BY JIMMY LAWTON
North Country This Week

St. Lawrence County needs to create a clear conflict of interest plan for the Department of Social Services and improve documentation in a variety of areas.

That was the take away from a review given by the Bonadio Group Monday who gave a summary of the sixth-month investigation they performed following a host of complaints levied against the Department of Social Services.

Tim Ball, executive director of the group, spoke at the Finance Committee. He said the report was nearly wrapped up and that a draft version was completed with few if any changes expected, but the draft was not available for review by the public.

Ball noted that there is no state law barring Department of Social Service workers from fostering children but said that if the county is going to continue the practice there should be a policy to address it.

“In a county like St. Lawrence where you are very geographically spread with a small population, conflicts can arise,” he said.

He noted that there may be instances where caseworkers have sisters or brothers who have a case come up. He also touched on perceived conflicts and how the county needs to work to alleviate those as well.

Ball noted the report includes recommendations to implement such a policy, though no details were provided at the meeting.

He also said the department was lacking clear policy and procedure documents in other areas.

What we saw was a lack of a centralized location of policies and procedures that did exist,” he said. “We also didn’t see a mechanism in which the policies and procedures were regularly evaluated and updated based on changes in technology, or case law or new recommendations from OCFS,” he said.

He recommended the county prioritize addressing those issues. He also noted that the problem is not exclusive to St. Lawrence County.

Ball also spoke about staffing. He noted that while the county has budgeted enough employees to handle case loads at state recommended levels, it has been unable to fill the positions to ensure the 15 cases per employee maximum is met.

Ball said the report offers plans to help with employee retention by improving training and ensuring new employees are up to speed before they take on a full caseload.

Another issue which seemed to span Child Protective Services, Foster Care and Preventative Service was poor documentation. Issues raised by the group noted that sometimes documentation was missing, other times it was filed late.

Foster Care

Many of the complaints received about DSS came from people dealing with the foster care system.

Courtney Handy of the Bonadio Group spoke about some of the issues related to that.

She said one of the most crucial aspects to care for children is the documentation of placement and she noted that was lacking in St. Lawrence County.

“It wasn’t consistent in terms of how these children were getting placed into the home. Who was in the meeting? When it took place?” she said.

She said having a documented process of why a child is removed from a home is crucial.

She said there should be documentation of every step of the process including who was there, where it took place, what resources were explored, if their biological family members were considered and why the department picked one of the others.

“That is the number one recommendation we had for children in foster care,” she said.

She also said the county should work to improve visitations which she said are key to positive outcomes.

She suggested hiring another person to help facilitate visits outside of the 9 to 4:30 Monday through Friday time slot.

She said adding evenings and weekend availability could allow for more visitations.

Hancock investigation

While the Bonadio Group’s work is nearly complete, the county investigation also involved help from the law firm Hancock Estabrook who were investigating specific complaints submitted by people regarding SLC DSS. Their work appears to be moving slow as their attempts to meet with complainants has largely been unsuccessful.

He said they have exchanged correspondence with the Law Firm of Michael Philips who many of the complainants say is representing them.

John Murad of Hancock spoke on the matter Monday. He said that responses from the law firm had been slow in coming and noted that at this time his firm had only held four interviews.

He said he explained that because of the time that had passed since their issues with the DSS had occurred that legal remedy was not available. He explained that the people involved in those interviews said they wanted to ensure that what happened to them doesn't happen to someone else in the future. Murad said he believed those issues would largely be dealt with through recommendations made by the Bonadio Group.

Philips issued a letter to the county noting he represented 35 complainants and requested information related to the investigation and demanding Courtney Fantone be allowed to accompany his clients in the meeting.

Murad said he responded offering a chance to meet.

Murad went to recommend the county move on with the investigation without further interviews in order to move things along unless he receives a response from Philips.

Courtney Fantone leads an organization called CHILD which helps families navigate the foster care system.

In an email to North Country This Week Fantone said people’s hesitation to meet with attorneys was due in-part to the lack of clarity, and in-part to a distrust for the county.

“In my opinion, it would not make someone a conspiracy theorist to see an appearance of impropriety, and a case could be made that Hancock Estabrook has a financial incentive to make certain determinations, if they wish to be retained for future litigation. That being said, it appears that we are moving forward with publicly reporting the results of these investigations, despite a large majority of complainants not having been interviewed, or even contacted,” she said.

Fantone said the results of the county report so far do not alleviate her concerns.

“Regardless of the results that are being reported, St. Lawrence County DSS is nowhere near where we need them to be. Have we made small steps? Sure. Is that enough? Absolutely not. In my opinion, having spoken to hundreds of families and employees, the only way we get there is with continued scrutiny, keeping the spotlight on the current issues.”