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By MICHAELA TOWFIGHI

Cassandra Sanchez’s visit to a Tennessee facility last year raised an alarm for the New Hampshire child advocate.One of the children held at the facility told her he had one goal: to do “whatever it takes” to return to the Granite State.A new law,...

By SRUTHI GOPALAKRISHNAN

Efforts to bolster child protective services in New Hampshire over the past decade didn’t do enough to save the life of 5-year-old Harmony Montgomery, according to a lawsuit filed by the girl’s mother.Harmony, who died at the hands of her father, has...

By MICHAELA TOWFIGHI

Words like institutional and hardened type of secure construction raise alarm bells for Cassandra Sanchez.When the Office of the Child Advocate supported legislation to build a new youth detention facility, a requirement was that the center take on a...

By MICHAELA TOWFIGHI

After seven months leading the Division of Children, Youth and Families, Jeff Fleischer has resigned from his post as director.Flesicher began in the role in August after coming out of retirement to lead the state agency. He previously served as the...

By MICHAELA TOWFIGHI

Ashley Cheney knows the state’s child welfare system through and through – for better or for worse.A few years ago, her three young children got on the bus to school. At the end of the day, they never came back.Instead, they were sent off to foster...

By MICHAELA TOWFIGHI

In a lime green jumpsuit, a child cleaned glass windows, mopped the floor and took the trash out from an area that served as the main entrance to the Bledsoe Youth Academy in Gallatin Tennessee. It’s a youth residential placement program for boys...

By MICHAELA TOWFIGHI

Before any charges are filed against a child in New Hampshire in juvenile court, parents and children are asked the same question each time: Would you like to participate in the Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths assessment? Most need a little...

By MICHAELA TOWFIGHI

For $1 in North Newark, New Jersey, Jeff Fleischer and the organization La Casa de Don Pedro, bought an old burned furniture warehouse. Three years later, that abandoned space became a youth center – with street outreach, afterschool programs,...

By MICHAELA TOWFIGHI

The former CEO of a national youth diversion program will lead New Hampshire’s Division for Children, Youth and Families beginning Aug. 1.Jeff Fleischer is known for decades of work with the Youth Advocate Program, a nonprofit based out of...

By MICHAELA TOWFIGHI

Jerry Rocha steps through a metal detector and then waits for a large secured door to unlock each morning. Next, he enters into a small holding space. And once the first door locks behind him, he can push open the next.He walks into a well-lit...

By MICHAELA TOWFIGHI

It only took Tonya McMurray’s child a few seconds to realize something that was said in a moment of anger would become words to regret.In a heated conversation, a back and forth between teenagers taunting each other, McMurray’s child threatened...

By MICHAELA TOWFIGHI

In Joe Ribsam’s first year working in New Hampshire, following legislation in the State House was practically a full-time job.Ribsam, the new head of the Division for Children, Youth and Families, found himself reiterating requests for funds and...

By MICHAELA TOWFIGHI

Gavin Dubois sometimes doesn’t have the words to express how he feels. But when he picks up a pair of drumsticks, he can read his emotions as clearly as notes on a sheet of music. Amid the sounds of the snare, the melodies of his marimba, his rage...

By ALLIE MORRIS

A New Hampshire Superior Court judge has sided with a family suing the state child protection agency in a ruling that could pave the way to making confidential abuse and neglect records open to the public.“The Court finds defendants’ interests in...