DSS chief pledges action on child safety

04/02/09

The director of the state’s child protection agency on Wednesday told a committee that recommends child-safety measures its concerns will not fall on deaf ears.“I am here to commit to you that we are as deeply concerned about these children’s deaths as you are,” Department of Social Services director Kathleen Hayes told the Child Fatalities Review Committee in a highly unusual meeting.Hayes pledged to change practices and policies after the committee blasted DSS for failing to respond to two years of recommendations for keeping children safer. The committee was concerned especially about 13 deaths in recent years in homes plagued with drug problems.The committee, an arm of the State Law Enforcement Division, is required by state law to examine child deaths and recommend ways to protect children.Hayes met with the panel three days after The State newspaper published accounts of five deaths between 2005 and 2007 the committee cited as failures by DSS caseworkers. The children, ages 26 days to 17 years old, were in homes that caseworkers had reason to believe were troubled by drug abuse and where the agency failed to protect the children or their siblings or acted too slowly.