Massachusetts pilots the most promising reform in child welfare. Guess who’s trying to undercut it.

 The Massachusetts Legislature needs to step in and provide the funding to make the approach taken by the Family Preservation Project available in every case.  That will require finally standing up to the state’s Fearmonger-in-Chief 

There’s a new program underway that is exactly what children need in a state where they are torn from their families at a rate 60% percent above the national average. 

In Springfield, Mass. the Family Preservation Project provides high-quality interdisciplinary family defense.  Families facing investigation by the state family policing agency, the Department of Children and Families, get a lawyer, a social worker who can come up with alternatives to the cookie-cutter “service plans” issued by DCF, and a parent advocate, usually someone who’s been through the system himself or herself. 

This is the model that’s proven so successful in New York City – where a comprehensive evaluation found that it reduced time in foster care with no compromise of safety.  It’s one reason New York City’s rate of removal is well under one-third the rate of Massachusetts, even when rates of child poverty are factored in.   

New England Public Media reports that the Western Massachusetts program is the first of five to be overseen by the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute with a two-year federal grant. Even DCF says it favors the program (perhaps because they don’t have to pay for it). 

What kind of cases does the program see?  Here’s how the NEPM story begins: 

On an afternoon last January, a 49-year-old artist and mother named Cara was working a warehouse shift, one of two jobs she held to support her family. She was still sharing a house in Greenfield, Massachusetts, with her ex-partner and had left their 4-year-old daughter in his care.  But he got drunk, and Cara — not sure what to do — ended up calling the police. 

Cara, who asked to keep her last name private, said she had already been in touch with a domestic violence organization about her ex. After the drinking incident, she said, that organization called [DCF]. 

“I thought that when DCF stepped in, that it would be an outside authority that could put this situation in control,” she said. “And it did the opposite.” 

The state opened an investigation against Cara for child neglect, saying she should have known her ex might get drunk. That meant she could lose custody of her daughter.  

(Let’s pause here to consider: By that standard President Gerald R. Ford should have been charged with neglect – repeatedly – because his partner got drunk – a lot. She also abused prescription opioids and had mental health issues.  Yet, because the Ford family had money, Gerald’s partner – Betty – could raise their children.) 

In Cara’s case, DCF never should have come to the door.  But at least the agency itself referred the family to the Family Preservation Project, which found a way to keep the family together, sparing a four-year-old from all the trauma of foster care – and the high risk of abuse in foster care itself. 

Enter the Fearmonger-in-Chief 

Mass. "Child Advocate"
Maria Mossaides

Who in the world could be against something like that?  If you’ve followed Massachusetts child welfare at all, you know exactly who:  Massachusetts’ Fearmonger-in-Chief, state “child advocate” Maria Mossaides. 

● Mossaides is the one who led – and misled – a commission on mandatory reporting for a year; making sure the other members of the commission heard only what she wanted them to hear.  When they finally heard the other side of the story, commission members said they were “shocked,” “surprised” and “taken aback.” 

● Mossaides is the one who told the commission that repealing mandatory reporting would cost the state $400 million.  The actual figure would be, at most, more like $1.5 million.  

● Mossaides is the one who has suggested that racial justice is at odds with child safety and racial bias isn’t a problem. Indeed, she seems to think a little racial bias might be good. 

So, keep Cara in mind as you consider what Mossaides told NEPM, and as we parse her comments. 

“I know that the advocacy community conflates neglect with poverty," Mossaides said. "That is not what the Office of the Child Advocate sees. What we see is actual risk to children or imminent risk to children.” 

That’s exactly what she told her mandatory reporting commission when she was misleading it.  As we explained at the time:

But, Ms. Mossaides, you don’t see a typical cross-section of cases – you focus on the most horrible cases.  If you really wanted to know what DCF does in typical cases, you would do what your former counterpart in New Jersey, Kevin Ryan, did when he was that state’s child advocate in 2005.  Not only did he look at a random sample of cases, he made sure the casereading would be objective by having the cases read by two groups with opposite views of the extent to which the state should intervene in families. 

Even DCF’s own annual report makes clear that the neglect cases OCA sees are rare exceptions.  Of all the reports alleging neglect – a total of 63,101, 16 were fatalities.  Another 1,121 involved a substantiated allegation of a substance-exposed newborn – and contrary to the fearmongering from the foster care establishment – and Mossaides --  not every such case by a longshot involves a parent endangering her child. The remainder, 14,345 cases, are labeled simply as “neglect.”  

In her interview with NEPM Mossaides made clear she prefers 

“another new program, based at the nonprofit agency Plummer Youth Promise, that provides mediators to work with parents and the child welfare agency.” 

That program sounds like a warmed-over version of family team meetings / team decision-making – which always put families at a disadvantage.  And, according to its own brochure, the Plummer program encourages something called “concurrent planning” which further stacks the deck against families and in favor of foster parents who want to adopt.* 

The program Mossaides prefers to the Family Preservation Project returns families to the status of supplicants. 

Then it was back to the fearmongering.  Mossaides told NEPM 

most of the cases her office reviews involve parents with substance use problems. She’s concerned the advocates could be too aggressive in siding with those parents and downplaying the risk to children. 

Well, for starters once again we have the problem of Mossaides seeing only what she chooses to see – or in this case “review.”  Of all the cases of children forced into Massachusetts foster care in 2021, 63% did not even involve an allegation of substance use.  And not every case of substance use endangers children – just ask all the parents in “pot smoking mom” Facebook groups.  

And here’s a news flash: It’s a lawyer’s job to be aggressive on behalf of her or his client.  But that doesn’t mean they get to decide what happens, and, indeed, the deck is stacked against lawyers for families at every turn.  Only when all sides have aggressive advocacy can judges get the information they need to make the right decisions. 

And then Mossaides says: 

“What I don't want is, it's just going to get more adversarial.” 

Actually that’s exactly what the system needs.  The non-adversarial approach dates back to the first juvenile court in 1899.  Then, juveniles accused of crime were denied all rights because supposedly everyone was just there to help them.  The U.S. Supreme Court put an end to that, at least in theory, in 1967 with its landmark decision In re: Gault.  As Justice Abe Fortas wrote: 

“[A] child receives the worst of both worlds:…he gets neither the protections accorded to adults nor the solicitous care and regenerative treatment postulated for children. … Under our Constitution, the condition of being a boy does not justify a kangaroo court." 

