Lawmakers to unveil DSS overhaul plan

Police and prosecutors would replace social workers in investigating violence against foster children, according to a plan to overhaul the state Department of Social Services that lawmakers expect to unveil next week.

The plan would also limit DSS powers in making end-of-life decisions for grievously injured and comatose children, a state legislator leading the review said yesterday. And the proposal would place the social service agency's 500-plus private contractors under greater scrutiny.

''DSS has been forced to be everything," said state Representative Marie J. Parente, a Milford Democrat and cochairwoman of the panel that devised the plan.

The panel, formally named the Special Committee on Foster Care, was established after the Haleigh Poutre case, in which authorities say the 11-year-old girl was beaten into a coma by her adoptive mother and stepfather. DSS has acknowledged missing signs of past abuse. Six days after it took custody of Haleigh in September, the agency sought to remove life support, winning a ruling by the state's highest court in January, only to back off a day later after she started showing signs of improvement.

When the committee unveils its proposal Tuesday, another name, Dontel Jeffers, will also be affixed to the bill. Dontel, 4, died in March 2005 of injuries allegedly suffered in his foster home, prompting outcries to reform the foster care system.

''As we looked at the issues involving Haleigh, Dontel was always on our mind," said Parente, whose committee's proposal will be called the Dontel-Haleigh Bill.

The proposal will be made just two weeks after a panel of specialists appointed by Governor Mitt Romney released its findings in the Poutre case. That panel concluded that Haleigh was almost killed by chronic child abuse and then almost perished from a premature decision to withdraw her life support because flawed or insufficient information was given to the government agencies and medical specialists assigned to care for her. The panel recommended that DSS get extra assistance and revamped protocols for tracking complex cases and handling end-of-life decisions.

Parente's committee -- four of its six members are former foster children -- has been working separately from the governor's panel. Its proposal will be forwarded next week to a legislative committee, which will hold public hearings and vote on the measure. Parente said legislative leaders on Beacon Hill have previewed the bill and reacted enthusiastically.

She would not reveal specific measures in the bill, but she discussed its broad outlines in seeking to overhaul DSS, an agency with a $660 million annual budget entrusted with protecting some of the state's most vulnerable residents. A key provision, she said, would reduce social workers' involvement in abuse investigations.

''If abuse against children is a crime, why do we have social workers investigating and not police?" said Parente, who said the bill would ''introduce prosecutors and local law enforcement into the picture earlier than in the past."

''Social workers have been forced to act as detectives. . . . This is training they do not have," she said. ''They take a long time to put a case together and can compromise a case."

The bill will also seek to hold DSS contractors more accountable. DSS contracts most of its work out to a complex network of private social service companies that, in turn, run the group homes, foster-are networks, and other front-line services within the state's social safety net.

A private contractor placed Dontel with his foster mother, who has been charged with second-degree murder in his death. A state investigation found that the contractor, Massachusetts Mentor Inc., failed to check on the boy in the 11 days he was in the foster mother's care.

''No one, up until this time, has placed some of the responsibility on the providers who spend the state's money," Parente said

Another provision will address end-of-life care. Like Romney's panel, the legislative committee members were dismayed with DSS actions in the Poutre case. Haleigh is now in a Brighton rehabilitation hospital. Parente said DSS should have less input in end-of-life decisions, saying,''Those kinds of decisions should be left to the experts."

A DSS spokeswoman did not return calls for comment. DSS Commissioner Harry Spence has said his agency will seek to implement the recommendations of the panel appointed by the governor.

''We need to take a look at the overall structure of DSS," Parente said. ''It's a difficult agency to manage . . . and it has to change."

One children's advocate approved of the proposal to involve law enforcement in child abuse cases.

''When there is a question of criminal activity, I think it's very important for law enforcement to take a lead," said Marylou Sudders, president of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

Parente's committee will not have the last word on reforming DSS. The House Post Audit and Oversight Committee, which has subpoena power and a broad mandate, is also investigating the social service agency and is expected to release a report soon.

Raja Mishra can be reached at rmishra@globe.com.