Over the weekend, the Providence Journal called out Gov. Gina Raimondo for not addressing the growing crisis at the Rhode Island Department of Children, Youth & Families (DCYF).
“It’s not as if these problems popped up out of nowhere. Two years ago, Gov. Gina Raimondo said the Department of Children, Youth and Families was ‘dysfunctional’ and called it ‘an agency in crisis.’ She called for a restructuring of the agency, to address problems such as an over-reliance on group homes. Apparently, that over-reliance is still a problem.
What has changed since the governor’s pronouncement? Why are young people who need stable housing still being shuffled from place to place, their movements obscured by administrators who fail to log what’s happening to them? Why are workers with dubious track records and shoddy job performances still allowed to oversee these fragile young people?”
The Raimondo administration has remained completely unresponsive to the crisis at DCYF, even amid allegations of assault, sex-ring connections, and an accident that left one resident paralyzed and in need of spinal surgery.