Unfortunately, much of child welfare operates with a pre-Gault mentality.  That boils down to: Just let us at DCF exercise our untrammeled power – after all, we’re only there to “help.” So families should bow and scrape, and jump through all the pointless hoops we set up for them.  They should beg forgiveness for their sins and, if we deign to return the children, thank us profusely for our benevolence. 

This is the world Mossaides is desperate to maintain – or make worse, since she seems to think DCF doesn’t tear apart enough families.  She is so desperate that not only does she want to undermine legal representation for parents she even wants to undermine it for children. 

But wait, there’s more. Mossaides then claims that she’s the one who doesn’t want more kids taken away and it’s those awful lawyers with their “adversarial” mindset that might cause more removals: 

“And what will happen is less cooperation, less willingness of a family to work with the department, which will inevitably lead to more children coming into custody.” 

Except it hasn’t.  As noted earlier, the New York City model significantly reduced foster care.  The program on which the Family Preservation Project is based, the Detroit Center for Family Advocacy handled hundreds of cases before it had to close because it couldn’t get funding.  None of the children in those cases had to be placed in foster care. 

And, as NEPM points out “At the Springfield location, out of 50 clients so far, all but one has kept custody of their children.” 

And yet, Maria Mossaides apparently wants us to believe that she is just trying to keep kids out of foster care while high-quality family defense will result in more children taken away.  

Persecuting survivors of domestic violence 

The two cases profiled in the NEPM story also illustrate another tragedy Mossaides seems keen to perpetuate: the persecution of mothers who are survivors of domestic violence. 

In Cara’s case, she had sought help from a domestic violence organization – and they’re the ones who called DCF.  I hope that’s only because they felt that, as mandated reporters, they had to.  

These cases can be among the most tragic – because the emotional trauma of child removal is actually worse for a child when the child is being taken because the mother “allowed” him to “witness domestic violence.”  One expert said taking a child in such circumstances is “tantamount to pouring salt into an open wound.”  

Yet when proposals were made to the mandatory reporter commission to exempt people who help domestic violence victims from mandatory reporting, Mossaides opposed them.  Her approach to this issue can be boiled down to “Please pass the salt.” 

Fortunately, in both Cara’s case and the other discussed in the story, the Family Preservation Project kept the children with their mothers. 

But the project is small.  Even when there are four more of them, they can deal with only a small fraction of the families into which DCF intrudes every year.  So the Massachusetts Legislature needs to step in and provide the funding to make this kind of representation possible in every case.  And, by the way, because foster care is so expensive, and because in many cases the federal government will reimburse half the cost, the program is likely to be cost-neutral or even save the state some money.  

But step one is to stop being fooled by Maria Mossaides. 

Mossaides consistently ignores research and best practice in favor of what she “sees.”  But she sees only what she wants to see. 

The children of Massachusetts will be a whole lot safer when, at long last, politicians catch on and say to Maria Mossaides: We don’t give a damn what you “see” – because you are willfully blind. 

* -- Under concurrent planning, people who desperately want to adopt a child – and the child welfare agencies that desperately want those people to adopt -- are told, in effect: “Now remember, your first goal is to work with the birth parents and do everything you can to help them get the child back – but if, by some chance, you fail at this then you get what you really want – someone else’s child for your very own.” 

One parent in New Jersey was honest enough to tell The New York Times what she called “the mantra” of parents in this kind of program, which is: “I’m on the next plane to South America if they think they’re getting this baby back.” 

Meanwhile, the caseworkers are supposed to work equally hard to get the child adopted by people they like and can identify with – typically middle-class foster parents - as they do to try to reunite the child with people they often can’t stand, overwhelmingly poor disproportionately minority birth parents.

 

In Massachusetts, the “child welfare” agency regularly throws battered women – and, especially, their children – under the bus. Now they’re fighting to keep it that way

 Of all the tragedies inflicted on children by the nation’s family policing agencies (a more accurate term than “child welfare” agencies), few are worse than tearing a child away from a parent (usually a mother) whose only “crime” is to herself be a survivor of domestic violence.  

All of the trauma for a child is compounded if the removal was for this reason.  One expert called it “tantamount to pouring salt into an open wound.”  He testified in a lawsuit that led to making the practice illegal in New York State. (NCCPR’s Vice President was co-counsel for plaintiffs.)  But, as I’ve often written before, in much of the country, family police agency policy on this issue boils down to “please pass the salt.”  That is certainly true in Massachusetts.  And the state family policing agency is fighting tooth and nail to keep things just the way they are. 

As with so much that’s wrong in child welfare, the harm begins with mandatory reporting.  A battered woman works up the courage to break free from her abuser, often for the sake of the children.  But almost anywhere she turns for help, the helper is a “mandated reporter.”   Whether that reporter thinks it’s a good idea or is just afraid to do otherwise, the reporter may well call the family police.  If you want to know what happens next,  please take two minutes – just two minutes – to listen to this excerpt from the testimony of Western Massachusetts Attorney Michelle Lucier before a commission studying mandatory reporting in that state:

NCCPR · Excerpt from Testimony of Attorney Michelle Lucier before Mass. Mandated Reporter Commission

 (If you want to hear more, a recording of her full testimony is at the end of this post.) 

Then, for additional context, please read the testimony from Jane Doe, Inc, the Massachusetts Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence.  That will give a full understanding of how widespread the problem is – and how it places both battered women and their children in danger by deterring them from reaching out for help.  National research confirms it. 

But at a Commission meeting this week, the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (DCF) and its parent agency, the Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS), responded to that searing testimony with what amounts nothing but contempt for the lives and safety of battered women and their children. 

They opposed even a revision in mandatory reporting laws so small that it would change almost nothing. 

As a commission document explains, the commission is debating recommending that 

persons who provide direct confidential services to victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, or human trafficking should be excluded from mandated reporting responsibility. The reasoning behind the proposed exclusion is to reduce the barriers, or perceived barriers, in the way of persons who may be seeking immediate physical safety. Persons who seek physical safety are likely to be seeking to improve the safety situation for their children. 

Now, stop and consider how small that change would be.  First, it does not stop anyone from reporting what they believe to be child abuse or neglect.  It says only that a small subset of mandatory reporters, those specially trained to deal specifically with battered women seeking safety are not required to turn those women in to the family police.  Instead, they can use their professional training and their professional judgment. 

