During the COVID-19 the Impact on Families with DCF Cases.

The stay at home order and the health risks are certainly paramount but it has filtered to DCF and high risk or at-risk families.  I have had cases where the grandparents were in the middle of an emergency custody hearing where the children are in foster care because they have been removed from the parents and had their case continued for an additional 6 weeks prior to being able to have potential of having the children in their care rather than in foster care. 

I have had situations where children that were hospitalized are being held at a Community Based Acute Treatment (CBAT) Program because the foster care provider had some risk and had to self-quarantine and there were no other foster family beds available.

Overall, it has been very hard which is understandable, to find foster care placements currently.  DCF has had a limited amount of people in their office and the workers are instead of meeting children or families in person, they are doing more phone calls or FaceTime calls where clinical needs for adolescent are now being done by are limited and now even in some serious circumstances are being done by phone or by a similar a video streaming service.

Trials, custody hearings, involvements of DCF on divorce and family law cases even restraining orders where the parent has not had the opportunity to be present or fight the allegation have been delayed.  While this is only part of what is going on, the impact of people’s lives is severe.