Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: Okay, good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to House Human Services. And this afternoon, we're going to be taking up S-two 39, which is an act relating to the Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Working Group. And this afternoon, we're gonna be hearing from the Center for Crime Victim Services, the Office of Child Youth and Family Advocate, and the Attorney General's Office. So I think, Jennifer, I'm not sure what your We're going to have Matthew Bernstein go last because he has got a family issue that he's dealing with. And we have Todd here and we have you, Jennifer. I'm not sure if either of you have specific time constraints. Todd is shaking his head no. So why don't we have you go first, Jennifer?

[Jennifer Pullman]: Okay.

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: Especially since we heard that it was your office that sort of started this bill along. So it's great to have that background. So, welcome.

[Jennifer Pullman]: Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair, thank you, committee. Sorry I can't be here, be with you today. I've been struggling with something that I can't get rid of. So, I figured I'd just keep my germs to myself. But for the record, I'm Jennifer Pullman. I'm the Executive Director of the Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services. And yes, as Lindsey Barron did testify, this idea did come from the Center for Crime Victim Services. And since I haven't been in this committee since forever, I just did want to share some of my background because it is really relevant to how I brought this idea forward. Prior to my current position, I started out as an attorney. I went to law school specifically to be in a position to elevate the voices of children who'd been abused and neglected. And I practiced for five years in the greater Boston Metro Area working with some of the most marginalized families that you can imagine. I was certified as an educational advocate and surrogate for my clients, attended multiple IEP meetings, advocated in that sphere, and also served as a GAL. When I moved to Vermont, I served as the director of sexual abuse prevention education programs at Prevent Child Abuse Vermont. I was the victim advocate coordinator and policy director at the Center for Crime Victim Services and then was the executive director of the Vermont Children's Alliance, which oversees the child advocacy centers in every county in this state. So I come to this work with a real passion for supporting children and supporting youth. I also served on the Criminal Justice Act Task Force for eight years and currently remain a member of the Vermont Citizens Advisory Board to DCF, have been so for fifteen years. So that was introduced to you all because it provides context for my passion and for the experience that I have and for why the center brought this bill to the attention initially of Senator B. Hofsky and Representative Angela Arsenault. What occurred to me when I was moving from Massachusetts to Vermont is that we have a different structure in our laws. Massachusetts and most other states, crimes are reported to law enforcement first, and they serve as the gatekeeper that then DCF is involved if it meets the definition of abuse and neglect. Our statutes relative to mandated reporting, particularly sexual abuse, are out of sync with the rest of the country. While physical abuse, we require those reports to come in when somebody is a caregiver, parent, guardian. Sexual abuse is any person in any act. And what has become clear to me in my work, because I do get calls, do work with victims and survivors, and I work with advocates all the time, is that our well intended law, our well intended approach may be having unintended consequences, especially for our young people when we're talking about peer on peer assault. I know that you'll hear more from my colleague, Charlie Glisserman, tomorrow on this. What we hear from the field, what I hear from the field, is that young people are not coming forward because they just want to, they don't want the whole system to come down on them. They want to know that they can speak with somebody who's qualified. They want to know that what they did was not their fault. That there's no shame. No one should be disappointed in them and that they have support. Unfortunately, as it's being interpreted by our mandated reporters, is that clearly they have to make that report. I've heard many, too many stories of young people because we tell young people, tell a trusted adult. And what I've heard too many times is that a young person might report an incident where they're not at ongoing risk. It's not someone who has access to them. They report that to the guidance counselor, a teacher, and that triggers the report. I've heard of broken relationships where young people do go to that trusted adult and then the report is triggered. And I think that it's important that in this work group we look at what other states are doing because again, we are in the minority. Most every other state, I can't find one that defines a sexual abuse report in the way that ours does. We need to look at these laws that were put in place decades ago and decide whether or not they're really protecting children. Know this committee is well versed in the ACEs and what impact an incident like this could have sexual abuse. And the most important thing is that that young person get help. That young person get qualified help. And what we've unintendedly, I think, set up as a place where children are further isolated. Because if, again, I get it if there's a risk, if we mirrored it with our physical abuse definition that triggers reports, that might be different. But for right now, a young person who experienced an event, I had a really good friend who called me because she's like, Oh, well, Jennifer can help me. Because her daughter had been groomed over the internet when she was eight during COVID and the mother was in the hospital. And then the young girl reported to her mom she came to her crying because she saw something that triggered it. She'd forgotten it. That was five years later. She's like, well, what can I do? I'm like, I don't know based on our current laws what you can do. Need to tell her that there's a chance that if she tells anyone at school there could be a report. And she said I don't understand because she's not at risk. She's home safe with me. The website's been shut down. I said, but you need to understand that could trigger a larger investigation. And I know this is not the judiciary committee, but I'm sure you all know that not much happens with a lot of these cases. They don't result in convictions. And so I'm hoping to have this conversation with the group to weigh the benefits versus risks of keeping this piece in place for the next, as we move forward because it's most important the criminal justice system does not provide any therapeutic supports for victims. They don't provide a voice for victims. What young people need access to is someone they can trust and someone they can share their story with and get validation so that they know that they are not the party that's responsible. They are not, they did not do anything wrong. In thinking about this, before I brought it to Senator Bechofsky and Representative Arsenault, I did speak and you'll hear I know from many of these people, but from you know I spoke with OCYFA, Kids Safe, Voices for Vermont's Children, the network, child advocacy centers, multiple other individuals, and they all felt it was time to really look at our statutes and think about if there's a way to bring what we are asking of mandated reporters in conformance with what other states do and whether that would provide an opportunity for young people to seek help. And I know this body just passed the bill that was addressing sextortion. And when I testified in House Judiciary, I said this is all great. It's great to make another crime. That doesn't help the young person, though, who is causing themselves harm or killing themselves because they have no place to go. And we can create a crime. But are we providing an avenue for therapeutic support? And I really think that needs to be addressed as well. In fact, more importantly than the criminal justice process. That's pretty much how I got to this place was hearing stories. And just from my own background, it felt weird to me at first because of my commitment to child welfare. It feels really natural and knee jerk to say like everybody must report everything. But then the more I speak with young people, the more I speak with moms and dads And even counselors. I spoke with one woman who said that she disclosed to her therapist as an adult. And they made a report. So that's where I think some of the pieces that you see with OPR come in. I know Senator Vikovsky was really concerned about improving the way that we do our training piece. I have researched both on trainings in other states, how that happens, and also on the laws in other states. I'm going to provide those in whatever capacity you allow me to serve on the work group, But also if the committee is interested, I'm happy to share some of those examples.

