I’m going to provide a link to a story about a horrific case
of abuse in foster care in New Hampshire and a lawsuit filed in connection with
that case. But as you consider whether or not to click on it, please remember:
The New Hampshire Court-Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) program would rather
you didn’t.
In fact, it’s important to them that you not read the story.
Really important to them. So
important to them that they actually went
to court to try to prevent the New
Hampshire Union Leader (known as the New
Hampshire Sunday News on Sunday) from publishing the story – even though
CASA had been dismissed from the lawsuit in question.
So if you want to make CASA feel better, whatever you do DON’T CLICK THIS LINK.
And you probably also shouldn’t read the next two
paragraphs, from
another Union-Leader story that
summarize the case.
The New Hampshire Sunday News story details how DCYF and the Spaulding Center ignored red flags and rushed through the licensing of a Northfield foster home when they were faced with an emergency placement.
Six months later, the toddler suffered traumatic brain injury; today he struggles with medical and developmental issues. The foster mother, Noreen Stohrer, eventually pleaded guilty to child endangerment. She had a troubled history, including the death of a foster child under her care in New York state, the reports said.
My guess is they also might prefer it if you don’t read my
op-ed column for the Union Leader on learning the right lessons from the
tragedy.
The reason it was even possible to ask a judge to suppress
the story is because it was based on material that was placed in a public court
file by accident. But the judge agreed
that since the newspaper did nothing illegal, it had a First Amendment right to
publish the story.
New Hampshire CASA was not the only organization to go to
court to try to suppress the story. So
did the state Division of Children Youth and Families and the Spaulding Center,
the private foster care agency involved in the case.
But CASA’s position is particularly odd. After all, unlike the other parties, as noted
above, CASA actually had been dismissed form the suit (though the lawyer suing
these agencies says he may try to change that).
And CASA programs always insist that they are the only ones who have
absolutely no interest other than what’s best for children. So surely they’d want the public to know about
what this child had endured and what might be learned from it – wouldn’t they?
Why, then, did CASA want the story suppressed? According to
the Union Leader, CASA was willing to
see the public left in the dark because “CASA lawyer Dan Deane said he didn’t
want CASA to suffer from the publicity and guilt by association.”
That attitude may come as a surprise to those whose only
knowledge of CASA comes from the gushy news stories about the program that
appear all over the country. But it is
less surprising considering the actual track record of the National CASA Association
and some CASA chapters across the country.
● There’s the study,
commissioned by National CASA itself, that found the program prolongs foster
care and reduces the likelihood that children will be placed with strangers
instead of relatives – with no evidence that it improves child safety.
● There’s the
second study, done by a CASA, that also found CASA didn’t work.
● There’s the scandal surrounding the CASA program in
Snohomish County Washington where a judge found
“pervasive and egregious misconduct.”
● There’s the matter of the former CASA for that same
program whose
diatribe about the overwhelmingly poor disproportionately nonwhite parents
the program sees would make Donald Trump blush.
● There’s the CASA program in Kansas that held a fundraiser that
featured a
blackface act.
● There’s the CASA program in California that
fell apart over a simple request that volunteers be more diverse.
● There’s the law review article which argues that CASA is “an
exercise of white supremacy.”
As for the current case, according to the story that CASA
doesn’t want you to read, the mother’s lawyer, Peter Hutchins, says:
state procedures allow him to appeal the decision to drop CASA once the underlying case is resolved. “I’m not letting CASA off the hook on this,” he said. “I’m committed to appealing it. They’re a corporate entity.”
So eventually, there may be more stories from New Hampshire
that CASA doesn’t want you to read.
