Amid Growing Calls For Action, Rhode Island Dem Gov Gina Raimondo Remains Silent On Child Welfare Scandal

With criticism mounting, even from top leaders of her own party, Rhode Island Democrat Governor Gina Raimondo continues to take no visible action to address the ongoing crisis in her administration’s Department of Children, Youth & Families (DCYF) over a week after the Providence Journal released a bombshell report on multiple cases where DCYF workers’ actions “left young people in their care hospitalized, endangered or exploited.”

Over the weekend, the Providence Journal called out Raimondo’s failure to act in a new editorial, noting pledges she made two years ago to address the DCYF’s issues that she has not followed through on.

Now with top Democrat leaders in Rhode Island openly criticizing the Raimondo administration’s lack of action to fix the DCYF’s inexcusable problems, Raimondo remains listless and unresponsive amid growing calls to act. Her silence and refusal to address the DCYF crisis shows an unacceptable lack of leadership.

The Providence Journal writes:

“It’s not as if these problems popped up out of nowhere. Two years ago, Gov. Gina Raimondo said the Department of Children, Youth and Families was ‘dysfunctional’ and called it ‘an agency in crisis.’ She called for a restructuring of the agency, to address problems such as an over-reliance on group homes. Apparently, that over-reliance is still a problem. 

What has changed since the governor’s pronouncement? Why are young people who need stable housing still being shuffled from place to place, their movements obscured by administrators who fail to log what’s happening to them? Why are workers with dubious track records and shoddy job performances still allowed to oversee these fragile young people?”