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: Thank you, Jen. And thank you for background. Because as said in your email, I was wondering about how the connection came around to this. And so that was really helpful. One of the things that this bill came off the wall pretty quickly in the Senate, and they didn't really have a lot of time to really flesh it out. And I think that we're interested in, especially after having a walk through of the current statute, having a little bit broader perspective than what the bill lines out. The way the bill is structured right now, it's really just around mandated reporters. And I think that we want to, since we're going to open this up, we want to take a look and make sure that the chapter that deals with this and the underlying statute is as up to date and as respectful to victims as it can be, or people who experience these things as it can be. So I appreciate you having that lens and bringing that as part of the group. So I think that we also were looking at the group in terms of thinking about how we might, it didn't seem to have sufficient number of people who were actually reporters of that category of folks. So I think that we will probably try to address some of that in the makeup of the group. And our committee is pretty well committed to making sure that people with lived experience are actually at the table and not, as somebody put it earlier last week, not sitting around the table, actually at the table. So I'm sure that we will probably be making an effort to move that people with lived experience into the main group. Other people have questions for Ms. Pullman? Okay, thank you so much for initiating this. And I think that it became clear to us when we had a walkthrough of the underlying statute that it is clear that it needs to be updated. At that point in time, we weren't even thinking about necessarily some of the issues that you're bringing forward today. So thank you for doing that.

[Jennifer Pullman]: Well, thank you. And if I may say, I really appreciate the committee delving into this and adding more of the mandated reporters, because I think one of the pieces we're looking at, or we hope to look at, is the training component. And I think their voice will be so valuable in terms of what are they not getting that we need to provide. So I really appreciate this committee's work and look forward to seeing how this week goes and appreciate your consideration and time. Thank you.

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: Thank you very Thank you. Yeah, it's interesting you talk about the training. Think in my experience, like with designated and specialized service agencies, particularly on the adult side, but also on the children's side, people tend to report as the baseline because they are fearful of the ramifications if they don't. So that it's going to be interesting how we sort of thread it or how this group kind of might think about threading a needle about judgment entering into whether to report or not and how that might impact things. So yeah, I'd be very interested to see the recommendations from the group. Thank you. Okay, Todd, welcome.

[Rep. Doug Bishop]: Sure. Yes. Can I ask a question if I can about your thinking?

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: Please have a seat, have a seat.

[Todd Daloz]: If I understood correctly, saying something about how it's opened up our eyes to potential look at the broader statutes.

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: In terms of what the work that the group would do, yeah.

[Todd Daloz]: With respect to what the work would do. I guess I'm trying to figure that out. You're not looking at updating. Are we looking at making updates to the statute at this point?

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: No. Recommendations that come back from the working group. Since it'll be a combination of people with lived experience, advocates, people who are mandated reporters, the department, the attorney general's office, we would like them to come back with an update to the language that Michelle went through with us. Seemed pretty evident that there are some outdated concepts in there and certainly outdated language. But I think that some of the concepts that Jennifer was talking about there, I will find it interesting to see how the discussion ensues because the statute, the way it reads, is kind of an all or none kind of thing. It's like you're not supposed to impose your judgment about whether it happened or not. And I think that's how people are trained. At least that's been my experience. And I'm hearing Jennifer say there needs to be more nuance to certain circumstances. And it'll be interesting to see how they tackle that question and how we word that.

[Todd Daloz]: As to whether how it's currently written in statute is really serving the ultimate purpose or a purpose is to help the victims. I took from testimony is, in some instances, is it actually counter to an intention?

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: Exactly, yeah, exactly.

[Todd Daloz]: I just was trying to get clarification. I misunderstood. I thought you were talking about making some changes now

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: No, as we need to hear back from the group about what their recommendations are. And I think it's important for us to think about what is the ultimate goal. So if the ultimate goal is to hold the people, know, after a report is made, hold people accountable. Or is the ultimate goal, to ensure that a person who has experienced this has the kind of support and services that they might need in order to recover from it or to deal with the issues that it raises? And I guess probably they both need to be the goal. This witness in the youth on youth situation believes that it's not serving the youth who are experiencing the event or the assault. So I think it's I'm sure that they're gonna have interesting discussion about this. Welcome.

[Todd Daloz]: Thank you.

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: Todd, it's nice to see you.

[Todd Daloz]: Good to be here. For the record, Todd DeLuis, Assistant Attorney General. I don't think I've been in front of this committee maybe last year, but not in this current role. Still lovely to be here, and I'm sorry that rep Donahue is not doing well, but I wish her the best too. And it's great. I wanna just start out by saying it's great that Jen went before I did because I think that also provided me a lot of really helpful and useful context to understand why we are the office of the attorney general is placed in this bill. I don't have much to add to what she said except to say that in discussing this internally, I think there's some interest from our office certainly to be involved in the working group, especially where the overlap, not necessarily in the DCF space, but much more in the criminal space where we are looking at prosecuting more abuse cases with youth. And there are some holes, some gaps that I think could be filled as part of a broader overview of this. And I think it'll be important to understand and be a part of conversations around the nuances that you're discussing around mandated reporters in terms of how that moves forward into potential further legal action. I would say not necessarily the position of the attorney general's office, but the concept of looking at the sort of victim centered nature of this would seem to have a lot of value and import in this conversation.

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: It will also bring up, I'm sure, the youthful offender statutes and how that all plays and current interpretations of that. So I think that it's helpful to understand so that the attorney general's office has kind of two roles here. One in terms of counsel for the department and their role as being the administrative entity and state government that receives these and acts on them. But then also the criminal division, which potentially prosecutes people for the actions.

[Todd Daloz]: Absolutely. Thank you for that. I should have provided some of the context, but that's exactly right. And I think there are probably some other areas where our office would overlap with this work as well that could be meaningful to just be a part of the conversation and more than happy to attend and join in.

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: Okay, great. So much people have questions for That was

[Rep. Daniel Noyes]: fast. To

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: To the point, right. Thank you, Todd. Appreciate it.

[Todd Daloz]: Thank you all very much.

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: Okay. Not yet? Okay. All right. So we're waiting for the Office of Child Youth and Family Advocate to come on. So while we're waiting for that, why don't we just have some discussion about the bill? And I think that we will, if you can pull it up on your, it's on today's webpage. What are people's thoughts about both composition, who people are consulted with? And then I think we need to be a bit more specific about what kind of work product that we're expecting, which right now just is tell us what you think essentially.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes]: And

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: I think we need a little bit more definition than that. And so what are people's thoughts, you know, having heard from a few witnesses so far? And we have more coming up tomorrow morning.

[Rep. Brenda Steady]: I'm good with the layout. Agree. The scope is very broad. So they're condensed down the scope. And then the second piece is it's also a very aggressive timeline. And report back in five months at such a broad scope that's already in place, it would, I think, put them in a more difficult position. My feeling is that the main purpose is to examine the existing statutes from them that will pretty much trigger anything else moving forward because the rules and policies and are pretty much triggered by the statutes. Therefore, keep the SALT at examining the current statutes.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano]: Go ahead.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes]: Just to build on that, one of the things kind of kicking around was to have it report back as a report, like in person, like after crossover where this committee has a little bit of slows down to see where things are, but then have the report due for drafting for the second half of the biennium. To give

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: them more time, is

[Rep. Daniel Noyes]: that So what you're like, check-in with, know, come back to the committee around crossover, that's like the first, sometime after the March 1 or something to provide an update on on what's going on. And then the report due in November. Seventh.

