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Sen. Henry Ingwersen, D-York, and Rep. Michele Meyer, D-Eliot, are co-chairs of the Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee.
As chairs of the Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee, we consider it our most important responsibility to develop and oversee initiatives that will keep Maine children safe. That means supporting the state’s child welfare agency to work effectively with families when children are unsafe. It also means addressing the challenges families face in their ability to provide safety and stability for their children, reducing the need for intervention.
In recent years, there has been a lot of scrutiny of Maine’s child welfare agency, especially related to several high-profile tragedies. We share in the sense of profound heartbreak felt by Mainers across the state following these terrible incidents. It also calls us to action. We all want children to be in homes where they are safe and loved.
Fortunately, there is extensive evidence that shows how to prevent situations where children are unsafe, including ensuring that families are economically secure, have concrete supports in times of need and are surrounded by supportive communities. This research is supported by what parents and caregivers share are the challenges they face to providing safe, stable environments for their children. Ensuring these supports and services are available when and where they are needed is critical to our ability to support child safety and family wellbeing.
We appreciate the contribution our colleagues on the Government Oversight Committee have made to our shared understanding of challenges faced by families and our state’s child welfare agency. Through the good investigative work of the Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability, known as OPEGA, several reports were produced highlighting critical issues that should inform our actions to improve child safety.
These reports indicate frontline staff are too overburdened to do their jobs thoroughly. They have unmanageable workloads that lead to burnout and turnover, which impacts the level of experience of frontline staff in this complex work. OPEGA’s reports also referenced challenges families were experiencing, including lack of access to supportive services and parent attorneys, which contribute to the strain on the child welfare agency.
We support evidence-informed efforts to keep children safe by keeping families strong and to ensure the state child welfare agency is fulfilling its obligations to protect children when they are unsafe. We take very seriously the work ahead and our role in policy and oversight of this essential support system for Maine children and their families.
For our efforts to succeed, we must consider the entire child and family well-being system. That means sustaining and building capacity for child care, housing, and supportive services for parental substance use, mental health and domestic violence.
It also means articulating and bolstering the essential role of communities in supporting families. Maine’s definition of child abuse and neglect is broad, vague and conflates poverty with neglect. There is a long list of individuals who are mandated reporters. We must provide clarity about what is abuse and neglect, and what is a resource issue or challenge for a family that could be appropriately supported by the community.
Child protective intervention is traumatic for families, who fear they could lose their child. This fear often prevents parents from reaching out for help when they need it. Our support for families must reflect this recognition. When children are unsafe, child protective involvement is necessary. When families could otherwise be safely supported by community intervention, we must also have the capacity across our state to provide that.
Child safety and family wellbeing are a shared commitment that requires all of us to consider what more we can do. In our committee, we look forward to having proposals that will provide economic and concrete supports for families, bolster essential services and build capacity for supportive communities.
We invite our community members and colleagues in the Legislature to take up this charge. It will take all of us, working together with urgency and partnership, to improve our state’s system of child and family well-being.
