Patty Chin believes her life would have been very different if Hawaiʻi’s child welfare system worked the way it should.

She landed in foster care at age 10, she said, because the state mistook the poverty in her mother’s chaotic home in Waiʻanae as a threat to the safety of Chin and her siblings. All six children were removed from the home, and Chin spent more than six years in Hawaiʻi’s foster care system.

She was shuffled among half-a-dozen foster homes and a shelter, lost contact with her siblings for extended periods, and was sexually abused in one of the foster homes. Chin kept much of her ordeal a secret because she worried no one would believe her, and feared what might happen if she told.

Chin believes she could have stayed home and avoided much of that suffering if her family had been helped before it was splintered.

“What families really need,” she said, “is the ability to know where to go to break their own generational cycle.”

Now Chin is part of a cadre of former foster youth who are pushing for reform in the child welfare system, using their own painful experiences as fuel for change. And it looks as if their efforts may finally be gaining some traction.

The advocates are backing bills to provide money to support families in distress, so they can stay together. They also want extra training for child welfare workers on the dynamics of domestic violence, and they want lawyers assigned to represent children who become trapped in the foster care system.

Rep. Lisa Marten, who is chair of the House Human Services and Homelessness Committee, said those bills — which are all still in play this year — could be the start of changes that have not happened before in the system.

“I think you cannot argue that there are very rational adults who will tell you about their bad experience,” said Marten, “and that they really didn’t have anyone they could trust to help them.”

An Ambitious Agenda Stalls

Much of the tentative progress on child welfare reform this year can be traced to the Mālama ʻOhana Working Group, which was created in 2023 after the disappearance of 6-year-old Isabella Kalua from her home in Waimānalo.

The adoptive parents of Kalua, who was formerly known as Ariel Sellers, were eventually charged with her murder, but the child’s body has never been found. That case triggered a community outcry and renewed scrutiny of the state Department of Human Services’ Child Welfare Services Branch.

The working group produced an array of recommendations for improving the state CWS system, many of which were suggested by former foster children or their parents. But those proposals stalled at the Legislature even while more abuse cases surfaced.

Department of Human Services Director Ryan Yamane declined a request for an interview last week, but said in a written statement that “we recognize the seriousness of past cases and continue to take meaningful steps to improve accountability, transparency and outcomes for the children and families we serve.”

The department is engaged in the discussions of the advocates’ proposals, he said in the statement, and “continues to work closely with lawmakers and community partners to ensure policies are both effective and sustainable.”

Chin, 31, has become initiative manager for a group called HI H.O.P.E.S., which stands for Hawaiʻi Helping Our People Envision Success. It is a program for 14- to 26-year-olds who spent time in foster care, and they are among several groups pushing for change in CWS this year.

She is particularly focused on House Bill 1565, which would establish a committee in the state Judiciary to study the idea of a pilot project to provide lawyers to represent the youth in foster care, along with other Mālama ʻOhana proposals.

The state already appoints lawyers called guardians ad litem to advocate for what is in the best interest of youth in foster care, but Chin said her GALs seemed to ask perfunctory questions, and she didn’t confide in them.

She felt she had no control over how her case played out, and said she was 16 before anyone told her she could go to court herself and speak with the Family Court judge who oversaw her case.

Marten, who is the lead sponsor of HB 1565, said foster youth reported they “didn’t have somebody they could trust to not out them.” She used the example of a teenager who wants to return home to live with her mother, but the mother is still using drugs. The GAL may oppose that idea, but the teen wants to go home.

“So, now we would have a lawyer whose job it is to get the teenager back with her,” Marten said. The lawyer for the youth would still have to convince a judge that the request is a good idea, but at least the voice of the youth is heard.

Officials with the state Judiciary want to study how similar systems function in other states that have tried this, Marten said, and the bill calls for the Judiciary to research that as well as other Mālama ʻOhana proposals and report back to lawmakers by the 2028 session.

To anyone who doubts the value of appointing lawyers to fight for what foster youth want, Chin recalled a question posed by a young man with lived experience in the foster system. He asked: “If a convicted criminal can have a lawyer, why can’t I?”

Support For Families

Another issue central to the Mālama ʻOhana mission was providing services to help struggling families to stay together, rather than splitting those families apart.