[Rep. Doug Bishop]: Yeah. Or

[Rep. Daniel Noyes]: Yeah. Just December. November, December, so there's time for a drafting request.

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: Yeah. Would be before December because Before December. Second year, the biennium is faster. Yeah.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes]: Yeah. Go ahead. Rep Arsino and I, who Mhmm. Over the fall, I think, is part of developing the, what was in age six fifty seven around the pregnancy calendar. And that we met with some national partners and things just happening around child welfare law and what some other states are kind of doing this similar thing. And their takeaways was really allowing for enough time and it'll take much longer than you need to get it right. And then just to another point that we've been talking about is just really ensuring that the decision makers are at the table as well. That's like having, we often say like this person or the designee is wherever possible is really making sure the person with the power and the decision is the one there versus their designee

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano]: sitting in on all of them.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes]: Yeah, and if they came back, there was enough time, we might be able to make some changes to the report or whatever, if we're missing somebody or might give us some time to put something together to Yeah, help

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: we should definitely add, and they maybe just say that, I'm not sure, to consult with other people as necessary. We definitely would want them to be consulting with sort of the, Jen was referring to what's happening in other states. We want them to be looking at, what is Vermont statutes compared to other states? I think that's important to know. Are we an outlier? If we are, is it for a good reason? People moving in different directions for some of the reasons that Jen spoke of? Any of that kind of thing. So, yeah.

[Rep. Doug Bishop]: I found the testimony very interesting in that, and particularly, I think she acknowledged the position she was in that it almost seems like a funny position to be in, that you're not recommending sort of full on intervention response. In some instances, the youth is better served by sort of a lighter touch rather than a SWAT team coming in and descending. I guess as far as the scope of work, is there sort of a tiered, for lack of a better term, a tiered approach to what happens once a report is made? And is there some assessment as to the degree of danger or potential for harm? The case where it sounds like a daughter is exposed to a website that's no longer operative seems like an instance where the threat is not imminent. So what level of imminency is there to harm and how can that dictate what the response is?

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: Well, which is why we looked at Act 157

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano]: or four. With the assessment.

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: Yeah, with the assessment and why we had folks investigate the investigation versus the assessment.

[Rep. Doug Bishop]: And

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: so that they make a determination, once it gets to that point of whether they're gonna open a case or whether they're gonna investigate a case. So we've actually already modernized the what happens after. This is what happens before. What happens before, right? And how their input comes in was not part of that act. And so I think kind of like what now what this is focusing on.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano]: So I wonder if we can ask in the bill for the work group to do like an assessment of best practices across the country, especially if we're giving them more time to kind of look and see what other states are doing, and to your point, trying to be specific about that, do an inventory of some best practices and see what we can incorporate in Vermont based on what others are doing or if there's like a national expert that has some information on how this should be done to kind of strike that balance of, because they also see like a lot of people report because they're worried about if they don't avoid it, know,

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: I'm happy to tell you personally, or I've been on a

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano]: parking lot and I saw a situation, at the time I was working at the AG's office, so there was police officers in our office, I asked them, like, like, called the police, and I didn't know what the situation was. So I could see you get nervous about, so striking that balance is really important. And also a lot of conversation about training has come up, what is best practice about training and what content should be covered in training for the different groups of candidate partners?

[Rep. Esme Cole]: Yeah, I think that flow chart was a great example of how we're, I hope graduating the right direction, especially on the criminal side or addressing from the side, which is cost harm. What Jennifer mentioned today, understanding what exists in terms of therapeutic supports and that is the other half of the equation is not just addressing the crime side, but really the ripple effect of if those therapeutic supports aren't offered, that really does have a long term impact on many layers of society, not to mention that individual themselves. So I think one of the asks, of course, not only to in updating the mandated reporter statute and all, in the interest, of course, of the people who are deemed, who are victimized by that, but connecting the final thought there about the other half of the equation, what resources exist, what's best practice to connect or increase awareness of when a case does arise with supports that really do encompass the needs of the whole person who has been affected by no fault of their own. So making that a direct task of course in our

[Rep. Daniel Noyes]: February. Well,

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: have this nice flow chart and stuff and I know that DCF says that they provide some supportive services, but I'm wondering, so like what, we're dealing with children's mental health and youth mental health. Where is that actually, where's the responsibility? So is there a systemic responsibility once somebody is made aware of something? Or is it up to a parent or guardian? Or is it some combination? Sometimes we have systems that make referrals, but then there's no follow-up. Was there a follow through on, was the child seen? Did they follow-up with a recommended therapist or with a designated agency? Or how will they be supported in school? How can people You have to be aware of confidentiality and all of that, and you don't want to further traumatize people, but also people around them need to know how to react. If somebody has a reaction that they don't, then they're like, this thing's out of the blue. Well, it might not be out of the blue.

[Rep. Esme Cole]: Absolutely. And for that piece, I think one lens of expertise that we could get maybe some answers from, I feel like a voice that isn't listed so far is child advocacy group. Witnesses I that are coming in right after this, but there's another group as well, Sheila Linton. And I think, Revish, if you are on a committee, a commission with this individual. Right. Roots. Exactly. That's precisely who. So I think it would be a really valuable additional voice on the child advocacy, full picture scope of what we do with the second half of the treating or where the responsibility lies for as a state, how we support them or for them elsewhere to make sure that that's followed.

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: Yeah. And in terms of other folks that they consult with or whatever, there's no children's mental health here at all. And so I think that that would be, maybe that's sort of built into medical partners at Vermont Child Safe Program, which I don't really know anything about UVM's Child Safe Program, but maybe we'll hear about that. So I think we need to think, yeah, I think mental health, some of the other organizations. I forgot about each. Yeah. I mean, if you want to hear from them before we assign them a responsibility, that's fine too. And I see Amy Johnson in the room. Amy, it would be helpful to know if, on the children's mental health side, if they are interested in participating in the work group or as a collaborator on this from the perspective of kind of both sides. Because I know they see people that they have to report, but then they also provide services to children who've experienced abuse as well.

[Amy Johnston]: I said okay if I, Amy Johnston from I Oxford definitely think it would be important to have direct service providing organizations, which could be us, we would definitely be interested because as you said, we're seeing people who are experiencing trauma connected to what's happened to them, but also we're often the ones making reports or working with supervisors who are in consultation to make reports. So I don't see that in the two different groups listed directly. Yeah, we

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: didn't either. We didn't see people who actually are making the reports I see that would in

[Amy Johnston]: be important for me to hear from folks who are, what are the nuances of that? How does that work?

