July 14, 2008 08:30 pm Creating an extra layer of government bureaucracy to solve a problem, however serious, rarely proves effective. Here's hoping the newly created Office of the Child Advocate is the exception. The position is part of a law overhauling the state's child welfare system. Other measures include increasing penalties for people who work with children and fail to report instances of suspected child abuse, establishment of a foster care registry to track the success of foster parents and a revision of the process for deciding when to end the lift of an abused child in state custody. The last measure was crafted in response to the case of Haleigh Poutre of Westfield, now 14, who fell into a coma after a severe beating. Her adoptive mother and stepfather were charged with assaulting her. Poutre was nearly removed from life support at the direction of the Department of Social Services before her condition began to improve. Poutre is in a Boston rehabilitation hospital. She has been recovering and may testify against her stepfather, Jason Strickland, who has pleaded innocent to assault and battery charges. Her adoptive mother, Holli A. Strickland, died in what police said was a murder-suicide with her grandmother. While Poutre's case has garnered the most attention, there have been several others in the past few years that have been similarly disturbing: r In 2005, 4-year-old Dontel Jeffers of Boston was killed by his foster mother, Corinne Stephen. Stephen was sentenced to eight years in prison last December. r Four-year-old Rebecca Riley of Hull died last year after her parents gave her a massive overdose of drugs meant to treat hyperactivity and attention deficit disorder. The parents were under DSS supervision. r Jennifer Ward of Peabody has been charged with shaking her 9-month-old daughter Jocelyn Ward Anderson to death last November. Prosecutors contend the girl suffered a series of injuries, from a skull fracture to broken vertebrae, while her mother was under DSS supervision. In an interview shortly after Ward was charged, DSS Commissioner Angelo McClain said his agency did not know the infant was being abused, despite the fact they knew, for example, that both mother and child tested positive for cocaine after delivery. "There was consistent follow-up," McClain said at the time. "There was no indication from any of the people we talked to ... that there was any abuse." We have noted in this space before that DSS defenders make the good point that the agency handles more than 28,000 cases, many involving children in desperate situations. But when something goes wrong, as it did in the cases of Haleigh Poutre, Jocelyn Ward Anderson and others, it is imperative that there be a thorough, independent investigation. The Office of the Child Advocate is designed to fill that role. Former Juvenile Court Judge Gail Garinger, who was named to the post by Deval Patrick. The governor recently said he hopes the position will come to be defined not by the horrible cases that shock the public but "the tragedies that don't happen." Here's hoping that's the case.
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