CANTON, New York (WWNY) – Two court rulings show the St. Lawrence County Department of Social Services is “doing legally what we’re supposed to be doing,” County Attorney Stephen Button said Friday.
The department has been under fire for several years, particularly from foster parents who claimed the department improperly took children from them.
Of the more than three dozen complaints filed against the department, two resulted in court rulings in June. And in both cases – one in state Supreme Court and one from the state’s Appellate Division – Button said the judges’ decisions “validate the local Department of Social Services is doing exactly what it’s supposed to be doing.”
“I believe they (the people making the complaints) have some real grievance with the way the law was crafted,” Button said. But “a lot of the complaints should be more focused towards these complainants’ issues with state law and state actions,”
Still, Button said, the complaints have done some good. They prompted a reorganization of Social Services, and a big drop in the number of children in foster care from 374 in April, 2021 to 210 in June, 2023.
“That’s a significant drop,” he said.
“We’ve almost seen a 50 percent decrease in the number of children who are in foster care. Instead, now we’re geared towards finding ways in which to have those children stay with family relatives.”
“We’ve always believed we could do better.”
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