CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - The outgoing director of New Hampshire’s much-scrutinized child services agency says the opioid crisis has created a more complex set of family challenges than the agency has seen in years.
“It was practically unheard of when I was a worked in the field that you would get called in for a report of a 5-year-old sitting next to their dead parent,” Lorraine Bartlett said Friday. “That’s not frequent, but it happens more often than it should in the state of New Hampshire right now.”
Bartlett is retiring April 1 as the director of the Division for Children, Youth and Families, which handles cases of child abuse and neglect. Her departure comes following more than a year of eyes on the agency following several high profile child deaths. An outside review commissioned by the state recently found the agency’s staff is overworked and that it too often fails to protect children in danger.
Bartlett has worked at the agency for nearly 30 years and served as its director for three years.
The outside review provides opportunities for the agency to improve and to pitch lawmakers for more badly needed resources, Bartlett told reporters Friday. Lawmakers and Republican Gov. Chris Sununu say they’re committed to providing resources to strengthen the agency.
Bartlett said a combination of staff turnover, more cases and protective reports and the opioids crisis have created a “perfect storm” for DCYF.
Substance abuse was a factor in about a quarter of open cases in 2015, Bartlett said. Of all the reports that came into the agency that year, about 44 percent were related to drug abuse, with heroin specifically a factor in eight percent of reports, she said.
Asked what advice she’d give her successor, Bartlett channeled a lyric from The Doors: “Keep your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel.”
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