As police intensify their search for the body of Harmony Montgomery, Gov. Maura Healey should be a catalyst for change in the way the state protects and often fails our most vulnerable citizens — children.
A new report by the Office of the Child Advocate concludes Massachusetts has not done enough to protect children in the wake of Montgomery’s tragic murder.
How many more Harmonys must there be before the state takes action? How many more task forces or study groups do we have to have before another kid dies in custody?
Now is the time for the new governor to intervene and appoint an independent special counsel to oversee reform at the Department of Children and Families and state judicial system, including the Committee for Public Counsel Services.
The entire child protection system, including courts and court-appointed lawyers, which now favors biological parents over the safety of children, should be Healey’s focus. Give the special counsel the power to investigate and 60 days to come up with recommendations and an action plan.
Delays on the T may be annoying, Governor Healey, but this is more important.
She should first read the scathing report by the Child Advocate office, which criticizes the judicial system and CPCS for being slow in implementing a series of recommendations made in the wake of Harmony Montgomery’s murder.
“Although the state has made progress on some of those recommendations, particularly those directed at the DCF, the OCA continues to be concerned that the welfare and best interest of the child is not adequately presented in care and protection cases, putting some children in unsafe situations,” the report concludes.
But CPCS has made clear it’s not taking responsibility for any failures in the system.
“Of the 11 recommendations in the Child Advocate’s report, only five call for action by CPCS,” the state-funded agency said in a statement in response to the Child Advocate’s new report. “Several of those are at odds with the mission of our agency, are rooted in the Child Advocate’s misunderstanding of the constitutional rights of parents and children, and they disregard the hazards to children who are in the state’s custody.
CPCS goes on to say that the agency has taken action on “several” recommendations and has “taken a number of additional steps to ensure that children and parents are provided effective representation.”
If the Office of Public Counsel is going to be involved in shifting the blame and Twitter spats with the Child Advocate instead of addressing the horrific failures leading to Harmony’s death, maybe the state should redirect its funding somewhere else.
Healey needs to take major action to review the entire system, meet with courts, judges, lawyers and come up with a plan of action.
Number one: Make the useless Governor’s Council have to review every judicial candidate for their experience in child welfare cases and force every judicial candidate to undergo training and answer questions regarding child custody cases.
And force current judges to take training so that another Harmony Montgomery doesn’t happen.
Healey should do this now, while she’s still in her 100 days honeymoon period, and if the Legislature resists, use the bully pulpit and her political savvy to get them to cooperate.
While it’s too late to protect Harmony, there are hundreds of other vulnerable children out there that need saving.
