When a case is supported, the parents have always had the right to file something called a Fair Hearing Appeal. This is where there is a hearing in front of a Fair Hearing Officer. However, a substantiated concern finding was saying that DCF did not find it had reached a level of supported neglect or abuse but that there was a substantiated concern.

DCF had only allowed people to file a Grievance Letter which was a letter to the DCF office asking that the substantiated concern be changed, which was near non-existent for DCF to overturn a substantiated concern. However, more recently a Suffolk Superior Court Judge in May had found that DCF was not giving the parents the right to appeal to an impartial hearing officer and it violated a parent’s constitutional right when then denied the parents request for that hearing in a substantiated concern matter.

Right now, it is unclear exactly what DCF’s position is going to be but the judge in Superior Court had ruled that DCF had violated the parents right to due process rights because she did not have a meaningful appeal process and it only allowed the written grievance versus allowing her the opportunity to have a hearing where evidence and witnesses could be provided.

This is likely to change DCF’s policy and potentially is going to allow those who have been found to have a substantiated concern to have that Fair Hearing.  However, it is a case that DCF can appeal, and it is not settled law, but it does appear to be a meaningful change based on what the judge had ordered for substantiated concern cases with DCF.