Gov. Baker announces DCF reforms in Massachusetts

MacKinnon appeared alongside Baker and DCF Commissioner Linda Spears at a press conference to announce new initiatives to clarify and improve the agency’s core mission to protect children. Speaking forcefully, he added, “not from this point forward”.

Prosecutors allege Bella was murdered.

All three echo the 2013 case of Jeremiah Oliver, a 5-year-old Fitchburg boy whose remains were found alongside a highway after social workers lost track of him.

Gov. Charlie Baker on Monday asked for an independent review of the Bella Bond case from the independent Office of the Child Advocate.

Baker said there were “a lot of people, friends and family, who had concerns about what was going on with respect to that particular situation, who for whatever reason didn’t bother to reach out to anybody and tell them, or to raise it, or to create the opportunity for DCF to go back in and take a look”.

Bella’s body was found on Deer Island in June. “Working together, we will succeed in doing what has been necessary for so long – making deep, systemic changes”. They include the reestablishment of a central regional office, to be opened in Worcester by January 1. Approximately 82 percent of DCF workers have attained licensing since the requirement was instituted a year ago. “In many cases they don’t exist at all”.

Maria Mossaides, executive director of Cambridge Family and Children’s Service, will become the head of the office on October 13.

Lints and his live-in girlfriend, 22-year-old Alexandra Chadwick, are both facing criminal charges for their alleged roles in the case. The office will be staffed with managerial, administrative, legal, nursing and other employees to increase workers’ access to supervision and other support resources.

Baker wants to refocus the entire agency on keeping children safe and laid out a plan Monday to give DCF’s case intake policy it’s first update in ten years, as well as to integrate more data on risk and safety into procedures. Through negotiations with SEIU Local 509 leadership already underway, the policy will be updated by November. 17.

Chief among the new reforms is an effort to limit the caseload of social workers to 18-1.

In the last week, Governor Baker has been stressing a need for major changes to how the department works. But he also acknowledged that DCF was a long way from reaching that goal, and would not commit to additional state funding beyond the $35 million increase the agency received in the current fiscal year budget.

Among the reforms is reinstating the position of social work technicians, whose jobs were eliminated in a 2009 budget cut.

The Department will initiate further efforts by this fall to meet the immediate needs for placing children in safe, caring foster homes, working with social service providers to review applicants and reduce the applicant backlog. “Despite all of the reports and studies that have been done over the past decade concerning shortcomings at DCF, there has not been a coordinated, sustained effort to bake improvements and reforms into the daily operations of the department”.