After David Almond’s death, Massachusetts K-12 education commissioner Jeff Riley wants school grants to fix absenteeism
Updated 6:26 AM;
Seven days before David Almond’s body was found covered in feces in his father’s Fall River apartment, one of his teachers contacted the Department of Children and Families case management team. The teacher said on Oct. 14, and a week earlier on Oct. 5, David and his brother Michael hadn’t been logging in to remote schooling.
The DCF case management team did not probe the complaint after reaching out to Jaclyn Coleman, John Almond’s girlfriend, who denied the boys were absent. The next time they would dig deeply into the family’s ability to safely care for David and his brothers would be after his death on Oct. 21.
Lack Of Answers Persists In David Almond Case
David Almond.
Despite questions from Beacon Hill lawmakers on Tuesday, agency heads had little new insights to offer about how David Almond, the 14-year-old Fall River boy with autism spectrum disorder who died last October while living with his dad and his dad’s girlfriend, came to be in the couple’s care in the first place.
“That is the unanswered question that the [Office of the Child Advocate] has struggled with,” said Maria Mossaides, director of the OCA, early in the virtual hearing.
At a later point during the Joint hearing of the Committee on Children, Families and Persons with Disabilities, Abington Rep. Alyson Sullivan asked Linda Spears, commissioner of Massachusetts’ Department of Children and Families, why the agency did not conduct any of the required in-person, unannounced visits to Almond’s house once the state distributed the appropriate personal protective equipment to its workers.
BOSTON In the first four hours of an oversight hearing Tuesday into a report from the Office of the Child Advocate on the death of a Fall River teenager with autism, lawmakers and Baker administration officials honed in on a lack of understanding within the Department of Children and Families of the unique needs of disabled children, communication breakdowns, and implementing reforms within the department.
David Almond, a 14-year-old, was found on Oct. 21 emaciated, bruised, and unresponsive at his father s home in Fall River. Almond, one of three triplet boys, was under the watch of child welfare agencies in New York and Massachusetts and had been removed from his father s home in October 2017 as a result of allegations of neglect and physical abuse, according to the state s Office of the Child Advocate.
In the first four hours of an oversight hearing Tuesday into a report from the Office of the Child Advocate on the death of a Fall River teenager with autism, lawmakers and Baker administration officials honed in on a lack of understanding within the Department of Children and Families of the unique needs of disabled children, communication breakdowns, and implementing reforms within the department.
David Almond, a 14-year-old, was found on Oct. 21 emaciated, bruised, and unresponsive at his father s home in Fall River. Almond, one of three triplet boys, was under the watch of child welfare agencies in New York and Massachusetts and had been removed from his father s home in October 2017 as a result of allegations of neglect and physical abuse, according to the state s Office of the Child Advocate.
DCF to visit every child it supervises in person by monthâs end, state officials tell lawmakers
By Matt Stout Globe Staff,Updated May 4, 2021, 6:06 p.m.
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For the first time since COVID-19 scrambled daily life last year, social workers within Massachusettsâ child welfare agency will resume in-person visits for all of the 40,000-plus children they oversee, state officials said Tuesday, adding that they expect to see each child by monthâs end.
Linda Spears, the commissioner of the Department of Children and Families, announced the policy change, which took effect last week, in response to questions during a wide-ranging legislative oversight hearing into the death of David Almond. The intellectually disabled Fall River teen died in October, and was starved and abused by his father and his fatherâs girlfriend while under the watch of DCF, investigators said.