As Jane Doe, Inc. pointed out, this does not go nearly far enough, because survivors 

will likely encounter a mandated reporter in a range of additional contexts such as education, healthcare, or other settings. 

Yet even this tiny proposed change ran into fierce opposition from the representative on the Commission from DCF, Cristina Tedstone, and from EOHHS Katherine Ginnis.  (Ginnis’ comments throughout the commission meetings suggest someone even more virulently opposed to any curbing of the Massachusetts child welfare surveillance state than the commission chair, state Child Advocate Maria Mossaides – and that’s saying a lot.)  

Adding insult to what often are literal injuries, Ginnis and Tedstone suggested the problem of battered women terrified to come forward for fear of mandated reporters turning them in could be solved by – you probably guessed: more training! 

We should just add to the training for mandated reporters, Tedstone and Ginnis say, so they’ll know when to turn in a battered mother and when not to.  And we should train our investigators in when to take away children (after already traumatizing them with needless investigations) and when not to. 

Yes, training, training, training, training, training, training.  It’s all that the family police and those who want them to have unlimited power over families ever suggest in answer to every abuse these agencies inflict on children in the name of “saving” them.  Indeed, this was so predictable, I devoted a section of my own testimony to the commission to why this never works. 

To get a sense of how insulting this is, particularly to families of color, imagine if a special commission were convened to study police brutality in Massachusetts. Imagine if they said that all the problems could be solved if we just gave the police more training. Imagine if they claimed the problem isn’t, say, massive use of stop-and-frisk policing; we just need to give the police more training in whom to stop and how to frisk them.  People would immediately recognize it for what it was: a whitewash – in every sense of the term. 

Yet somehow, in Massachusetts, DCF, EOHHS, and the Office of Child Advocate seem to think they can get away with brushing aside the harm the family police routinely inflict on battered mothers and their children with bromides about training. Sadly, they may be right. 

The idea of training-as-panacea is particularly ludicrous in the context of domestic violence survivors coming forward. 

For starters, DCF doesn’t even admit it has a problem.  How can they train workers to do better when everything supposedly is fine now?  DCF brags about having “domestic violence specialists” on staff who caseworkers can consult right now.  But as the testimony from Jane Doe, Inc., Michelle Lucier and others makes clear – that’s not working. The problem is severe and ongoing. 

But even if training worked in other contexts, it wouldn’t help here.  When it comes to
battered women coming forward, the key issue is fear – they’re afraid to tell someone who is a mandated reporter.  Do Tedstone, Ginnis and Mossaids seriously think that will change if someone posts a notice somewhere that says: “Don’t worry, that mandated reporter you’re thinking of talking to was required to take a new, improved training module – so they might not turn you in after all!”? 

And, of course, DCF and EOHHS’s faith in training reeks of hypocrisy.  The recommendation they oppose says only that people who really do have specialized training in dealing with these issues should be allowed to use that training and exercise their own judgment. 

The opposition from DCF and EOHHS and, it appears, from Mossaides does not automatically mean the proposal will be voted down.  But none of the Commissioners at the meeting this week spoke in favor of it.* 

In the end, all of these issues will be in the hands of the Massachusetts Legislature.  The lawmakers will have to decide whether DCF should continue to have free reign to throw battered women and their children under the bus. 

So I hope they will listen to all of what Michelle Lucier had to say, read Jane Doe Inc.’s full testimony, and go through the rest of the public hearing testimony, which overwhelmingly opposed the approach that has dominated commission deliberations.  They can start here:

NCCPR · Full testimony of attorney Michelle Lucier before the Mass. Mandated Reporter Commission

  

*-In contrast, it was encouraging to hear some opposition expressed to another Commission proposal – inserting into state law a definition of child “neglect” that omits any statement that poverty is not neglect.  Such a statement exists in current DCF regulations. Granted, the fact that Massachusetts regularly tears apart families at a rate 60% above the national average makes clear that no one is really paying attention to the poverty-is-not-neglect caveat, but that’s no reason to make things even worse.

A propaganda document from that commission in Massachusetts

Ever since public hearings of a commission studying mandatory
child abuse reporting in Massachusetts didn't go the way the 
Commission chair wanted, she's been trying to spin the testimony 
like, well, you know ... (Photo by wannapik)

The commission is meeting again today (May 20) at 10:00 AM. 

After spending nearly two years on the task, a Commission studying mandatory child abuse reporting in Massachusetts finally held public hearings on draft recommendations.  Almost all of the recommendations would expand reporting and one would even make it easier to confuse poverty with “neglect.”  The commissioners were not prepared for what they heard during the hearings.  Some members said they were “shocked,” “surprised” and “taken aback” by the hearing testimony.  

That’s because, at two virtual hearings lasting a total of four hours, almost every speaker was opposed to the recommendations.  Speaker after speaker talked about how the proposals would sweep more families, especially poor families of color, into the net of family policing, doing their children enormous harm in the process.  They spoke of how the recommendations would deter families from seeking help and further overload the system, making it even harder to find children in real danger. 

The reason some members of the commission were so shocked is that they’ve been misled by the commission chair (and the state’s foremost advocate of a child welfare surveillance state and a take-the-child-and-run approach to child welfare) state “Child Advocate” Maria Mossaides.  In addition to chairing the commission, her office staffs it. 

For nearly two years, Mossaides and her staff shut out the views heard at the hearings, handpicking speakers for presentations who would reinforce Mossaides’ desire to make the failed system of mandatory reporting even bigger and more powerful.  

That is likely to continue at a Commission meeting today, when a presentation on how screening of reports works will be given not by anyone who has studied it objectively but by, yes, the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families.  That is, of course, the agency that does the screening, investigates the reports, and takes away children at a rate 60% above the national average, even when rates of family poverty are factored in. 

To get the full impact of those public hearings, you had to be there.  Or at least listen to the recording of the hearings.  The staff has made that as inconvenient as possible, posting audio only. 

And in what seems to be the hope that commissioners won’t pour through all that testimony, Mosssaides promised a “summary.”   That summary was presented to the Commission at a meeting on May 10 – but withheld from the public, except for the portions we could make out while a staffer shared her screen during the virtual meeting.  It wasn’t until days later that they finally uploaded the document. 

