Senate Committees briefed on scathing DCYF report

March 28, 2017 9:40 pm

Tragic and unacceptable. Those are the words Rhode Island state senators are using in reaction to a scathing report released last week about the DCYF.

On Tuesday the Senate Finance and Health and Human Services Committees were briefed on the report by Jennifer Griffith, the state’s Child Advocate.

"I think one word is troubling,” said Senator Louis DiPalma. “Troubling by itself in isolation but even more troubling given that this was done just about a year ago. It’s unconscionable it is irresponsible."

The investigation done by the office of the Child Advocate looked at 4 deaths and 2 near–deaths of young children within a 6 month span.

"I don’t want to be back here again before you soon and my concern is that if the caseloads are not addressed I will be back here unfortunately very soon,” said Griffith.

The new DCYF director, Dr. Trista Piccola says increasing staffing is a major priority. This after the report found workers dealing with 2 to 3 times the case load they should be.

"As a new director coming in this is a hard report to read for a number of reasons, first and foremost we are talking about kids getting hurt,” said Piccola.

The Child Advocate gave a number of recommendations including increasing staff, coming up with a better system to review reports of abuse and neglect, and more training.

"There’s not a single easy solution,” said Senate Finance Chair William Conley. “It’s everything that we talked about today all those recommendations and people in the right places as well."

Despite the major obstacles ahead, Director Piccola says she is confident the Department can turn around.

"Based on what I’ve seen so far, yes I do,” said Piccola. “The Child Advocate said we have really good staff here and we have staff here that despite some of the conditions they’ve been facing they have stayed with us."

The DCYF Director will be meeting with the Child Advocate on Wednesday to go through the report in depth.