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: The Vermont Care Partners is actually sort of in the kind of unique, I don't know if it's unique, but position of potentially, data's pretty staggering when for children, the perpetrators are generally people who are known to the family or known to the individual or even many times part of a family or extended family. And so the DAs and SSAs people, the perpetrators and the people who have experienced the abuse. So it's a unique situation. I'm sure that there are private practitioners out there as well in that situation. So who are the others? So we've already talked about and we've invited the Vermont Principals Association to talk about and a school counselor from Lamoille Union High School. Lori, is the parent child network person coming? Yes. Or gonna be here? Okay. So they're also seeing young families in those situations. Are there other people that you would want to hear from in terms of, oops, it's not just happening, who we want to hear from?

[Rep. Esme Cole]: I've been in touch with one person who has been is still making a decision if they want to testify. A professor at U Penn who has some expertise in this area

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: and is a founder of Child USA, which is a

[Rep. Esme Cole]: child abuse resource website, but as well as Nisseria, but they want to make

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: sure that they have the right expertise for this. Just waiting on a final response. I'm wondering if CSG or NCSL, they have a child and family, what do they call themselves? I don't know.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes]: When I did the youth homelessness one, we teamed up with the one for some of our sessions, we'd travel together and have joint sessions and then separate ones. So I'm just,

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: rather than having this group try to track down a bunch of data, I'm wondering if the data already exists within CSL, like what a summary of existing statutes are around child abuse and neglect reporting. So I think that we should, but that would have to be, sure that there is, DCF has a, there's a national organization of departments as well. So I just don't want them to do you know, think that they're having to, like, track down a bunch of stuff because I'm sure that this information already exists either, like I said, with NCSL or with the whatever national organization that DCF belongs to on child welfare.

[Rep. Brenda Steady]: And to your point of saying, I mean, it's clearly stated, they got to tread very lightly because recommendations also have to align with the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act. So they're not able to sit there and begin to redefine abuse. Exactly. Within that context, the scope's there, make sure everything stays aligned with that, but the scope is still way brought on.

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: Yeah, I think we'll be a little bit more specific about saying, looking at any changes or potential changes to mandated reporter categories and or procedures and update of the underlying statute, a review via one or both of these national organizations of what's happening in other states.

[Rep. Doug Bishop]: Think of something that's sort of at the intersection of the work that DCF has done with respect to the process and procedure and the reporting. If you go to the DCF website for the page on mandated reporting, there's an FAQ and it says, one of the FAQs is, what if I'm not sure? Call us for advice if you're not sure a report is warranted or if you're considering telling parents about the report, I'm wondering how well that's working. And are you getting the same response regardless of who answers the phone when you call for that advice? Or how much of it is dependent on the individual? Well, think that Yeah, don't know how many calls they're getting.

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: But

[Rep. Doug Bishop]: if one of our questions is what impact is being had by the fact that people are fearing liability if they don't report, how much are they taking advantage of figuring out whether they really should report?

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: Report or not, right. Well, I think that when I think back to a couple of years ago when we passed this statute, it was the people on the receiving end were justifiably recognizing that there were sort of, I guess, what they call different categories of reporting. So they recognize that not everything should be opened up as an investigation, so that there was an, there's intervention that could happen without an investigation or a substantiation if it didn't rise to that level. So what that tells me is that they are receiving reports that don't fall into that sort of substantiation investigation level. And they needed a more differentiation on the what do we do once we get a report? And maybe that also means on the input side, there needs to be more nuanced training. And like you said, what happens in that space where how many calls do they get? Or do people, what the reaction when they get a call? Somebody say, yeah, I don't think this really rises to a level of report?

[Rep. Doug Bishop]: What are they doing with that information? Is that translating to updates in the training? Right. If they get to make up a number over the course of a year, 100 calls that fall into a category.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano]: How do they incorporate them?

[Rep. Doug Bishop]: How are they incorporating them into the training

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: and getting to the

[Rep. Doug Bishop]: requests for someone to weigh in.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano]: A bit of an unformed thought, so brainstorm this with me I a little wonder if there's any opportunity for this work group, especially since we're giving them a little bit more time, is to kind of do a survey of existing mandated reporters to ask these questions, like, do you have what you need? Is the training appropriate for, like, how often do you, are you wondering, you know what I mean, to kind of help them understand what they need to address in the statute and in the training material versus kind of like, I know we're hearing from some of these, but we're not going to have time to kind of dig deep. And I wonder if they could develop some sort of a survey that could go out to some of the pediatricians, doctors, ER physicians. And also, we don't know today.

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: We don't know. Maybe that's I know if it's If done

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano]: not, can we kind of get an understanding from the perspective of a reporter? What would be the ideal for them? What is the best case scenario? What changes would they like to see in how they're trained? How the reports are accepted when they interact with DCF? Are they getting the information that they're needing? Is the website helpful? Should changes, you know, do they know where to go for information if they don't, if they have questions? Like really going after the user to get them to kind of give us, how are you interacting with this system?

[Rep. Daniel Noyes]: And I'm

[Rep. Doug Bishop]: curious how much they may ultimately learn about this system in consideration and mitigating. Because the fear may be by call, someone's losing their kid. I can't have that.

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: Right, that's what's gonna be the outcome.

[Rep. Doug Bishop]: That's what they think is happening, which is not foregone conclusion by any stretch.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes]: Yeah, I was just thinking, I'm a mandated reporter. I've been through multiple roles for aid now. And so I've done a lot of mandated reporter trainings. Kind of in that being, I'm so interested in hearing from some of the people doing the trainings. Because I think about across them, and there are some repeat questions that get asked over and over. And I think that gets you to that point. What are the things people are asking and wanting to learn? I know a big one is always what happens if I don't report? And wanting to what is that line? I will say, we talk people being confused. I've always been directed, well, if you're not sure, just call anyways and do it and it'll get filtered out. So I wonder almost through our current practices really forcing. So currently, we're just told to do it Make

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano]: the report.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes]: Make the report. And so, yeah, I think there's a lot of information to everybody has told me. Yes. Yeah.

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: Because people who are It's better safe than sorry. They don't want jeopardize their own. Their own or if there's a question we're

[Rep. Daniel Noyes]: going to have

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: share with the child and the youth.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano]: But to Doug's point too, I wonder how much mandated reporters understand the updates that have been made

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: recently to the process after a report has been made. Well, they're still in the process of implementation. So I would say, that's probably a work in progress, but some of the surveying stuff that you were talking about, guess I would say that I would have an expectation that that'd be something that DCF should be doing already. I don't know if they are, but perhaps Hannah can find out for us. Or maybe you know from your experience, being a field service director.

