Well, I just finished reading the lead report from Page 1 of the Sept. 1 Maine Sunday Telegram (“Number of Maine children in state custody rises to 20-year high“) and was relieved to find that the child protective caseworkers are still doing high-quality work. I had to read between the lines to know it; the confidentiality policies of the Department of Health and Human Services preclude their talking openly about their work. The public never gets to know what that work is really like.
I know, however, the quality of the work they did when I was regional director of the Portland DHHS office because I had to read all their active cases during that 10 years. I can tell the quality of that work continues in their work today. So do the problems they confront.
As I was finishing column four of the report, I was surprised to note that parents of high-risk children had a resource they might be able to turn to without the threat of losing their right to parent. As far as I know, that has never been tried in any of the 50 programs that exist to protect these kids.
“Be There for ME” might just be the kind of program that can succeed where the rest of us have failed.
James Tierney
Brownfield
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