This is the outlier case that is merely a symptom of an agency that has done everything it can to obscure anything not bright and shiny in order to, "work its way out from under federal oversight". The big thing that went wrong is that this story gained traction. It is a truly public example of what Commissioner Katz has has inherited and merely the result of decades of playing to legislatures and committees rather than serving the people, and children, in its charge.
This agency has its failures buried at the case worker level, a paperworked-record full of gilded turds and, supervisors who ensure that the gilding is shiny so that the executive-levels' can state in press releases and testimony that it has hit those milestones. The NYPD had/has similar problems of failure disguised in the kabuki of success.
DCF CT prides itself on the education of its workers, its commitment to helping the children of our state and that they have begun to correct the mistakes highlighted in Juan F. The reality is that they have followed the examples of others who have "worked" their way out of the spotlight by hiding their mistakes; through aging-out, ex post facto helplessness and/or severe outcomes that fail everyone but them, CT DCF has polished their image with the people that count and failed with the people they are tasked to help.