The summary that’s not a summary 

It turns out it isn’t a summary at all.  Most of the testimony isn’t even mentioned – and readers get no sense of the scope and power of the arguments against Commission draft recommendations.  Worse, the summary is a propaganda document, misstating the arguments and misleading commissioners about the state of research on mandatory reporting.  So we’re going to go through parts of the document point-by-point and try to set at least some of the record straight.  In the sections below, excerpts from the “summary” document are in italics: 

Why mandated reporting?

The Federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) requires that every state have provisions or procedures requiring the reporting of suspected child abuse and neglect. 

CAPTA does indeed require this, but the only penalty for putting children’s needs first and not adopting the failed regime of mandatory reporting is loss of a very small amount of federal funds.  Although Mossaides tried to scare the commission into believing $400 million was at stake, the real number is probably under $2 million. 

There are ethics arguments that children because of their age and abilities are particularly vulnerable to abuse or neglect (as can be seen with other vulnerable populations) and are at a disadvantage in exercising self-protection and self-care. 

Note the implication: If we don’t have mandatory reporting children supposedly are defenseless!  In fact, eliminating mandatory reporting does not eliminate reporting – rather, it allows professionals to exercise their professional judgment.  The failure to allow such judgment has made children less safe. 

Does mandated reporting “work?”

This is a complex question which depends on the framing of the question. 

No, actually it’s not complex at all.  If mandatory reporting makes children safer it works.  If, on the other hand, it deters families from seeking help and overloads the system with so many false reports that workers are less likely to find children in real danger, even as thousands of children, especially children of color, are traumatized by needless investigations and needless foster care, then it doesn’t work.  

The evidence is in: It doesn’t work. That’s why one after another, some of the most prominent proponents of mandatory reporting have had second thoughts. 

But it appears that none of this research and none of this scholarly analysis was shared with the commissioners for nearly two years. 

Also, if you now admit you don’t know if mandatory reporting works, Ms. Mossaides, why have you spent nearly two years desperately trying to expand it? 

The majority of cases reported to DCF come from mandated reporters. Reports from mandated reporters are screened-in at a higher rate than reports that come from non-mandated reporters. 

Again, notice what Mossaides and her staff are trying to do here: imply that without mandatory reporting more reliable reporters somehow will be shut out.  But if there were no mandatory reporting, teachers, doctors etc. still would be free to report.  They simply wouldn’t have to report when, in their professional judgment, they felt there was not actual abuse or neglect or when they thought the report would do more harm than good.  And they wouldn’t have to file “CYA” reports for fear of what would happen to them if they don’t (such as the fines the Commission may recommend increasing up to ten-fold). Eliminating mandatory reporting would increase the reliability of reports. 

Data shows us that there is disproportionality in the rates of Hispanic/Latinx and Black children coming to DCF’s attention relative to their proportion in the Massachusetts population. The data available however is not broken down by mandated reporters versus non-mandated reporters nor is it broken down by reporter type. 

In other words: Maybe mandatory reporters are so wise that they aren’t the cause of the racial bias in the system. Well, if they’re that wise, shouldn’t they be trusted about when to report and when not to report, instead of being forced to report? 

The Commission has also discussed at several meetings the success of the Family Resource Centers in Massachusetts which provide services to families throughout the Commonwealth and who served 10,869 unduplicated families in 2019 providing such services as help with food instability, parenting groups and classes, assistance with housing instability, accessing resources for children including child care and after school care as well as physical products such as diapers, and so on. 

The implication here is: See? People aren’t deterred from seeking help because they go to Family Resource Centers!  But actual research shows that mandatory reporting is a pervasive deterrent to seeking all sorts of help.  The fact that some people are willing to risk being turned into the child abuse police if they go to a family resource center tells us nothing about how many are deterred from reaching out.  

And now, let’s look at the heart of Mossaides’ effort to salvage her awful recommendations: 

It can be true both that some families will retreat from available services feeling they cannot trust mandated reporters and there is no safe place where they can express their needs or be fallible individuals (as we all are), and it can also be true that DCF provides relevant and critical services to communities and families who identify themselves as needing help and are able and willing to access that help through the avenues that are available to them. 

So then the question is: How do we provide the help without forcing any families to retreat? Answer: Abolish mandatory reporting.  And make those “relevant and critical services” available through an agency that does not also have the power to take away children. 

It can be true that mandated reporters operate on implicit bias and that structural racism affects both experiences and perceptions of experiences, it can also be true that mandated reporters serve as critical lifelines to children who urgently need help. 

No, actually it can’t.  Reporters can serve as such lifelines – the fact that they are mandated to report does not make them any more likely – and probably less likely – to be such a lifeline.  Mandatory reporting impedes the lifeline function for the reasons noted previously. 

It can be true that many cases are screened-out by DCF at the screening stage, and it can also be true that a screen-out does not mean that the reporter was incorrect in their analysis of the situation. 

This is one of the most misleading statements in the entire summary.  The canard about screenouts and unfounded reports not being false has been around for decades.  As is so often the case, there is a molehill of truth under a mountain of hype and distortion. 

Obviously, every decision to screen out a report won’t be correct, just as every decision to label a case unfounded after investigation won’t be correct. But, and somehow Mossaides forgot to mention this, every decision to screen in or substantiate a report won’t be correct either. 

But guess which is more likely. 

The only study we know of to actually second guess worker decisions found that they are two to six times more likely to wrongly substantiate an allegation than they are to wrongly declare one to be unfounded.  So the fact that, nationwide, 91% - ninety-one percent – of hotline calls wind up screened out or unfounded is representative of the overall accuracy of a system built on mandatory reporting – in fact, it overstates the accuracy of that system.  It means that false allegations are flooding the system at every turn; again, making it less likely that workers will find children in real danger. 

Now, let’s move on to how the document misrepresents the actual testimony, when it summarizes criticism of mandatory reporting: 

Mandated reporting is surveillance of families that has a far more detrimental effect on society and children than does the abuse or neglect that although real, is less common than is suggested by DCF over-involvement with families. 

No one said that all “abuse or neglect” is inherently less serious than surveillance – by summarizing testimony this way Mossaides wants you to believe all those witnesses were minimizing child abuse.  

Rather, what those witnesses said is that overwhelmingly, the reports are false, and many of the rest are poverty cases – and in those cases the real harm to children comes from the surveillance, the investigation and, worst of all, needless foster care.  At the same time – and yes it’s worth repeating again – the system so deluges workers with false reports that finding the children in real danger is harder. 

