Residents press Durham County commissioners on child‑welfare failures and no‑contact orders

Three public commenters used the commissioners’ public‑comment period Dec. 1 to raise concerns about Durham County Department of Social Services practices and a no‑contact order that some speakers said limits residents’ access to public meetings.

Antoinette Hawes, who gave her address and identified herself as a resident, said community leaders have been subject to no‑contact orders and accused the county of avoiding accountability for alleged failures in service delivery. "The children are not receiving their visits. The parents are not getting the representation," she said, urging the board to provide confirmation and results.

Amanda Wallace, founder of Operation Stop CPS, joined virtually and said the county issued a no‑contact order that she said prevents her from attending public meetings. Wallace alleged racial disparities in custody, saying "over 70 percent of the children in Durham County custody are Black" and that children "are in custody over two years, on average." Wallace named specific county commissioners as having served on the DSS board; those assertions were presented as the speaker's claims and were not corroborated in the meeting record.

Doug Hodges, executive director of the nonprofit Swing Pals, described services his organization provides in six Durham Public Schools, said he has volunteered roughly 40,000 hours and that Swing Pals has worked with more than 10,000 students over the last six years. He asked commissioners to visit Neil Middle School and to support a privately funded 3,000‑square‑foot facility at Hillandale Golf Course; he said the city committed about $1 million to build out Hillandale.

Commissioners responded by agreeing to schedule a January work session on child‑welfare procedures. Commissioner Burton and others asked for a briefing that would include DSS child‑protective staff, DSS attorneys, a representative of the judicial system (the transcript names Chief Judge Clayton Jones as a suggested participant) and the public‑defender’s office to clarify state statutes, investigative procedures and court roles. Manager Hager said the office would send a framework to commissioners this week and plan for a January work session.

The meeting transcript records the speakers’ allegations and requests but does not include a substantive response from the DSS director or other county officials defending their practices during this work session. Several factual claims (for example, the racial disproportionality and average custody‑length figures cited by a speaker) were presented as assertions and were not verified on the record during the meeting.