Authority Over Foster Care System Transferred to Federal Court Monitor with Cooperation of Governor

After a series of reports this summer issued by an independent Court Monitor found that the Connecticut Department of Children and Families (DCF) failed to meet virtually all of the measures of performance it was required to meet in order to improve the lives of children in state custody, underscoring a longstanding failure of leadership in Connecticut's foster care system, Children's Rights sought a finding of contempt from the federal court and the appointment of an individual court-appointed receiver to take control of the foster care system in order to ensure that DCF meets basic measures for safety and well being for foster children. On October 7, 2003, in the first agreement of its kind ever reached in the nation, the federal court approved an agreement under which management authority over the state foster care system will be transferred to the federal court through the Court Monitor, with the consent and cooperation of the Governor and DCF Commissioner. Under the Agreement, the state admits its longstanding non-compliance and failures. The Agreement creates a three-member Task Force including the Monitor, the senior state budget official and the DCF Commissioner, with ultimate power over the Department in the hands of the federal court. Disagreements among the Task Force can be brought by the federal Monitor to the attention of the Governor, and if there is still disagreement, the matter will be brought to the federal court for a final decision, which decision cannot be appealed. The federal Monitor will develop, over the next two months, a new set of mandated outcome measures, which goal of the state meeting them by November of 2006. If the state can meet these outcomes measures by then, federal court oversight will end; if they fail to comply, federal court oversight will continue until the improvements are made. By taking ultimate management authority away from the state but with their cooperation, the federal Monitor under this new agreement has the powerful potential to bypass the political and bureaucratic barriers that have prevented change for so many years. Children¹s Rights is optimistic that this will allow for the kind of sweeping changes in management and accountability and most importantly improvements in the lives of abused and neglect children -- that have been lacking in Connecticut for so long.