Just as Connecticut lawmakers prepared to discuss a bill Thursday that would create new oversight for the state Department of Children and Families, the watchdog Office of the Child Advocate released a public letter condemning the quality of casework at the child welfare agency.

The letter, which included detailed findings and research, described the apparent suicide last week of a child who died within an hour of asking to be moved into foster care. In that case, according to the letter, “DCF made a decision to leave the child with the parent, indicating that coming into care was not an option.”

The Child Advocate called the incident alarming. “In fact, OCA has grown increasingly alarmed at the quality of case practice observed through our reviews of critical incidents and child fatalities, some of which have garnered significant public attention and some of which have not.”

The letter said that such decisions are part of a pattern of decliningquality of “the most meaningful” elements of casework, with social workers consistently diverging from policy and facing few repercussions. Supervisors, meanwhile, often consider the work to be “adequate,” according to OCA.

The letter cited a decline in the number of home visits with children and a decline in how quickly work begins. One rating for contact with children went from 85% to 58% between the beginning of 2022 and the beginning of 2025. And some children in DCF care and their caregivers went without any documented visits with caseworkers in a given month, which the OCA said was particularly concerning.

OCA also described attempts it had made to work with DCF on improvements — without success. “Despite expression of shared concern by DCF Executive Leadership, OCA finds that DCF has been unable to demonstrate improvements and the currently identified action steps are not adequate,” the letter stated.

In a statement Thursday, DCF Commissioner Susan Hamilton said the agency had launched “a multidisciplinary review.” Hamilton said since she assumed the role of commissioner last September, DCF “has undertaken a thorough review of this data, along with other information from our continuous quality improvement activities, and determined that tangible and measurable changes are needed to elevate the quality of our work.”

Hamilton said DCF was already working on “improvement strategies” and that the agency takes OCA’s findings seriously. “We are committed to ongoing collaboration with our system partners, including the OCA, legislators, private providers, community partners, families and youth with lived expertise to address identified system gaps,” the statement read. “These collaborative efforts will lead to improved oversight and enhanced data sharing and accountability so that DCF has the tools, training, and support needed to better serve children and families.”

But lawmakers expressed dismay at the OCA’s findings, even as legislation outlining reforms at the agency was being debated in the House chamber Thursday.

Senate Minority Leader Stephen Harding, R-Brookfield, called the child suicide described in the OCA letter, “Absolutely tragic. Awful, alarming and preventable.”

“To say these findings are disturbing is an understatement — we are seeing an ongoing pattern where DCF does not meet the moment and children in Connecticut suffer,” said Committee on Children co-chair Sen. Ceci Maher, D-Wilton, in a statement.  “Based on this and past reports it’s become clear there’s a significant problem in our state — and more children are inherently in harm’s way. I’m grateful to the acting Child Advocate for drawing attention to the significant issues, and the need to follow policies to improve practices.

Maher said H.B. 5004, which passed the House unanimously Thursday, “is set to address issues at DCF and work with them to protect our children. The commissioner and her agency owe us answers and accountability.”

What’s in the bill?

The bill includes two dozen provisions aimed at reforming and supporting DCF, including the creation of a new oversight council. Earlier in the session, Commissioner Hamilton told lawmakers in public testimony that she didn’t believe the additional oversight was necessary.

Committee on Children Co-chair Rep. Corey Paris, D-Stamford called H.B. 5004 the most comprehensive effort to create change at the agency in some time. “We are saying that we know what happened in the past year is not good,” he said, referring to a spate of child abuse and death cases that were connected to the agency.

Rep. Anne Dauphinais, ranking Republican on the Committee on Children, drew a direct line from recent deaths of children — like Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres-García and Eve Rogers, and the revelation of a child suicide in OCA’s letter — to the need for changes at the agency as laid out in the bill.

“These are tragic, tragic stories and events that have happened in our state,” Dauphinais said, adding that she and Paris worked hard on the bill. “We still need to do a lot more work, but we wanted to make … meaningful changes — something that was really gonna reflect the things that have happened.”

Aside from the measures establishing additional oversight, the bill includes procedural changes for providing financial support to families and mentoring DCF staff.

DCF would be required under the bill to place children with kin whenever possible — already a common practice but not yet required. When children are not placed with kin, DCF would be required to provide an explanation as to why.

The bill doesn’t address more substantive funding for the agency, but it included smaller efforts to address workforce retention and basic needs — such as a new internship program with stipends for mentors and mentees to improve workforce retention, as well as grants for families to buy basic necessities and pay for after school programs.

Maintenance care payments have not increased for kin in two decades, or for foster families in a decade, Paris said. The grants are designed to fill that gap.

The bill would make some trainings mandatory for DCF employees — on topics including cultural sensitivity, perinatal mood and anxiety and human trafficking — and it would create a new public-facing website with updated information and reports on DCF. Lawmakers said the website seeks to address public demands for accountability.

The bill also responds directly to the case of Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres-García, who died of malnourishment and abuse at age 11 after DCF involvement with her family. The bill would require more accountability when children in the agency’s care leave the state, including welfare checks by the child welfare agency in their new location. Torres-García’s mother covered up the child’s death, telling a DCF social worker that Torres-García was unavailable for an in-person visit because she was visiting a relative out of state. That DCF staffer eventually conducted a video check-in, but the young woman the staffer spoke to was pretending to be Torres-García.

Other provisions include emergency communication devices that DCF workers would carry with them when they conduct site visits.

While discussed at length in the House Thursday, the bill had widespread bipartisan support, passing 149-0, with two lawmakers not voting. It heads now to the Senate for final passage.

As the legislation proceeds, advocates say current conditions at the agency are crying out for urgent action. The Child Advocate described “workers and children … in a near constant state of crisis,” noting that children’s behavioral health needs aren’t being addressed, foster parents lack support and children are losing hope.

In a statement Thursday, the nonprofit legal rights organization, Center for Children’s Advocacy, said, “Immediate measures must be taken to address DCF workforce gaps, support foster parents and social workers, and enable and empower community human service providers and lawyers to engage and serve children and families in need of help and services.”