The move would lead to unnecessary, traumatic separation of children from families writes Michael Dsida and Leon Smith in CommonWealth Magazine.
MICHAEL DSIDA and LEON SMITH
A SYSTEM THAT often harms the children it is sworn to protect requires fundamental reform – not tinkering. The $50 million expansion of the child-welfare bureaucracy proposed by Gov. Charlie Baker in response to the disappearance of 7-year-old Harmony Montgomery would not make children safer. Instead, it would leave unaddressed – or even worse, reinforce – some of the Department of Children and Families’ deepest flaws.
The governor proposes assigning every child in the system a guardian ad litem (GAL). GALs investigate and make recommendations to a judge based on their own views of what is in “the best interest of the child.” But GALs often do not reflect the racial and socioeconomic diversity of the families in care and protection proceedings and are likely to evaluate homes based on white middle-class norms. This will likely subject many more children to traumatic separation from the only families they know.