Oh, but wait, the summary does address this issue – and promptly distorts it, summarizing the position of critics as follows: 

There will so many new filings, mostly unsupported and biased filings, based on this expansion that DCF will be so burdened current case practice will suffer. DCF would need significant additional resources to handle this burden. 

Except that, during the spoken testimony at least (I didn’t read all of the written submissions) nobody uttered that second sentence.  Rather Mossaides is teeing up the idea that she will try to get her Commission to recommend to the State Legislature both an expansion of mandatory reporting and spending vast new sums of money to cover it. 

But, of course, she knows the new spending is unlikely to be forthcoming.  Then, when she gets the vastly bigger surveillance state she wants and the system is overwhelmed she can say: Well, that’s not my fault, we told the legislature to spend more money! 

But even if you could get the money, we did not hear anybody say even more money would work. If you simply go on still another caseworker hiring binge, all the new workers chase all the new false reports and all you get is the same lousy system only bigger.  This can be seen by the fact that Massachusetts already spends on child welfare at one of the highest rates in the country – because all those needless investigations and all that needless foster care is expensive. 

Not in the summary, but … 

It’s also worth noting here something that’s not in the summary document but that Mossaides mentioned at the last Commission meeting: She argued that there won’t really be a flood of new reports because the last time categories of mandated reporters were expanded there wasn’t much of an increase. 

But that previous occasion included a much smaller expansion than the Commission contemplates recommending now.  And in a state like Massachusetts, which already tears apart families at a rate 60% above the national average, any expansion of false reports endangers children. 

Bottom line: The Commission can’t rely on the summary document to understand what happened at the hearings, or to understand mandatory reporting.  It’s a big ask, but the commissioners really need to listen to all the testimony. 

If they do, they may well be even more shocked, surprised and taken aback.

In Massachusetts, the “Child Advocate” wants to spin EVERYTHING. Falling for the spin will hurt children.

Fortunately, one state legislator is asking good questions.

A question from State Senator Adam Gomez (D-Springfield) seemed to
leave Massachusetts Child Advocate Maria Mossaides flummoxed.

Well, I suppose Massachusetts Child Advocate Maria Mossaides deserves credit for chutzpah.  Having just led, a better term would be – misled a commission into making draft recommendations that would make racial bias in child welfare worse, she now says her office should be tasked with studying whether the problem even exists. 

I’ll get to that below, first some background. 

There’s a script everyone is supposed to follow when the death of a child “known to the system” gets a lot of attention. 

● Politicians rush to express their shock and outrage.  Some agency or organization, an existing agency or maybe a “Blue Ribbon Commission,” issues the requisite scathingreport. (It’s always described as a scathing report so we might as well make it one word.) In Massachusetts, the job of issuing the scathingreport falls to Mossaides.  

● The scathingreport is filled with recommendations to make the child welfare surveillance state more draconian – make it easier to take children away, make it harder to return them home or both. 

● Legislators hold the obligatory public hearing and issue press releases about “cracking down on child abuse.” 

● The system is further overwhelmed by more families needlessly investigated and more children needlessly taken away. So workers have less time to prevent the next tragedy.  

Then the entire cycle repeats. 

But in Massachusetts, one state legislator has decided not to follow the script. 

As CommonWealth Magazine reports, at a hearing concerning the most recent tragedy to set off this cycle of despair, the death of David Almond, State Sen. Adam Gomez, a Democrat from Springfield, asked a simple question of Mossaides: Was the real reason Almond was returned to a dangerous home something that is nowhere mentioned in the scathingreport. Was it because the family is white? 

Mossaides apparently was flummoxed.  This wasn’t in the scathingreport, and it’s certainly not in the “script.”  But she hinted at the excuse those “in denial” always use when confronted with racial bias in child welfare.  She noted that, historically, child welfare agencies have always focused on poorer families. Given minority poverty rates, that has translated into “a disproportionate surveillance on communities of color,” she said. 

The irony, of course, is that for decades child welfare agencies denied that, too.  They said they never simply investigated children because of poverty.  But confronted with their racial bias, apparently they’ll cop to class bias. 

In fact, the evidence is overwhelming that it’s class bias and racial bias. 

But the thing about Mossaides is, she wants to be the one to spin everything in Massachusetts child welfare.  So, CommonWealth Magazine reports, 

Mossaides said in her testimony that she would like the Legislature to give her office money to do a qualitative review of the DCF caseload to determine why racial disproportionality exists, with an emphasis on what happens when a complaint is first filed. “We need qualitative data in order to figure out where the problem is so we can make recommendations about what we think proposed solutions might be to reduce disproportionality,” Mossaides said. 

Where, oh where to begin. 

● We know why racial disproportionality exists in child welfare.  (Spoiler alert: It has to do with racism.)  It’s been studied and studied and studied again.  Here – again -- is a summary of a small portion of that research. 

● Prof. Dorothy Roberts explained it all in her book, Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare,– 20 years ago.  She explained it again – directly to Mossaides – just last month. 

● Mossaides has been Child Advocate since 2015.  Did she only just notice there’s a racial bias problem?  And wouldn’t that delayed recognition alone make her among the least qualified to oversee such a study? 

● As noted above Mossaides is leading – or more accurately – misleading a commission she chairs on mandatory reporting into making a series of recommendations that would worsen racial bias in the system.  She so misled the commission that members said they were “shocked” “surprised” and “taken aback” when, at the last minute, when finally public hearings were held, they heard the other side of the story.  

Then, at the commission’s most recent meeting, Mossaides got it wrong again - telling her fellow commissioners that if Massachusetts abolished mandatory reporting it would cost the state’s family policing agency, the Department of Children and Families, $400 million.  The real figure is more like $1.5 million. 

● The commission itself is strikingly lacking in diversity.  Yet, in the nearly two years it’s been active I am aware of no public expression of concern about this from Mossaides. 

So it should be apparent that if anyone still believes the issue of racial bias in child welfare needs “more study” the study should not be led by Maria Mossaides. 

Trying to spin poverty as well 

Mossaides also has been thrown on the defensive by all the testimony at recent commission public hearings about the widespread confusion of poverty with neglect. 

So now she’s trying to co-opt that issue in much the same way, by suggesting that her office do a “qualitative review” of cases to see if people are really calling in reports alleging child abuse “just” because of poverty or because of “poverty alone.” 

