongoing collaboration with our system partners … to address identified system gaps,” she said. However, earlier in the legislative session Hamilton had told lawmakers in public testimony that she did not believe additional oversight was necessary.
Lawmakers from both parties were dismayed by the OCA’s letter. Senate Minority Leader Stephen Harding, R-Brookfield, called the child’s death “absolutely tragic. Awful, alarming and preventable.” Committee on Children co-chair Sen. Ceci Maher, D-Wilton, said, “To say these findings are disturbing is an understatement — we are seeing an ongoing pattern where DCF does not meet the moment and children in Connecticut suffer.” Maher added that H.B. 5004, which passed the House unanimously, “is set to address issues at DCF and work with them to protect our children. The commissioner and her agency owe us answers and accountability.”
Rep. Corey Paris, D-Stamford, the committee’s House co-chair, called the bill the most comprehensive effort to create change at the agency in some time. “We are saying that we know what happened in the past year is not good,” he said, referring to a series of child abuse and death cases connected to DCF. Rep. Anne Dauphinais, the panel’s ranking Republican, drew a direct line from the deaths of Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres-García and Eve Rogers, and the child suicide described by OCA, to the need for the bill’s provisions. “These are tragic, tragic stories and events that have happened in our state,” she said.
The bill includes more than two dozen provisions. It would establish a new oversight council, require DCF to place children with kin whenever possible and provide an explanation when it does not, create a mentoring and internship program with stipends to improve workforce retention, and make several trainings mandatory — on cultural sensitivity, perinatal mood and anxiety, and human trafficking. It would also launch a new public-facing website with updated information and reports, a step lawmakers said responds to public demands for accountability. Directly addressing the Torres-García case — in which the 11-year-old died of malnourishment and abuse after DCF involvement, and her mother covered up the death by telling a social worker the child was visiting a relative out of state — the bill would require welfare checks by the child-welfare agency in a child’s new state when the child leaves Connecticut. Other provisions include emergency communication devices for DCF workers during site visits, and grants to help families purchase basic necessities and pay for after-school programs. Maintenance care payments have not been increased for kin in two decades, or for foster families in a decade, Paris said; the grants are designed to fill that gap.
The bill passed 149–0 with two lawmakers not voting and now heads to the Senate for final passage. Advocates warned that conditions at DCF remain urgent. The OCA letter described “workers and children … in a near constant state of crisis,” noting that children’s behavioral health needs are not being addressed, foster parents lack support, and children are losing hope. The nonprofit Center for Children’s Advocacy said in a statement, “Immediate measures must be taken 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 in need of help and services.”