[Anne Harrell]: Just briefly, Anne Harrell, director of education, solicitor affairs, District director, we were engaged in a lot of very specific conversations with that, the accounts that we covered around what are you missing? We were putting on many trainings in the district to target area specific questions is the best way to put it. And we are working on looking at the whole data reporting training background. But I do know district to district, there are constant conversations like what you're referring to as well as people have received calls from providers or even parents at times of like, do I need to report this? And sometimes it's a solid no. I have definitely said no in my career. That sounds like something that maybe you can support the family differently. And I've also made referrals without having a full rapport vendor.

[Rep. Esme Cole]: So there is a lot of district to district jargon

[Anne Harrell]: around it and it is a topic that we know about. Okay,

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: I see we've been joined by Matthew Bernstein. Hi, nice to see you.

[Matthew Bernstein]: Hello, thank you for your patience. My apologies Absolutely, for

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: of course. I hope your mother-in-law is doing okay.

[Matthew Bernstein]: Thanks. She's resting in the other room here and I don't think there will be an emergency, but I am on call. So really, it's just about code switching and getting out of the hospital mentality into the testimony mentality. So here I am.

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: Thank you. Thank you. So as you know, we're talking about s two thirty nine and really I just sort of prefaced for the other witnesses that the bill was kind of quickly taken off the wall down in the Senate and it really, we feel like needs to be fleshed out more. And so we're in particular, after having a walkthrough of the underlying statute, really, I think are leaning towards needing for this work group to be looking not just at mandated reporter, but the underlying statute was seemed to be have some really outdated language and perhaps some things that we would want update to be more consistent with what practice and best practices are now. And also, were really feeling like the folks of the work group and the consultation group needed some work. We feel like folks who are actually doing the reporting now, people who are required to report aren't really represented. And we will be moving the people with lived experience up into the work group itself, not just the consulting with. And so we're interested in the Office of Child Youth and Family Advocates' thoughts about whether this is needed, your participation. Are you okay with participating? Think I maybe know the answer to that, but we'll let you speak to that. And then any other thoughts you might have about the bill itself and maybe what we should be looking at.

[Matthew Bernstein]: Yes, thanks Madam Chair. I'm Matthew Bernstein, child youth and family advocate for the state of Vermont. I did hear most of the previous testimony today while I was running around. So I think I have a sense of the concerns. Let me just do a couple of quick bullets if that's all right. So one is I just want to make sure everyone on the committee knows that Vermont is number one in the nation per capita and calls to its child protection hotline. Many of you have heard me say that multiple times. It's in our annual reports, etcetera. I think there are some Vermont specific reasons for that and DCF often has a response to that that includes the specific way in which centralized intake and emergency services works and protocols work in Vermont. But I think the fundamental fact is still valid and I think that's a real, real, real problem. And particularly, I think I just wanna name that act 60 of I believe 2015 that changed the mandatory reporting laws as we said in our 2023 annual report, I think was well intentioned but may have caused more harm than good. And I think set us in possibly the wrong direction. And so I think to your point, Madam Chair, about potentially revisiting statutes, I think that that is certainly warranted. Within that, I just wanna say too that I think in reading the prior versions of this bill and thinking about some of the testimony, I think there is an important perspective of folks with lived experience that is not represented here, which is there is real harm, can be real harm children and their parents, even victims of over reporting and of over intervention in families. And so when we're thinking about lived experience, I think we wanna be sure to include parents and caregivers who feel like they were subject to unwarranted investigation by DCF. And that is not what DCF always does, but that is certainly what happens sometimes. And those nationwide and in Vermont, those experiences are disproportionately happened to of course poor families but also black families, families of color. And so that's just an important group, not merely victims. But also, or it's a different kind of victimization potentially. There can be real trauma especially because often additional investigations happen to families who have been investigated before sometimes decades prior. And there's real trauma there. And so another investigation warranted or not can be significantly traumatic to the entire family, including the children. So I just want to say that. I think we also wanna focus on who the biggest mandatory reporters are. And again, I don't want this to sound like these folks are a problem, but I do think it, to your, I think proper practical focus of who is doing the reporting, think that is crucial. Schools are number one and are always number one on that list. And our offices had some really interesting conversations which I think we've told you about in the past with schools in terms of why they report. I wanna say to CAPTA and the federal framework here without falling down the rabbit hole, from our perspective is much more flexible I think than folks assume in terms of what it permits and what it doesn't permit. And I think Vermont has a lot of room to stay within CAPTA and still make fundamental changes to the reporting statute. So I think certainly we wanna be respectful of federal law, but I don't think we wanna see it as well, hamstrung because of what CAPTA requires. And maybe that's a good segue into just for those that haven't heard this idea, there are many versions of this nationwide, increasingly more of warm lines. So the idea is there's a level reporting that would go not to the child welfare agency, but instead to more of like a social services referral entity that is not DCF when there's a lower level of harm suspected. And again, you'd have to well, there's different ways of doing it. You could potentially change the law, but other states have different models of this. And I think we would wanna bring that to this group if convened. And I have a couple other thoughts, but I think just to get to the actual details of the working group itself. Are of course, this is a very important issue and we are absolutely It hits to our On our core mission. We absolutely want to be a part of it and we'll dive in. That said, I real concerns about the scope of this group about maybe the lack from what I read of clear instructions as to where the group is going on an issue that has so many different perspectives as part of it And the timeline at which it starts and ends, which as you know, we have two folks, two people in our office, two employees in our office and this timeline hits perfectly when our annual report is due and it seems too short. I understand that in general having working groups that stretch on also has its downsides. But my concern is that the scope is too broad and the timeline's too short for this to be

[Rep. Daniel Noyes]: We agreed on that. That's

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: exactly what we said. The scope is too broad and the time was too short.

[Matthew Bernstein]: Great minds think alike. And then I just wanted to echo to To jump off of what I said earlier, BIPOC led groups and organizations, whether the Root in Brattleboro, whether the Office of Racial Equity, whether members of our advisory council, we have a lived experience advisory council on this committee, I think would be valuable as well. So I'll leave it at that. I'm sure I've left off some things, but I think those are the big, picture here.

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: So I just wanna ask, you said you have an advisory council of individuals with lived experience. Is that youth and families?

[Matthew Bernstein]: Right now, we a young person who is in their early 20s, so aged out relatively recently. We don't have anybody currently in DCF custody. That would sort of be on YDP. And then we have sort of a whole scope. Largely, it's made up primarily of parents who have been impacted by DCF, but not exclusively. Folks were in the system themselves and are also parents, and there's different identities. Because

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: oftentimes we need We're looking about who appoints the people to these task forces or work groups or whatever we want to call them. So that's helpful to know the makeup of that. And I did get an email from the Senate asking, Senator Barofsky asking us to expand and looking at the Office of Racial Justice being represented as well. So, do we have as you noted, that's the the charge is kinda rather broad, and we've been trying to sort of, like, hone in on a a more specific work plan for the group of what we'd like to receive back, so what their discussions would be guided by. And we're talking about any potential changes to mandated reporting, both who is reporting and what procedures are used, training, how training is conducted and by whom and what is trained, the sort of underlying statute and updating the underlying statute looking at things that may have been changed that might have resulted in unintended consequences or different impacts. We want them to look at what other states are doing, but they don't have to collect that data. It's out there. So those are kind of like the four or five key areas that we wanted them to sort of hone in on. We thought we'd be a little bit more specific than what came out of the Senate. Does that sound consistent with what you were thinking?