But as soon as anyone demands that poverty be “alone” you know they’re out to minimize the confusion of poverty with neglect and find ways to pretend it doesn’t happen. 

The thing about poverty is, it tends to have company.  Poverty breeds other problems.  So all someone like Mossaides needs to do is say: “See, in that case we sampled there was some other problem as well – so it wasn’t a poverty case!” Then the study she commissions and she oversees concludes that DCF doesn’t take children because of poverty “alone.” 

But the issue isn’t whether poverty is alone – the issue is whether the solution is money.  So, let’s say poverty causes stress that leads to depression.  You could say: See! We didn’t report the family because of poverty we reported the family because of depression!  

But if poverty caused the depression, odds are money will cure it.  And if it doesn’t quite do the job, money can also buy whatever therapy this parent might need – just as it does for “depressed” parents in Weston or Wellesley or Longmeadow. 

Study after study after study has found that small amounts of cash are all it takes to reduce what agencies like DCF call “neglect.”  So if the solution is money, then it’s a poverty case whether the poverty is “alone” or not. Such cases should not be called in to DCF, they should not be investigated by DCF and children in such cases should not be taken away by DCF. 

All that said, a qualitative study still would be a good idea -- under three conditions: 

● The terms of reference are broader: The question in each case should be: Could this have been handled without calling in an agency that has the power to take children away and otherwise coerce families? 

● The people doing the study represent not just racial and ethnic diversity but viewpoint diversity – as happened in 2005 when New Jersey’s then-Child Advocate, Kevin Ryan commissioned such a study. 

● Maria Mossaides and the Office of Child Advocate are not allowed anywhere near it.

Massachusetts Mandated Reporting Commission: Your guide to what I’ll bet the Commission chair LEAST wants you to hear and read

 

Photo by Jimmy Emerson

On April 27, I posted about the Massachusetts Mandated Reporter Commission.  Pushed, prodded, led and, I would argue, misled, by the Commission chair, state “Child Advocate” Maria Mossaides, the Commission spent nearly two years drafting recommendations almost all of which would expand mandated reporting and make the system more oppressive. As a sort of special bonus recommendation, Mossaides came up with a proposal that would make it even easier to confuse poverty with “neglect.” 

The Commissioners meant well, but, thanks to Mossaides, it appears they only heard one side of the story – until, at last, the Commission held public hearings.  Commission members said they were “shocked” “surprised” and “taken aback” when almost all of the speakers opposed their recommendations and warned of the dangers of further expanding the child welfare surveillance state. 

Now you can read and hear (though not see) for yourself. 

Nearly two weeks after the second hearing, the Commission has posted audio of the hearings.  There is no explanation for the lack of video.  The audio format makes it harder to follow and much harder to search to find particular witnesses. 

Ideally, of course, everyone would listen to all four hours and read all 53 written submissions. But since that is unlikely (I have not read all the written submissions myself yet) here is a handy guide to the parts of the hearing I’ll bet Mossaides least wants you to know about. 

AUDIO: 

FIRST HEARING, HOUR 2, starting at 13:37: Western Massachusetts Attorney Michelle Lucier, who represents both children and parents in child welfare cases threw out her prepared remarks to speak from the heart about the horrible and widespread practice of the state Department of Children and Families tearing children from the arms of domestic violence victims.  Note especially toward the end, at about 23 minutes in, when she speaks passionately of the foster children taken in such cases who call her begging to go back home. 

SECOND HEARING, HOUR 1, starting at 12:00: Prof. Dorothy Roberts of the University of Pennsylvania School of Law (and a member of the NCCPR Board of Directors) author of Shattered Bonds: The Colorof Child Welfare, the definitive book on child welfare and race. 

SECOND HEARING, HOUR 1, Starting at 17:00: Dr. Benjamin Levi of Penn State University.  Dr. Levi actually has created a training program for mandated reporters.  Later in the hour, I spoke to take issue with some of his remarks.  But Levi decried the Massachusetts commission recommendations and the typical approach to mandated reporter training, saying at one point: 

I think it is unethical to encourage reports of any and all concerns that a child’s needs are not being met. Systems work by having standards. “When it doubt, report” is not a standard, it’s an invitation for things to go badly; for serious collateral damage despite best of intentions because the very experience of being assessed can be devastating to families already hanging on by a thread. 

SECOND HEARING, HOUR 2, starting right at the beginning at 0:22.  Fortunately one of the most powerful presentations is among the easiest to find, right at the start of the hour: Zoe Russell, a student attorney at the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau and head of their family practice area. 

WRITTEN TESTIMONY: 

Jane Doe Inc., the Massachusetts Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence “The proposals encourage overreporting and will increase rather than decrease risks to survivors of sexual and domestic violence and their children.” 

Prof. Kelley Fong, who has done crucial, in-depth research on mandatory reporting.  Her statement includes powerful first-person accounts from families she interviewed. 

Dr. Mical Raz, who literally wrote the book on the problems of mandatory reporting, and how we got into this mess. 

The League of Women Voters. Yes, even they’re against the Commission recommendations. 

And, of course, the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform. 

Some might argue I'm biased because I'm highlighting only testimony from people who opposed the Commission.  But while, as I said, I haven’t read all of the written statements, when it comes to the public hearings almost every witness opposed the recommendations. 

So if you’ve got four hours to spare …

Some members of the Massachusetts Mandated Reporter Commission are asking very good questions. Here’s what the Commission chair didn’t tell them.

Nearly two years into their work, Commission members speak of being "shocked," "surprised" and "taken aback" by what they heard at public hearings.

The Mandated Reporter Commission will make recommendations 
to the Massachusetts Legislature

When a commission in Massachusetts charged with studying the state’s laws regarding mandatory reporting of child abuse and neglect and making recommendations to the State Legislature announced that, nearly two years into the process, it would, at last, hold virtual public hearings, I almost decided not to bother testifying. 

The whole effort looked like a stacked-deck process from the start; the hearings looked like a pro-forma exercise before the Commission did what it wanted to do in the first place: further expand a failed system of mandated reporting and, while they were at it, make it even easier to confuse poverty with neglect. 

But it looks like I may owe some members of the commission an apology. I certainly hope so. 

For starters, the hearings were nothing like what the commission members expected.  Somewhere between 30 and 35 people testified.  Only one supported the commission’s draft proposals.  And the dozens of opponents weren’t just those you might expect.  

