Dear Harry Spence,

I was somewhat shocked to read you are adding your heart-jerking pleas to the collective whine of the Department of Social Services for more funding when it's quite clear that the private agency your agency hired to care for Dontel Jeffers (re: Mentor) makes enough money per 'special needs child' as it is. It's also clear the Department of Social Services wasted time, energy and resources keeping Dontel Jeffer's grandmother from maintaining custody of her own grandson, at the expense of that little boy's life. It's also clear, glass-shatteringly clear, that if agencies stopped squandering time, energy and resources on families who don't need them, perhaps the current federal and state funding your agency receives would be more than ample to care for the children that actually need your agency's services. If your agency allowed family members to take in the children they are more than capable of caring for, perhaps your agency would not find itself with the death of a four year old little boy on its hands. Shame on you, Harry Spence, for using that child's death as a tool for more funding when society has now become aware that any extra funding would potentially be utilized, as it was in Dontel Jeffers' case, to stop families who want to help out by taking custody of family members' children while the parents get themselves together.

How many extended family members are tied up in court right now trying to offer assistance by taking custody of their grandchildren, nieces or nephews but instead DSS is running them through the system for months and months? Give society those stats.

How many children in Massachusetts alone, while under the "care" of the Department of Social Services, are tossed on medications to get that coveted 'special needs' title? Give society those stats.

How many siblings are truly kept together, as stated is attempted on your website, in comparison to those who are not? Give society those stats.

How many suicides per year? How many deaths per year? How do you expect tax payers to want to fund an agency with more financial capabilities to further torment other families with court, delays and potential abuse while in care of the state (most of society already knows those stats, a higher percentage of children suffer abuse in foster homes) and even possible deaths of these children? Your agency doesn't need more funding; it needs to stop wasting funds on keeping families apart, when supposedly it aims to keep them together.

How dare your agency keep a grandmother from caring for her grandson and then beg society for more money after the child is killed while in one of your amply-paid 'specialized' homes? If you stopped wasting time to investigate families who are innocent, barring them from custody over suspected 'lead paint', perhaps your case workers would actually have the time to work on keeping children who do need to be in foster homes safer, happier and alive.

After all, that's what we, as a society, pay your agency to do. Don't fail to perform your job and ask for a raise to do better. Don't request more resources when it's clear the resources your agency has are being used to needlessly shuffle families around the blood-red-tape months-long trail of unjustified trials and tribulations, guilty before innocent, and death before reunification.