Maine is required to arrange visits between parents and children within seven days after the state removes children from their homes due to concerns about abuse or neglect. Typically, these visits can only occur if they are attended by a supervisor who takes notes on the interactions between parents and children and can step in to protect the child’s safety.
There is broad consensus among those involved in the child welfare system that these visits are important—for the parents who have just had their children taken from them, for the children who have undergone the trauma of removal, and for maintaining a bond between parent and child necessary for reunification.
However, in nearly all cases, Maine’s largest contracted provider of visitation services failed to schedule visits within the state’s required seven-day time frame last year, according to a Maine Monitor analysis.
### Community Care’s Performance Falls Short
The nonprofit Community Care contracts with the Maine Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to arrange and supervise visits in Maine’s south and west. According to 2024 performance data submitted to the state and obtained by The Monitor, Community Care scheduled visits within the required time frame just 10% of the time.
Last year, Community Care scheduled only 30 of the state’s 276 referrals within seven days—falling far short of the terms of its state contract, which mandated that 90% of referrals be scheduled within that time frame.
Despite the organization’s poor performance in 2023, DHHS signed a new contract with Community Care in December. The new contract increased the hourly rates the agency charges for supervised visit services, which had not been raised for several years. It also authorized Community Care to invoice the state up to $292,791 per month, or about $3.5 million per year.
### Lengthy Wait Times for Visits
Performance data indicate that sometimes parents and children wait weeks or even months between the time the state makes a referral and when Community Care schedules a visit. The median wait time between referral and visit was 29 days, according to The Monitor’s analysis.
Community Care, which is headquartered in Bangor and has 13 satellite offices, did not respond to interview requests or a list of emailed questions.
### Response from DHHS
“That current providers are not providing expected services is of serious concern to the Department, and we are continuing to closely monitor their performance to ensure that timely visitation continues,” wrote Alisa Morton, a DHHS spokesperson, in an email.
Morton did not answer whether DHHS has taken steps to improve Community Care’s performance, claw back taxpayer money, or find another provider. Instead, she said, “providers are paid only for services delivered.”
Other state-contracted supervised visitation providers performed far better than Community Care in 2024, suggesting that the challenges facing Maine providers—such as staffing issues—may be surmountable.
### Impacts of Delays and Provider Performance
Community Care’s poor performance and the state’s acceptance of it do not only prevent children and parents from seeing each other soon after removal—which is traumatic—but also delay reunification, extend the time needed to resolve cases, and burden DHHS caseworkers. These caseworkers must sometimes step in to arrange and supervise visits to comply with Maine law, experts, state watchdogs, child welfare attorneys, and caseworkers say.
DHHS stated the agency uses caseworkers, resource parents, and others to ensure families get “timely” visits when contractors fail to provide them. However, it is unclear how often caseworkers successfully ensure parents and children receive visits within seven days, as DHHS does not appear to track this metric across cases.
Lindsay Hammes, another DHHS spokesperson, noted that information about when parents and children get their first visits after removal is documented within individual case files.
### Workload Concerns for Caseworkers
The practice of DHHS caseworkers picking up the slack adds to their already “impossible workload,” according to a statement from their union.
Tom Farkas of the Maine Service Employees Association, Local 1989, explained, “The visits must happen for DHHS to comply with court orders in child custody cases. However, supervised visitation providers often tell caseworkers they don’t have any openings, or they will only drive certain distances. Sometimes providers don’t respond at all to caseworkers trying to schedule visits.”
### Data Availability and Accountability
The Monitor obtained the 2024 data through a public records request initially covering 2023 and 2024 contract performance metrics. DHHS took six months to fulfill the request and provided only 2024 data. The department declined to interview Bobbi Johnson, director of the Office of Child and Family Services, which oversees child protective services.
Attorneys involved in child welfare proceedings expressed concern over the data. Taylor Kilgore, an attorney representing parents in child protection cases in Androscoggin County (where Community Care operates), asked, “Who is holding Community Care accountable? Where in OCFS has anybody said, ‘We gave you a contract, and you’re not doing it?’”
### Community Care’s District Performance
Community Care is the contracted provider for five of Maine’s eight DHHS districts, having expanded in 2023. One of those districts—District 2, encompassing Cumberland County—had especially poor results. Community Care scheduled just 2 of 55 referrals within seven days (3.6%), the worst rate among all districts.
Michael Dixon, a Portland-based attorney and guardian ad litem advocating for children’s best interests in child protective cases, said this breakdown is unfortunately not surprising.
