Pennsylvania needs permanent Office of Child Advocate [column]

With great jubilation, Pennsylvania has unveiled a 10-year strategic plan for older Pennsylvanians: Aging Our Way, PA: A Plan for Lifelong Independence. Aging Our Way is worth celebrating for its commitment to our aging parents, grandparents and neighbors.

Still, it also feels like a punch to the gut for another vital constituency: Pennsylvania's vulnerable children and youth.

Pennsylvania's Aging Our Way plan resulted from robust engagement with the General Assembly, families, systems' stakeholders and the public. The finalized plan rightly recognizes the value of Pennsylvania's Long-Term Care Ombudsman program. The program includes diverse paid staff and volunteers who have an "impassioned commitment to listen, educate, investigate, mediate and empower through a visible presence." The Aging our Way plan doesn't just recognize the importance of the ombudsman program — there is a push to expand it for older Pennsylvanians in home- and community-based services.

There are well-documented parallels between older Pennsylvanians and children, particularly relating to the risk for abuse and exploitation. And, yet, there remain stark differences in how the public and elected officials embrace these two constituencies.

We are in campaign season. You will find countless political advertisements citing concerns about, and accomplishments for, older Pennsylvanians, but few pertaining to vulnerable children and youth. Could it be that one constituency votes and the other does not?

Despite a high-profile and consequential election season, some state lawmakers easily express outright opposition to an ombudsman/advocate program for children and youth.

Legislation to provide an advocate for children and youth like what has long existed for older Pennsylvanians has been introduced in Harrisburg repeatedly over the course of 23 years.

Across those two decades, Pennsylvania has regularly found itself in the spotlight for troubling shortcomings in our child protection strategies, as well as for abuse experienced by children and youth at the hands of publicly funded individuals and systems entrusted with their care. Across those same decades, elected officials suggest they have become more aware of the long-term effects (and societal costs) of abuse and other childhood trauma.

In 2019, former Gov. Tom Wolf created a child advocate's office by executive order, but it lacks the resources, independence and investigatory power it would have if it was codified by legislation as a permanent agency.

This year, state senators from both political parties introduced a child advocate bill. In July, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives sent its own legislation, House Bill 2175, to the Senate on a bipartisan vote; it would establish a permanent Office of Child Advocate.

It all looked very promising.

However, now we have state lawmakers asserting they are against adding to the "bureaucracy" and claiming there's sufficient oversight of the commonwealth's $2 billion child welfare system and the consequential decisions made every day at the county and state levels. These lawmakers are confident there will be no consequences as they embrace the harsh opposition from the few entities opposed to a truly independent Office of Child Advocate. They refuse to spend time in conversation with vulnerable youths who have been so raw about their lived experiences in out-of-home placements.

There's been a troubling imbalance of who is being deemed a "stakeholder" and heard — not surprisingly, it's not children, youth and families. Also troubling is that those in opposition seem to be ignoring some relevant reality checks.

For example, any special interest group or state lawmaker opposing "bureaucracy" either is unaware or choosing to ignore that the commonwealth already employs a child advocate. While public funds are being spent, the advocate in no way has served as a meaningful resource for children, youth and families. The advocate has been neutralized — most often by the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services — and is unable to receive, process and work to resolve concerns or complaints. There's no outward-facing presence for the Office of Child Advocate; there's no widely publicized phone number or website. And the advocate has been limited, if not barred, from important discussions impacting consequential child welfare and juvenile justice policies and practices.

To be clear, this is not commentary on the two people who have served as the advocate. But it's clear that the establishment of an Office of Child Advocate by executive order in 2019 was merely for show. It was not a serious investment of public funds. And it was not a substantive commitment to charting a new course for individual children and youth, or to intentionally advancing the long-overdue systemic reforms needed to improve health, safety, permanency and well-being outcomes.

Five years later, we still are searching for the courageous elected officials who are for kids, not kidding.

Cathleen Palm is a survivor and the founder of The Center for Children's Justice, an independent nonprofit dedicated to protecting Pennsylvania's children.