There were national experts, such as Prof. Dorothy Roberts, who literally wrote the book on child welfare and race, Dr. Mical Raz, who literally wrote the book on the failure of mandatory reporting, and Prof. Kelley Fong, whose research demonstrates why mandatory reporting backfires.  (Many, many more scholars, including former proponents of mandatory reporting, have changed their minds, as NCCPR documented in our written testimony.) But it didn’t stop there.  When it came to the Commission’s draft proposals: 

● The foster parent who testified opposed them.

● The adoptive parent who testified opposed them.

● The former DCF social worker who testified opposed them.

● Even the speaker from the League of Women Voters opposed them. 

The Commission holds a meeting 

On Monday, the commission held a virtual meeting to discuss what they heard.  Words that kept coming up included “shocked. “surprised” and “taken aback.”  And at least one member of the Commission, Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan, wondered if the commission has been on the wrong track all along.  Said Ryan: 

I spent a lot of years thinking that [mandated reporting] gets us to a better place; I’m disheartened to hear maybe it really doesn’t - and even if it does, perception is reality.  A lot of well-credentialed, well-meaning experts think this doesn’t work. I don’t know how we’re going to get any legitimacy about finetuning the process if a significant number think the process doesn’t work anyway. … I was taken aback to hear so much of that conversation. 

Finding out if we critics are right, Ryan said, “Should be job 1.” 

It should have been job 1 from day 1.  But the Commission proceeded for nearly two years without even knowing about such concerns.  That’s not the fault of Ryan or the others who expressed surprise Monday.  I’ll get to why I think that happened below.  But Ryan was so concerned she floated the idea of the Commission shifting its entire focus from increasing reporting to bolstering prevention. 

Another commissioner, Nina Marchese, director of the Office of Approved Special Education Schools, was “shocked” by a recurring theme at the first hearing: The state Department of Children and Families (DCF) tears children from the arms of mothers whose only crime is to be victims of domestic violence themselves.  This is a common practice across the country – and so incredibly harmful to children that in one state it’s illegal. 

The Commission staffer conducting the meeting and the representative from DCF immediately tried to spin the issue and claim that really, they would almost never do such a thing.  Domestic violence survivors in Massachusetts and their lawyers made clear during the hearings that, in fact, they do.  And as a result, domestic violence victims are afraid to come forward and get help. One of those lawyers spoke of the children in such cases, calling her and crying because they weren’t allowed to go home from foster care. 

But what is shocking is that, again, after all this time, a member of the commission would be shocked to learn this problem even exists. 

The commission representative from the state Attorney General’s office, Angela Brooks, also expressed some skepticism about the thrust of much of the Commission’s work so far. During one of the hearings, she acknowledged another failing: a lack of diversity among the Commission members. 

How things reached this point 

The key to understanding how the commission could go so long and wind up surprised and shocked about so much can be found in the fact that it is chaired by the director of the state’s Office of Child Advocate (OCA), Maria Mossaides, and staffed by her office. 

In recent years, there has been no advocate or public official in Massachusetts more fanatical about expanding the child welfare surveillance state and taking away children than Mossaides.  That is typical of state Child Advocates or “ombudspersons.”  That’s not because Mossaides wants to hurt children – she wants to help them.  But her efforts have backfired. 

Mossaides’ office zeroes in on the most extreme cases, the ones called horror stories because they are so horrible – and so rare.  Then she issues Scathingreports (that’s how they’re always labeled in the news accounts so we might as well make it one word) that effectively call for making the coercive parts of the system bigger.  

The problem is not that she focuses on the horror stories – they demand and deserve attention. The problem is that this leaves the impression that the only error DCF makes is to leave children in dangerous homes.  Such reports contribute to foster care panics  - sharp sudden spikes in removals of children from their homes -- that further overload the system. Workers then have less time to prevent the next tragedy. After the tragedy Mossaides issues another Scathingreport and the cycle begins anew. 

Even a casual observer can see that Mossaides dominates the Commission.  At Monday’s meeting, she probably spoke more than the rest of the commissioners combined.  So it’s worth looking in detail at some of the ways Mossaides’ office stacked the deck – and is still trying to do so. Here’s a partial list. 

Are some witnesses more equal than others?  At one point, commission staff (which, again, is also OCA staff) mentioned that while yes, almost every witness at the public hearings opposed the commission’s recommendations, other speakers they’d heard from favored the current system of mandatory reporting.  Where did those speakers come from? 

Apparently, these were specially invited speakers, who got to speak to the Commission early on.  Did anyone who might challenge Mossaides’ view of the system get an invitation? Doesn’t seem that way. 

Who summarizes the testimony?  The Commission promises to make public all 53 written testimony submissions as well as video of the public hearings.  (Though considering the last hearing was on April 17, it’s hard to see why it’s taking this long just to post a couple of Zoom videos.) [UPDATE, APRIL 30: The written testimony is now available, but so far only audio of the hearings themselves, making them harder both to follow and to search.  So I've posted a guide to how to find the parts I think Mossaides least wants you to hear and read] That’s a lot of material for the commissioners to digest.  So a commission/OCA staff person will prepare a digest.   

The staffer in question ran the hearings with consummate fairness and professionalism. I’m sure she will make the same effort when summarizing the testimony.  Nevertheless, my question to the prosecutors on the commission is this: Would you decide whether to charge someone or what kind of sentence to recommend to a judge based solely on a summary of the case prepared by the accused’s lawyer?  It’s a lot to ask, given the amount of material you have to look at, but please don’t rely on OCA’s version of what people who disagree with OCA have to say. 

Misrepresenting the nature of neglect.  This one is straight from the playbook used by all of those who want to justify the current massive child welfare surveillance state: Using the few neglect cases that are, in fact, horror stories to represent a giant category that is, mostly, poverty cases.  Thus Mossaides said: 

From OCA experience, the neglect cases that we see result in very serious emotional and physical injury to children. … it’s not Twinkies for breakfast or school without a winter coat. Neglect cases that we see are far more serious. [Emphasis added.] 

But, Ms. Mossaides, you don’t see a typical cross-section of cases – you focus on the most horrible cases.  If you really wanted to know what DCF does in typical cases, you would do what your former counterpart in New Jersey, Kevin Ryan did when he was that state’s child advocate in 2005.  Not only did he look at a random sample of cases, he made sure the casereading would be objective by having the cases read by two groups with opposite views of the extent to which the state should intervene in families. 

