The answer is essentially, yes and no. There are not any legal constraints for DCF in terms of saying what they can see; so if they are asking to see where the children sleep or if there is food in the kitchen; or even asking to see the parents rooms, basement or the attic or whatever that may be. They are allowed to ask to see different things, it is up to you whether or not you want to put limits on them.  They can’t necessarily force you to do anything; there are regulations regarding how the investigation is supposed to be conducted, but you don’t have to consent to any search or answer any questions that you don’t want to.

There are some down sides with that as well.  They can become more suspicious or determine that you are not cooperating.  Many times it is best to have an attorney present with you, to make sure that DCF is not running roughshod over your rights but even if you don’t yet have an attorney, you can at least say that you are glad, and again you should not be rude to DCF but saying that you are supposed to be talking to an attorney and you will agree to let them see the children’s bedroom and the kitchen, but you want to discuss with an attorney about answering other questions or other parts of the house that they might want to have looked at.  It is a judgment call.

You do have to realize that DCF is not there as your attorney, advocate or to protect your legal rights they are there to do an investigation and some of them are doing it wider in scope than others and you want to balance DCF’s need versus your own privacy, right or concerns about your rights and not to do something that would exasperate the situation.