Werme Tricks - Secret Proceedings
September 2, 2005
Attorney Werme claims that “case proceedings are secret”. She is correct, they are. In fact, any information about a family involved with DCYF is confidential. If you were to call me up and ask about the Jones family, I would be required to tell you that I cannot confirm or deny involvement with any family. I will listen to your concerns, and probably suggest that you call Central Intake if you would like to report your concerns. We do this to protect a family’s privacy. Most families find it embarassing to be involved with DCYF. So, we do not release any of that information to the general public. We will not even discuss their cases with family members, unless given permission (usually in writing) by the family. The secrecy surrounding DCYF’s involvement with a family is not designed to keep families less informed in case of future involvement with DCYF, as Attorney Werme would have you think. I am happy to discuss practice or policy with anyone - right down to the “first contact” as Attorney Werme calls it, to Court proceedings. I can discuss these issues in generalities, but I cannot give case specifics to anyone. In fact, anyone with questions such as these is welcome to call their local DCYF office and ask a social worker. Each office generally has someone known as a “Cover Worker” in the office from 8:00 am to 4:30 pm, Monday through Friday. This worker is available to answer questions over the phone or in person, whether they are actually involved with DCYF, or if they simply have questions. You can find the phone numbers for the local offices here
I work for The Division for Children, Youth & Families for the State of New Hampshire (generally known as DCYF). I’m not saying that DCYF is a perfectly run agency, or that every decision made within the agency is absolutely correct. I think that every organization has faults, and room to grow. What really irritates me are people like 
In the State of New Hampshire, we have a law that says that every citizen of the state is required to report any concerns they have for a child’s safety in good faith. That is the rule in its entirety. It seems pretty simple, and works fairly well. When a person does have concerns, they call 1-800-894-5533 and report those concerns. The system is designed to “catch” as many reports as possible by allowing callers to remain anonymous or request that their name not be release to the family. Most families that I work with find this to be hugely frustrating, as they almost always want to know who reported them. I usually explain to them that if they were worried about their neighbor’s kid, they might not want the neighbor to know they had called, for fear of retailiation. We at DCYF don’t want to miss any reports because people are afraid to call us, so we make it easy for reporters. In my opinion, we make it too easy. 