Facing intense scrutiny after the deaths of four children under state supervision in 2021, the Mills administration and child welfare advocates Tuesday unveiled the outline of a plan to help families before they're in crisis. The proposal is still in development and will require legislative action and funding.
The outline revealed during a press conference by Department of Health and Human Services chief Jeanne Lambrew targets risk factors that increase the chance that a child will come under state supervision.
And its attention to so-called upstream problems —economic instability, substance use and mental health disorders — has long been called for by child welfare advocates who view the spate of child deaths in recent years more as symptoms of larger, more complex issues and not just supervisory failures at the Office of Child and Family Services.
For that reason, Melissa Hackett, director of the Maine Child Welfare Action Network, lauded the outline as a good start, including a $1 million proposal to strengthen parents' awareness of existing assistance programs.
"How do we make sure parents are aware of the resources that are available to them, that we have really provided an opportunity to educate about those resources in a way that doesn't increase stigma for people who want to accept that help and seek that help because we really want to normalize that parenting is a tough job and it's a strength to ask for help?" Hackett said.
The exact details of the education campaign will be included in Gov. Janet Mills' forthcoming change proposal to the state budget.
That change will have to be approved by the legislature and the same goes for other proposals highlighted in the outline released Tuesday.