Even DCF’s own annual report makes clear that the neglect cases OCA sees are rare
exceptions.  Of all the reports alleging neglect – a total of 63,101, 16 were fatalities.  Another 1,121 involved a substantiated allegation of a substance-exposed newborn – and contrary to the fearmongering from the foster care establishment, not every such case by a longshot involves a parent endangering her child. (See below.) The remainder, 14,345 cases, are labeled simply as “neglect.” 

In denial about foster-care panic.  When it comes to tearing apart families, even in normal times, Massachusetts is an extreme outlier when it comes to tearing apart families.  The state removes children at a rate 60% above the national average when entries into care are compared to the number of impoverished children in each state.  Foster-care panics make things even worse.  But Mossaides claimed that a huge spike in removals of children had nothing to do with high-profile deaths in 2014 and 2015 making workers scared to leave children in their own homes.  No, said Mossaides, it was not a foster-care panic, rather, she claimed, it was entirely due to the opioid epidemic.  The data show otherwise: 

● The giant spike in entries into care in Massachusetts occurred in 2014.  The opioid epidemic had started the year before – and got much worse in later years, even as entries into foster care in Massachusetts were going back down to their usual obscene rate. 

● The fact that DCF caseworkers were checking a substance abuse box on a form is not the same as substance abuse always being the actual reason for removal.  It could be anything from a wrong guess by a caseworker, to a false positive drug test, to a mom smoking pot to ease the pain of labor or keep food down during pregnancy, to a mom taking legally-prescribed medicine as part of treatment for substance use.  (And DCF seems to have a particular obsession about marijuana.) 

● Not all substance use is cause for removal.  But even in the best of times, agencies such as DCF often act as though it is.  During a foster-care panic, workers are that much more likely to conclude that a case involving alleged substance abuse requires removing the child from the home – even when there are better alternatives. 

The “family resource centers” will take care of it.  Mossaides tried to sell the Commission on the idea that DCF was really just a kindly, helping agency and that a veritable cornucopia of “preventive services” is available to families.  She repeatedly cited DCF Family Resource Centers (FRCs).  But there’s a huge catch: The people who run and work at those centers are mandated reporters.  Mossaides said they rarely actually call DCF.  But every parent who asks for help must fear that s/he is the one who will be turned into DCF and her family’s life turned into a nightmare.  Prof. Fong, who testified at one of the hearings, discussed how her research found that as a result, families who need help are afraid to seek it out.  

So if the Commission is serious about a new focus on prevention, step one is to exempt workers in FRCs, and all other preventive programs from mandated reporting laws.  That would not mean they were prohibited from reporting if they genuinely thought it was best for a child. But it means they would be able to exercise their professional judgment and training – and not fear prosecution and a fine if they exercise that judgment and don’t report.  (And, by the way, the Commission is considering recommending much larger fines.) 

In addition, preventive services programs should be taken away from DCF entirely and run by community-based organizations. 

Misrepresenting opponents. Of course, Mossaides invoked horror stories.  In doing so, she misrepresented what witnesses said at the hearing.  Mossaides said: “I’m always worried if we abolish the 51a system, [51a is the term used for a report of alleged abuse or neglect in Massachusetts] what happens to all those children who are injured – intentionally abused, the 8% to 9% who are victims of sexual abuse?” 

While I would be glad to discuss abolition at some future date, none of the witnesses said that the system should be abolished.  They didn’t even say all child abuse reporting should be abolished.  Most didn’t even say all mandatory reporting should be abolished – though I did.  Rather witnesses said that, at a minimum, Massachusetts should stop expanding a failed system.  

And it is that ever-expanding ever more oppressive system Mossaides wants to further expand that not only hasn’t stopped the horror stories, it’s made them more likely by overloading caseworkers with false reports and poverty cases.  

It’s not 15%, it’s more like 3%

This did not come from Mossaides, but a number got into the atmosphere at the meeting that is not quite correct. 

It was suggested, simply as a hypothetical, that 15% of cases involved things that no one would doubt required coercive intervention and removal of children  - physical and sexual abuse.  But that figure appears to be based on the percentage of reports that are screened in and then “substantiated” – a term that means only that a caseworker checked a box on a form saying it was slightly more likely than not that abuse occurred.  

But since the Mandated Reporter Commission is looking at whether to encourage reports alleging child abuse, the real question is, of all such reports to child abuse hotlines, what percentage are ultimately deemed by caseworkers to involve actual physical and sexual abuse.  Nationwide, it’s not 15% - it’s more like 3%. (See p.4 of NCCPR’s written testimony to the commission.)  It’s almost exactly the same in Massachusetts.  That doesn’t make those cases any less horrible, and it doesn’t make the need to try to stop them any less urgent.  But understanding that 97 times out of 100 the call is a false report or a neglect case is crucial to understanding why deluging DCF with more such reports only makes it harder to find children in real danger. 

What about the middle-ground cases? 

Ryan, the District Attorney, raised another important question: There are cases on the far ends of the continuum where everyone can agree: A proportion that never should have been brought into the system and a proportion where not just intervening but removing the child immediately was the right call.  But, she asked, what about the in-between cases? 

Apparently, Mossaides didn’t tell the Commission about the landmark studies done by Prof. Joseph Doyle of exactly those sorts of cases.  He found that even when families were not offered any extra measure of help, the children left in their own homes in such cases fared better in later life than comparably-maltreated children placed in foster care.  Prof. Doyle is right nearby at MIT.  I’m guessing he wasn’t one of the people invited to address the Commission. 

First, hit the brake

 

And that brings me to something else that Nina Marchese, who was shocked about DCF taking children from battered mothers, said during the meeting. She expressed some frustration that while one witness after another told the commission what not to do – namely most of what it is considering recommending – we didn’t explain what to do instead. 

But think of it this way: Imagine there is a bridge out ahead and a car is careening toward the cliff at 90 miles an hour.  The commission is like that car.  We had only about three minutes each to testify – just enough time to yell: Hit the brake!!! Hit the brake!!! 

People like Dr. Raz, Prof. Roberts, Prof. Fong and so many others have so many ideas for how to rebuild a better bridge.  NCCPR has a few as well.  I’m sure they are as eager as I to discuss them with anyone on the Commission who might be interested. 

But please: First, hit the brake.’s a lot to ask, but please don’t rely on OCA’s version of what people who disagree with OCA have to say.