[Matthew Bernstein]: It does, madam chair. I wonder if And I really just I just thought about this just now, so it may not be a good idea. But I wonder if a focus particularly on 4912 on 33 VSA 4912 might be appropriate. 4912 holds the key definitions for abuse and neglect, not for CHINs, but for mandatory reporting and substantiation as well. And it's kind of a nerve center for this issue. I'm wondering if a particular mandate to actually come up with a potentially recommended revised language of 4912 might narrow, which is still a huge task, huge task. But it narrow the scope and might keep us focused on actual language. Because I think that's really what it boils down to from my perspective. The training and all those other elements are important, but they all sort of point up to the statutory Sure.

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: Well, I guess I want to maybe explore a little bit more something that you mentioned a little bit earlier. And that was around the way the bill is crafted right now references capta and within the sort of not doing anything that's going to be contrary to that. And I think I heard you reference that you think that we might have more flexibility than and definitions, obviously, would be a key area. And I'll be honest, I haven't looked at CAPTA, so I don't know exactly what it says. But I'm presuming that it has definitions for some of these things within it. Does it or does it

[Matthew Bernstein]: I don't believe so, and I'm a I I was not able to I meant to wanted to look at it before this session. But as I recall, CAPTA primarily requires that each state have a mandatory reporting statute. I don't think I'm fairly certain it does not have any actual language in it, but it does require states to have a mandatory reporting structure. And of course I'd be happy to bring more information back to the committee or you can even send it after this because I think that is an important question. But that's my recollection is it does not go beyond saying that every state shall have a mandatory reporting structure. There's some requirements within that, but

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: Okay, thank you. Other questions or thoughts from other committee members? Go ahead, Esme.

[Rep. Esme Cole]: I'm curious if there are particular elements of the 33 BSA. Is it, I'm sorry, fourteen,

[Matthew Bernstein]: twenty? That

[Rep. Esme Cole]: we should be paying particular attention to based on, I know this is the exact conversation for the working group, but just maybe to even further provide direction.

[Matthew Bernstein]: Absolutely. Number one in that statute is the definition of abused and neglected child. And then within that, it has nested definitions. So you start with the definition of abuse and neglected child and then you follow the breadcrumbs because substantial risk of sexual abuse is within section one and then that is separately defined. And it also has risk of harm within it. And then harm is defined below. So essentially if you start with subsection one, abuse or neglected child and you kind of try to graph what that section says then that pulls you into other definitions. But that is the heart of it. That is the heart of what Because the mandatory reporting statute says that the standard is reasonable suspicion that a child is an abused or neglected child. And so it's not just that legal standard but also what is an abused or neglected child, if that makes sense.

[Rep. Esme Cole]: Thank you. That is helpful. And I'm also curious about this section on those who are listed as mandated reporters and also those who are exempted in certain situations from mandated reporting. If your office has particularly strong feelings, recommendations, not And I know, again, this is a conversation for the working group itself as a whole, just to pay extra attention to maybe.

[Matthew Bernstein]: Yeah, no, I appreciate that. Without trying to throw too much of a monkey wrench into all of this, I'm honestly not sure. I don't think we really have data that the mandatory part is actually really doing what it's advertised as doing. In other words, the notion of having essentially criminal penalties for folks who don't report something, I think there's increasing evidence that that concept itself is problematic. Because I think folks report concerning issues. And if they don't, then a criminal law, a misdemeanor law saying that they should isn't going to incentivize them to actually report. It's a very human thing to be concerned about a child and then want to do something about it. When you add that criminal penalty on top, I think it often causes more harm than good. There's huge national study that looked at millions of administrative records that recently came out. It's been in our materials before. It's a peer reviewed journal. It's in JAMA, which is one of the major journals. And it essentially says that let me remember the specifics

[Anne Harrell]: that

[Matthew Bernstein]: child deaths are not fatalities are there's no evidence that they are reduced by ratcheting up reporting laws. So I think somebody said earlier in this committee that people are worried about criminal penalties. And I think that's true. And I think that often leads to when in doubt report and we just have mounting evidence in the last couple of decades of just how harmful when in doubt report is. It is not a simple open and shut issue. But if I'm a mandatory reporter, which I am, if I'm working in a childcare, if my livelihood depends on my job and I'm worried that I might be charged if I don't report, then I'm gonna report that I am gonna do one in doubt report. But the problem is on the other end, there's a family that might be suffering as a result of that through no one's ill will, but just because of the way these systems work. And so frankly, the whole kind of regime I think is problematic. I think capta is from the 1970s, it's kind of outdated at this point. It is what we have. And again, we have flexibility to work within it. So I don't want to suggest that we're hamstrung here. But I do think that there needs to be a fundamental re interrogation of these concepts that have defined our child welfare systems for hundreds of years. And again, children in foster care significantly down in every state. And so we have, I think it's 100,000 fewer children in foster care nationwide than we had ten years ago. And this is a bipartisan effort. This issue is, again, I say this all the time, but it's true. It's a bipartisan and a tripartisan issue where the sides are not there political are sides. There are issues and folks from all angles working on them. And I think there's a lot of great good work to be done.

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: I'm I'm I'm always cautious when I hear numbers like that only because, you know, at least in Vermont, the birth rate is down significantly as well. So naturally, there's gonna be fewer at some level.

[Matthew Bernstein]: I think that's why the national numbers are important because the birth rates are not down nationwide.

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: That's And why I said Vermont. Yeah. Yeah, it's true. And I think the and I'm not sure exactly how I feel about that, but that I guess that's why we want this work group to spend some time really digging into it and thinking about it. And as I was saying a little bit earlier, it's like we revised what happens after the report statute. And it was a significant enough revision that reflected a whole separate procedure for things that he determined not to really require substantiation. So, what that tells me is that there are a significant number of reports that are made that really don't rise to the level of substantiation or abuse or neglect. But I'm not sure it's better. I'm not sure yet in my head about whether it's better to report and try to get a family some assistance if there is some, or if the trauma that's involved by going through that process is more detrimental than helpful. I'm not sure how I think about that.

