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Lawmakers hear testimony supporting Harmony Commission to study child-welfare failures
Summary
Advocates, a former juvenile court judge and child-welfare organizations urged the committee to create the Harmony Montgomery Commission (H.218 / S.164) to investigate systemic problems in Massachusetts’ child-welfare system and to include members with lived experience on the panel.
Speakers urged the Joint Committee on Children, Families, and Persons with Disabilities to report House Bill 218 and Senate Bill 164 favorably, which would create the Harmony Montgomery Commission to examine systemic failures in child-protection and care-and-protection proceedings. Charles Lerner, state director of Massachusetts CASA, said the bill should center individuals with lived experience. “I strongly urge that if this bill is passed, that it includes those critical voices,” Lerner said, praising the bill’s proposed inclusion of people affected by the system.
Judge Carol Erskine, former first justice of the Worcester County Juvenile Court, urged a narrowly scoped commission focused on the Office of the Child Advocate’s recommendations arising from the death of Harmony Montgomery and similar cases. “I urge the committee to report 2 18 out favorably for Harmony Commission,” Erskine said, and asked that the commission examine representation of children, unchecked powers of DCF, constitutional protections for vulnerable children and structural problems that placed Harmony at risk.
Advocates and the Massachusetts Child Welfare Coalition emphasized the need for public hearings across geographically diverse areas and recommended adding a birth parent with lived experience to the commission’s membership. Kate Neemans, legislative advocacy director at the Mental Health Legal Advisors Committee, said the coalition supports the commission and urged the committee to strengthen membership and oversight to ensure meaningful reform.
Testimony described the commission as a response to recommendations from the Office of the Child Advocate after a highly publicized child-death case and asked for a targeted mandate to study court procedures, representation for children and DCF decision-making that may remove children without sufficient court oversight.
No vote or motion to create the commission was taken at the hearing. Witnesses urged a favorable report and recommended the committee limit the commission’s scope to the OCA’s requests, add lived-experience members, and require transparent public hearings and reporting.
