RELEASE: April 28 , 2004

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Paramour Abuse Cases to be Investigated as “High Risk”

Human Services Commissioner James Davy announced today that, after identifying a disturbing trend of child deaths involving mothers’ paramours, the Division of Youth and Family Services will automatically require all abuse and neglect allegations involving paramours to trigger a higher level of investigation.

“Already this year, we are investigating four child deaths in which the paramour has been criminally charged or was identified as a suspect,” Commissioner Davy said. “It seems clear that this risk has not been taken seriously enough – not in the community, not by the children’s mothers, and not by those of us in the child welfare agency. That changes now.”

Davy said the new policy, being drafted by DYFS Director Edward E. Cotton, will automatically classify abuse allegations involving paramours as “high risk.”

That designation means that, during the investigation:

• The parent and the paramour must be interviewed separately.
• Children will be interviewed outside the home.
• DYFS workers will be required to make more frequent visits to the family and contact a wide range of family members and people in the community who interact with the family.
• The case will be automatically referred to law enforcement authorities and medical experts. (This could mean the Child Advocacy Center, if the county has one, or the appropriate child abuse diagnostic and treatment center.)
• Doctors will be required to complete a body chart identifying any injuries to the child at the beginning and the end of the investigation.
• If the allegation is not going to be substantiated, the worker must visit and re-interview the person who made the original referral before closing the case.

“Obviously, we also need to reach out to our partner agencies in the community to raise awareness of this paramour issue,” Davy said. “In one of these cases, we had not seen this family in almost five years, and we never were involved with the paramour who allegedly killed the child. But someone in the community may have had concerns about this family.

“We need those people to contact us, but we also need to change the way we operate to be sure that the children who come to our attention are protected.”

The new paramour policy is one of several issues that Davy discussed yesterday in a meeting with DYFS administrators and office managers from all over the state.

During the meeting, the managers went over the details of some recent death cases to identify case practice issues and suggest ways the cases could have been handled differently.

“This was a productive exercise, and we will do it on a regular basis,” Davy said. “If there are lessons to be learned in these case, they have to reach everyone in the organization. The status quo is not good enough here. Obviously, I think we have a good blueprint for long-term reform of the child welfare system. But we cannot wait for all of those things to occur before we see improvement.

“We need to get better now. There are 65,000 children under our watch, and we must refocus on protecting them.”

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