[Matthew Bernstein]: Yeah, I think well put. That's partly where the warm line idea came from, because you want to get folks the assistance they need. I also wanted to say, too, in case it seems like I'm tilting one direction, there are real serious child safety issues out there that absolutely must be reported and are reported. And DCF makes lifesaving interventions on behalf of children who are in unsafe situations all the time. That is uncontroversial from my perspective. And many children do need to be taken into foster care, at least temporarily. The question then is what happens? Are they returned home, etcetera? And I think a lot of why you don't want over reporting is that you want, again, you want signal, not noise. You want to be sure that DCF is not spending time answering the phone, that they're spending time on safety interventions that protect children and leaving families to handle issues or supporting families and getting the support they need for issues that are not safety issues. And so it helps everybody when you have fewer calls that are unwarranted. To get back to our earlier discussion, my working hypothesis is that if you say tomorrow, which is never going to happen and we're not suggesting it should, but if there was no mandatory reporting tomorrow, I still think you'd have ninety nine percent of the serious cases reported. I think you'd have fewer of the less serious cases reported. And so I think therein lies some of the issue. Maybe that's wrong. And I think it's very hard to prove one way or the other. But I do think that it's worth asking that question because there are serious consequences in both directions.

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: Right. All right.

[Matthew Bernstein]: I had one other thing, I'm sorry, Madam Chair, which I just remembered, which is I noticed that the defender general is not on the list of folks on this task force. And given that the state's attorneys are there, I was just curious as to why. I mean, I understand that the defender general, believe doesn't do any pre petition work, although I'm not a 100% clear on that. But in other words, they wouldn't perhaps there's an argument that they wouldn't be on this task force because it's it's sort of a pre CHINS task force. But I do think that you know, Defender General Paul and others there bring a lot of, you know, expertise and intelligence about this issue and experience. And so I was curious why they weren't there.

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: Yeah. I mean, we we found several folks who we thought should be here and aren't here. So we'll add we'll add the defender general to that list to consider for sure. Is there anybody else who, besides the folks that we've already talked about, like the reporters themselves, you know, people reporters themselves, and you mentioned assuring, you know, that families who have have had wrongful reports as being considered in those folks impacted by lived experience? And are there any other folks who you feel are critical for the group to either consult with or be a part of the group?

[Matthew Bernstein]: Deputy Advocate Higbee mentioned law enforcement to me when we were discussing this earlier. And I don't have the experience to know in Vermont. I don't have enough experience in Vermont on the ground to know exactly who or how appropriate that is, but I think it's a useful suggestion you know, since you are considering a list. So I think that would be the only other one that comes to mind right now.

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: Yep. That's that's what we actually had written down already. To some extent, although I don't think it's what we'd be thinking about the Department of State's attorneys and sheriffs, you're less likely to have a sheriff. But in rural in rural counties, you actually probably would be having a sheriff as opposed to a municipal police force, which would be more in the more cities and towns. Thank you. Other thoughts or questions for Matthew?

[Rep. Daniel Noyes]: Yes. I'm wondering if you have any I was just looking at the definitions, and it's something I'm just raising it now because it's something I think about a lot. It's around the part of the definition that covers emotional abuse and harm. I know we lay it out there. My understanding and experience is it's not something we fall back on using a lot, especially with older youth. Just while we're doing if you have any thoughts about it, that particular it's so hard to quantify and define. And so I think it falls under the radar. But words can be really impactful to you.

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: So yeah.

[Matthew Bernstein]: Yeah, no, thanks for the question. Just because that definition is so short, I'll just read it. It's number five. It says emotional maltreatment means a pattern of malicious behavior that results in impaired psychological growth and development. So yeah, I mean, I think you hit the nail on the head when you said hard to quantify and define. As with many definitions in this section, they're very broad and very subjective is what I find. And that gives a lot of leeway and it is a real problem. These are hard things to define. To have a generalized definition of what we as a society essentially think is inappropriate. I think it's important to keep in mind the reason we are putting these definitions into statute and then the framework that DCF is charged with and our offices and others are involved with, what is the point here? Are we trying to say what's not good parenting? Or are we trying to say what is so outside the pale that there should be state intervention? And I think it is the latter. Then what kind of state it's as much about the response to this as it is about defining it, right? Because all the parents in the room know how hard it is to parent, myself included, and I think in this definition, the impaired psychological growth and development elevates this from it's not merely getting too mad at your kid. It is in a way that it impairs their development. On the other hand, I think that is very hard to prove. So again, there's so many rabbit holes here, but I do think that good is example definition to kind of show how challenging all of this is. And I think the role of the child welfare agency nationwide has really changed, and the role DCF has changed over the years somewhat. And I think what we often hear from community providers is, especially schools, they're calling DCF because they're really trying to help these kids. And eventually with some families, they hit a wall where they don't know what to do. And they want help. And DCF, among other things, answers the phone and is concerned and are professional and will check it out. But I'm not sure that that is always DCF's proper role. It obviously depends on the case. Often I think why people are calling the child protection hotline may be a mismatch with what the child protection hotline really has to offer. And for cases that are screened out, my question and our question always is, well, what happens? We have over last year, think it was 18,000 screened out calls. So those were all calls where somebody said, I need help, or this child needs help, or this family needs help. And the ones that are just screened out often I think fall through the cracks. And so anyway, for broadening your question, but I do think that really it is about how we respond and that's not always clear. And so having structures in place is, I think, as important as the definition.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes]: You raise a good point. Know it's about mandated reporters and things, but it would be really helpful to have, as part of this, the charge of this working group, what is that mid level system to ensure these families are getting the support they need so things don't. Yeah, or get worse or become something that could potentially be substantiated, kind of giving families resources and tools.

[Matthew Bernstein]: Will say too, I'm go sorry, just because it came up and maybe not for this actual working group, but the Root and Brattleboro, which was mentioned earlier, is doing some work around worm lines. And so if you all are interested in that issue and sort of some alternatives to where these calls might go, think in my experience, they've been interested in holding that work.

[Rep. Doug Bishop]: I would just add on this question or this issue of the definitions, it gets kind of complicated pretty quickly because if you read abused or neglected, basically says that could include a child whose psychological growth is harmed by an act or omission of their parent or someone else. Then you have to go to harm. Harm references physical injury or emotional maltreatment. Then you go to emotional maltreatment that talks about a pattern of malicious behavior. So it's like a three layer step to try to figure out what we mean by abused or neglected.

[Matthew Bernstein]: And then there's risk of harm.

[Rep. Doug Bishop]: On the surface, psychological growth for welfare is harmed is very subjective. So it tries to help by defining harm, but then you have to go to harm to

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: It's a little bit of a circular reference back and then you have to go like three layers in, and then you're still not sure. So what do you do? You report anyway, which I think is I think that's what we get down to. Mean, in my previous life, I heard that over and over and over again from people who work in the designated agency and specialized service agency system. And a lot of it was not only They were wanting to make sure that they followed the law. That's how Better to overreport than underreport. That's sort of the, I think, mentality that folks have. And not everybody has a license at stake because you have some people working in positions that are unlicensed. And so it's not even really a matter of that. And so I think that the child welfare process has come a long way since some of those initial And the statute, I mean, you look, it's been revised many times. So in 2027, it is not gonna be the first time that it gets revised. And it's as the science changes and as things evolve, and I think that's good, I think that I'm not sure. So thank you actually, Matthew, for pointing out 4912, because we were kind of focused on 4913. And it really comes back to forty nine-twelve. So I think that it's a good suggestion for them to be looking at '12 13. Definitely impacts, The definitions definitely impact who reports are made on, but it also impacts sort of what we did two years ago. But that's after the report has already come. So I don't think that Anyways, I Yes.