Sen. Joy San Buenaventura, who is chair of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, said the Mālama ʻOhana bills got no funding last year and died, prompting her to go on a hunt for money.

This year she was finally able to identify federal funding for some of the initiatives, and to secure commitments from the state Office of Wellness and Resilience for a pilot program to support those at-risk families.

“Most child abuse cases are not physical abuse, right?” San Buenaventura said. Most cases involve neglect or a category called “threat of harm,” which suggests the families are stressed or struggling and could benefit from services and supports.

However, many families either don’t know how to tap into the services that are available, or are afraid to reach out for help because they are afraid of attracting the attention of CWS.

Senate Bill 3204 proposes a pilot project to hire five “peer support resource navigators” whose job would be to connect families with services such as public benefits, parenting classes and cultural family strengthening programs.

Chin believes that kind of help would have made all the difference for her and her siblings. “If someone could have just helped my mom get the necessary resources to provide us a more stable or ‘safe’ life, I don’t think the system would have ever been involved in our life.”

“When you think about it now, honestly, it’s poverty,” she said. She remembers going to food banks, “but I remember being fed. I had clothes — the clothes might not have been clean — but I remember being loved.”

The initiative proposed in SB 3204 would be housed in the the Office of Wellness and Resilience and funded with $600,000 in federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, she said.

The state has also launched a program for low-income families called the Hawaiʻi Relief Program that Marten hopes will provide support for some families at risk for CWS involvement. That program is available to families with children who can demonstrate “a financial crisis or an episode of need.”

The Complexity Of Domestic Violence

Marten has championed House Bill 1801 to improve the handling of domestic violence cases where CWS becomes involved. That is another area where the Mālama ʻOhana group wanted the state to make changes.

Evidence of domestic violence may prompt the state to remove children from a home to try to protect them, but critics say removing the abuser may be a much better solution. “Somebody may be keeping kids in an abusive situation, and if they themselves were out of that abusive situation, they might be a good mother,” Marten said.

The bill seeks to provide CWS workers with training in how to detect domestic violence and manage those often complex cases. It also calls for a contracted specialist in domestic violence to be regularly available in CWS offices for consultation.

Venus Rosete-Medeiros, who was co-chair of the working group, said in written testimony that domestic violence is frequently present in child welfare cases, yet the system isn’t always equipped to identify it or respond “in ways that prioritize safety and healing.”

“Families told us they were afraid to ask for help because they feared losing their children,” Rosete-Medeiros wrote. “Survivors shared that their abuse was minimized or misunderstood. Youth described feeling invisible in decisions that would shape the rest of their lives.”

Judith Clark, a community advocate, told lawmakers it is also “not uncommon for abusive spouses to attempt to get the other parent in trouble with Child Welfare Services as a form of control.” She said expertise and training in the dynamics of domestic violence “will help sort out these very complex issues.”

Ombudsman Bill Dies

Not all of the Mālama ʻOhana proposals are advancing this year. One that stalled is a proposal for an independent ombudsman who could investigate complaints about CWS.

Marten said family members who had children removed from their homes want a place other than CWS to take their grievances, and wanted some kind of ombudsman who could review how cases are handled by the agency.

Marten was the lead sponsor of House Bill 1805, which was co-introduced by 16 other Democrats and two Republicans, and would have created an Office of the Child Advocate. But Marten said the measure failed because she could not work out where in state government to put the new office.

The bill would have placed the Child Advocate within the Office of the Ombudsman, but state Ombudsman Robin Matsunaga opposed that plan. It was amended to put the new office under the state attorney general, but that office also questioned the plan.

Marilyn Yamamoto, a longtime critic of the CWS system and advocate for parental rights, said the state should instead look to models such as the Kansas’ Office of the Child Advocate. That office bills itself as “neutral investigator and advocate for Kansas children and family well-being.”

Yamamoto said the child advocate office should answer directly to the governor, and be completely independent of any other department in state government.

DHS did not submit testimony on that bill, but DHS director Yamane said in his statement to Civil Beat that Hawaiʻi is making progress on improving its child welfare system “through a coordinated approach that prioritizes prevention, accountability and community partnership. DHS remains committed to continuous improvement and to working collaboratively to ensure the safety and well-being of every child in our care.”