“There are times when visits are not in the best interest of the child, but those cases are rare,” Dixon said. “Babies being removed and then not being allowed to see the parent they’ve just begun bonding with—that’s horrific. But a child of any age needs to see their parent again.”
### Judicial Criticism and Oversight Reports
At least one judge has criticized the department for its lack of visitation resources. A 2023 termination of parental rights ruling from Cumberland County District Court Judge Jennifer Nofsinger (obtained by The Monitor) stated it was “simply not acceptable” that a mother and child had just one visit in three months.
“The department should have had more resources available to make up for missed visits that resulted from forces outside of [the mother’s] control and to offer more time slots that met [the child’s] and [the mother’s] needs,” the judge wrote. She concluded, however, that the lack of visits did not ultimately change the case outcome.
State watchdogs have also flagged concerns. In 2024, the Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability (OPEGA), responsible for independent oversight of state government, noted that inadequate visitation adds to the workload of already overburdened DHHS staff and “potentially lengthens the time to reunification.”
The same year, the Maine Child Welfare Services Ombudsman wrote in an annual report that “a shortage of professional visit supervisors causes hardship to families with children in state custody and takes case aides and caseworkers away from other important work.”
“Frequent visits are one of the most important things for children who have entered custody, as well as for parents who are in the process of reunification,” Ombudsman Christine Alberi wrote in an email.
### Other Visitation Providers’ Performance
Other visitation providers operating in more rural areas than Community Care performed notably better.
– **AMHC** (a behavioral health clinic based in Presque Isle) is contracted to provide supervised visits in Aroostook, Hancock, and Washington counties. Although AMHC also failed its contract goals, it outperformed Community Care, scheduling visits within seven days 48% of the time (72 of 150 referrals). AMHC’s median wait for a visit was seven days.
Bobbie Chasse, Aroostook County children’s program manager at AMHC, declined interview requests but stated via email that “there are varied reasons why a family may not be seen within 7 days. AMHC works very closely and is in regular communication with our State of Maine DHHS partners and contract leads to meet the needs of the children and families we serve.”
– **Penquis Community Action Agency**, based in Bangor, was the only one of the three providers to exceed its contract benchmark. Penquis serves Penobscot and Piscataquis counties. In 2024, Penquis scheduled 197 of 212 referrals (93%) within seven days. Its median wait time was just five days.
Tamar Mathieu, Penquis Director of Family Enrichment Services, declined an interview but said in an email, “We are proud of our team’s efforts and remain focused on meeting expectations.”
DHHS spokesperson Alisa Morton explained that Penquis’s better performance may be due to the smaller geographic area it serves.
“Penquis operates in a single district and primarily within one county, which reduces the logistical complexity faced by providers that must cover multiple districts or wider geographies,” Morton wrote.
### Types of Visitation Services and Providers
Nearly all children removed from their homes begin with **supervised visits**, where a supervisor is present throughout. Cases can later transition to **monitored visits**, which are less restrictive; a supervisor periodically checks in rather than continuously watching.
The state contracts with **Fair Shake**, a for-profit company founded by two parent attorneys, to provide monitored visitation. Fair Shake’s model includes visit rooms filled with toys and furniture that are video-monitored by an operator who can watch multiple rooms simultaneously. The video recordings can be used in court proceedings.
Fair Shake’s model requires less staffing but cannot accommodate the one-on-one requirement of supervised visits. Nevertheless, Fair Shake scheduled visits within seven days 95% of the time between April and December 2024.
Fair Shake opened an office in Newport in 2021 and another in Lewiston in 2023. The offices are open on weekends and after work hours, accommodating parents’ and children’s schedules—a flexibility not offered by other agencies, co-founder Wayne Doane said.
### Upcoming Contract Renewals and Future Plans
On September 30, 2024, contracts with Community Care, AMHC, and Penquis expired. The state is currently finalizing temporary contract amendments to extend services.
DHHS anticipates issuing a request for proposals (RFP) for visitation services across all districts in early 2026, according to spokesperson Lindsay Hammes.
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The challenges highlighted by the data and oversight reports underscore the critical need for timely, well-supervised parental visits following child removal—a cornerstone for family reunification and child welfare in Maine. Improved accountability and resource allocation may help ensure these fundamental services better meet the needs of families across the state.
https://www.pressherald.com/2025/10/19/maine-hired-contractor-to-organize-timely-visits-for-families-in-child-welfare-cases-it-delivered-10-of-the-time/