[Matthew Bernstein]: No, I agree. Well, I think there might be a parallel process in terms of forty nine-thirteen to the substantiation work in Act 154, which is to say Act 154 changed the legal standard for the substantiation process. Potentially, I mean, not to broaden the mandate of this. Well, first I narrowed it I think too small and now I want to broaden it out again. But I think that reasonably suspects standard in 4913 should be looked at. And I don't have a prescription right now for how to change it. But I also didn't wanna lose fact of representative Bishop. That's exactly what I meant by the nesting definitions earlier and you hit the nail on the head there. It is I've wanted to for years like have a wall where I sort of graph out this statute like with the chunks and kind of with an arrow and then because that section one has right all of those other nested definitions in it and exactly what you all said, think when we're expecting sort of the average person to like sit down with this and read it and then figure out what reasonably suspects is. And that's not realistic. They're just going to call it in. I also think it's on And 4913 is not totally clear as to how, it doesn't really put parameters. And I believe that in Acts sixty and twenty sixteen, 15 changed this. But in terms of, well, how long ago could this have occurred and how broad is the concentric circle of folks who have to report? We've all heard the training which says, you can't just Everybody has to call it in, which I think is another issue that I don't find in the statute. It says every person who reasonably suspects it calls it in. But I think that gets to what is reasonable suspicion, how long ago, etcetera, etcetera. And I heard somebody, I think it was Attorney Pullman talk about somebody reporting something from a decade ago and that be what we're after. See representative Cole giving me the cutoff sign. So

[Rep. Esme Cole]: Oh, no. I'm not. I'm I'm just like,

[Matthew Bernstein]: couldn't I couldn't tell if that's what you were doing, but it was a

[Rep. Daniel Noyes]: little I'm not in the

[Matthew Bernstein]: room. So my god. Madam Cherry, she's making your job easier. Know. Know. Know. I

[Rep. Daniel Noyes]: I I

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: But today is not one of them. No. And

[Rep. Doug Bishop]: know.

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: I I I just that was no. She was just playing she was playing with her necklace. She had a necklace on, and it it As

[Matthew Bernstein]: a fellow fidgeter, I I, you know, feel

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: this. Alright. Go Go ahead. Representative Garofano has a question or thought.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano]: I just remember this, I'm gonna give you credit, Dan. I don't know if it was last year or the year before when, I don't remember which year

[Rep. Daniel Noyes]: it was, but we were talking about the video.

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano]: Remember that? Like this is a perfect use for

[Rep. Daniel Noyes]: a video that simplifies like, you know,

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano]: a really easy to understand, simple kind of short video that describes the process, what happens when you make a report, what happens after you make a report, if you have questions, what you should do, I don't know if that's something, like those are just often engaging, they're easy to understand, they can be really a useful tool. You obviously want to train somebody in-depth because it's something that is tense and there's a lot of vested flaws. But after the fact, maybe something's available on the website that can simply describe the process.

[Rep. Doug Bishop]: Makes me think, at my last employer, we had cybersecurity videos that were sent to us every couple of weeks from our IT person, and there were a couple of minutes to watch it. And at some point, had all had more training on being mindful of cybersecurity but refreshers get these three minute videos to like, oh, there's a scenario, okay. And you can be reminded.

[Rep. Esme Cole]: And for us, there was a

[Rep. Golrang “Rey” Garofano]: bill that we were working on. And we were saying, make a video that people get before they

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: come so they can understand what they're kind of going to be, what the expectations will be. Okay. So this has been really helpful, Matthew. Thank you very much in helping us. We want to be more specific and we want to make sure that we're capturing the people who need to be thinking about this. And yeah, we also want to make sure that we have a work product that they're able to produce. But I think sort of narrowing in on specific sections of the statute, I think it's a good idea. And we're trying to do this without making an appropriation. So, because we don't want it to languish in appropriations someplace. So, we also have to be sort of, I guess, aware of the fact that we might have to bite this off in chunks a little bit. So we'll have to think about whether that's necessary or not. And I'm sure we will get feedback from DCF about whether they think this is too big of a chunk or not.

[Matthew Bernstein]: Madam Chair, if it helps, if you're gonna add any lived experience folks to the list, our office could, think, I mean, depending on how many, this doesn't specify a number of meetings, etcetera. And I I do think that this should be potentially a year or something. I I I just think it's too short as is. But anyway, depending on the number of meetings, you know, our office would be would be happy to have that come out of our budget for the per diems for the lived experience folks if that

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: That's alright. We already told the department that if we didn't hear from them that we were gonna say that they were gonna pay for it.

[Matthew Bernstein]: Perfect. But that's that's a negligible

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: offer in case I need a backup plan. Or in case we want to add more people with lived experience to have that voice.

[Rep. Brenda Steady]: I don't mean to laugh, but now going forward, I wouldn't want to be putting that on the public record.

[Matthew Bernstein]: What, that we'll pay for stuff?

[Rep. Brenda Steady]: We can review it two years from now.

[Rep. Doug Bishop]: Hey. Remember that time? We're

[Matthew Bernstein]: happy to do it because those folks' voices are important and honestly, it's not that much. It's it's it's unfortunately not that much money.

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: It it is. Yeah. It's it's that's something that, you know, I think our government operations committee needs to take up and to update. I mean, that hasn't it's been $50 for a gazillion years.

[Matthew Bernstein]: Well, I will say there there is a process where one can request to be allowed to pay more, which we do every year for our advisory council.

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: Oh, Jason. I didn't know that.

[Matthew Bernstein]: That is yes. That's an that's the governor's discretion, I believe so.

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: Yeah. To know. All right, is there any other questions for Matthew? All right, thanks so much for being here this afternoon, Matthew, especially with everything going on for your family. So I hope everything goes well.

[Matthew Bernstein]: Thanks for your patience. Appreciate it. We're on the upswing, and hope to see you soon. I'm just sorry not to be there in person. But

[Rep. Theresa Wood]: Oh, that's okay. Thank you. We're glad you're able to join us. Alrighty. Take care. Bye. Bye bye. Okay. Let's let's take a little bit of a break, Laurie, till about 03:00, and then we're gonna come back, review the agenda, get any updates from folks about what's happening in bills downstairs. I think there's been a couple updates since we last had that go around. And see if there are other people that you want to hear from other than the ones we already have scheduled for this bill in particular. We're not planning to vote this bill out this week.