Services Provided

Investigations and DCF Home Visits

You have the right to have an attorney present when DCF comes to your home. Our office will attend home visits with DCF, and will ensure that your rights are protected.

At present, a DCF investigation begins when DCF gets a "referral" of possible child abuse or neglect.  Most referrals come from four sources:  public schools; neighbors; police; hospital emergency rooms.  Of course, referrals may come from other sources also.  Sometimes referrals are made in bad faith from a person who has a grudge against you.  These are frustrating, but it is usually impossible to find out who made a referral if the caller wishes to remain anonymous.

As always, when DCF calls you, you should call us.  See What To Do When DCF Calls.

The DCF "call" itself takes many forms.  Sometimes you get a letter.  Sometimes you get a card on your front door.  Sometimes DCF just shows up at your house and implies that if you do not let them in, they will seize the child.  In some cases, a DCF worker gets a police officer to stand at the door, for the purpose of intimidating you.  [DCF manages this by convincing the officer that you are dangerous, and that the investigator needs the officer for protection].

Worse, DCF sometimes shows up at the school and speaks to the child directly.  DCF is not allowed to do this except in emergency situations, but they do it anyway.  See When DCF Talks to Your Kid Secretly.  We are working to get the law changed to disallow this, but as of this writing, it is a common practice.  See Three Frightening Situations.

As always, the worst thing that you can do is speak to DCF without a lawyer present, or to sign anything without a lawyer reviewing it first.  The most human tendency in the world is to angrily try to defend yourself.  This almost always makes it worse.  DCF knows exactly how to trap inexperienced persons into making damaging statements; and these are used against you for years to come. 

Call a lawyer immediately.

And please:

Do not panic.

Do not take legal advice from friends, doctors, teachers, social workers or other well-wishers.  They may mean well, but they are generally over their heads.

Remember that a DCF investigation is not like a police investigation on "Law and Order."  DCF presumes that you are guilty, and does not go away and find "another suspect." The rules are totally different from criminal law.

DCF has thirty days to conduct its investigation. At the end of the thirty day period, DCF must make a determination of whether abuse or neglect has occurred. If DCF determines that there is reasonable cause to believe that abuse or neglect has occurred, they will "substantiate" you. If you are substantiated and meet certain other criteria, DCF may also recommend you for placement on their Central Registry.

Once the investigation is completed and a decision has been made on substantiation, DCF can either close its case with your family or keep it open to provide services.

In some cases, DCF may also file a petition against you in the Juvenile Court.

IF YOU DEAL WITH DCF WITHOUT A LAWYER, you are up against the entire State of Connecticut on your own.  The odds are not good.

SDM: A Study in Disappearing Ink
There have always been, and always will be, complaints about DCF investigations. Some investigators are too harsh, while others are easy-going and polite; some investigators automatically disbelieve you if you have had prior DCF problems; some investigators are prejudiced toward certain ethnic groups; some investigators let their pet peeves get in the way of their professional judgment; etc.

Complaints like this are to be expected. It is impossible to say in advance which ones are valid. But DCF, ever sensitive to criticism, believed it had a solution.

In 2006, I was told that DCF had revolutionized itself. A new tool called Structured Decision Making, or SDM, was coming into use in all DCF offices. Its purpose was to help the investigator make better-informed decisions, and get kids returned to parents as quickly as possible. No more months of waiting if it could be avoided.

The hype would have done justice to Madison Avenue. SDM turns out to be nothing more than a risk assessment screening checklist developed by a firm called CRC, or The Children’s Research Center, out of Madison, Wisconsin. CRC sells its checklist as an “actuarial tool” that can “estimate the likelihood of subsequent child maltreatment.” Its web site touts SDM, and claims all sorts of validating studies.

SDM is in effect a profiling tool, not a sophisticated psychological test. It can provide guidance to properly-trained persons in close cases. DCF simply bought it, and handed it out to the field with lots of fanfare but little or no training.

Using SDM, the investigator answers certain questions that have scored values. Depending upon the final score, you have a risk level, for future abuse or neglect of a child, of one of the following: high, moderate, low, or very low.

Of course, the form contains “policy overrides” and “discretionary overrides.” In other words, a supervisor can override the risk level if he or she isn’t happy with the result.

The predictable outcome? Future risk of abuse or neglect of a child plays a small part in DCF’s deciding whether or not to return the child promptly. If DCF decides not to do so, and the SDM score is too low, an override is applied to increase it. SDM, being an internal management tool, is not subject to court scrutiny.

I mention SDM to show that DCF, like other organizations, has a penchant for the quick fix, without regard to tax dollars. Someone probably did think that SDM would make life easier for social workers, or make things fairer for the families. It could have, but no one field-tested it or gave it any serious thought for the real world. SDM, a decent tool, started no revolution.

Quick fixes are a part of American life. The School Board in my home town bought a tool called “Data Driven Decision Making.” I asked how they made decisions before that, and got no response.

Nearly 40 years ago, the company I worked for bought a quick-fix tool called “Zero Defects.” Every employee had to sign a pledge that he or she would “do it right the first time.” And this company was a nationally-known financial institution with foreign subsidiaries. Of course, the only one who got it right from the start was the vendor, who made a quick buck.

There is no getting around it. DCF investigations are subjective things, and always will be. That is quite proper, and is all the more reason that you need a lawyer from the start.