Testimony of Penelope Spain, CEO and Co-Founder of Open City Advocates Promoting Parental Engagement at DYRS Amendment Act of 2025
Good morning, Chairman Parker and members of the Committee. My name is Penelope Spain and I’m the CEO of Open City Advocates.
Often I come to the Wilson Building to elevate the voices of the children we represent. Today I’m bringing a different voice—my own voice as a parent of a young teenager growing up in Washington DC.
I know many of you are also parents. I ask you to hear my testimony today with your parent hat on. Or perhaps more apt, to listen with your parent heart. And if you’re not a parent, perhaps as a big brother, sister, aunt, or uncle.
Can you imagine what it feels like to have your 13-year-old or 14-year-old sent by a city agency over 1,000 miles away from you? DYRS tells you you’ll likely see your child in person once every six months, maybe twice. But you’ve never been on a plane before. You don’t even have a suitcase to pack in. You’ve never checked into a hotel, and you don’t have a credit card to present when they ask for incidentals. You have to do all of this simply to see and hug and love on your child for a day, maybe two.
We often talk about how the juvenile justice system robs our children of their childhood. I’m asking you to think about how it also robs parents of their precious years of parenthood. A friend once said to me: you get maybe 10 or 12 good Halloween trick-or-treating years—those years when you see your child delight in the sweetness of frivolity and community. When we lock children up or send them away, we rob not only the children of those sweet years, but we rob parents of those precious days and memories they will never get back.
So if we are going to take children out of the care of their parents, denying them the opportunity to create those memories, we darn well better do it right.
When we commit a child to DYRS, we do so under the doctrine of in loco parentis—requiring DYRS to “act in the place of a parent.” If our city is going to step into that role, we must do our very best.
Council, I ask you: what would you demand if it were your child locked up at Youth Services Center, New Beginnings, or a treatment center hundreds of miles away? This isn’t just legislation. This isn’t just policy. These are children. These are parents. These are families.
So if we’re asking a city agency to step in and act as parents, here’s what we must demand of it:
First, Meaningful Communication:
The ROAD Act requires parental communication at the start of commitment. It is sadly silent on any communication whatsoever after commitment begins. Parents deserve monthly outreach attempts at minimum. If your child were locked up, would you accept going four months without word from the agency holding them?
The Parental Engagement bill should require DYRS to notify parents within 24 hours of hospitalizations or emergency medical treatment, serious incidents like suicide attempts or use of restraints, and also disciplinary actions. It should require notification and consent before placement changes, because even during commitment, parents preserve their children’s medical rights: those don’t belong to the agency. These notifications should begin with a phone call, because no parent should learn their child was hurt through a letter days later. That should be followed by written documentation within 48 hours.
Next, Medical Decision-Making:
Committing children to DYRS does not alter in any way parents’ medical rights for the treatment of their children. But it certainly alters their practical ability to exercise those rights. Parents must be given an opportunity to provide informed written consent before psychotropic medications are initiated or dosages changed, and for non-emergency medical procedures. This should include 72-hour advance notice allowing parents time to consult with independent medical professionals.
Sadly, we’ve seen DYRS staff push parents to waive their medical rights. The bill should specifically prohibit staff from asking parents to sign over medical decision-making authority, and should mandate that DYRS provide parents with independent medication consultation resources. This goes doubly for out-of-state placements, where we still see chemical restraints being used or standard waivers for the use of chemical restraints casually embedded in boilerplate consent forms.
Third, Out-of-State Placement Access
For out-of-state placements, this bill must mandate meaningful parental access to their children. It should establish a minimum frequency for parental visits. And when a child is hospitalized while in an out-of-state placement, DYRS should facilitate parental visits within 24 hours and coordinate with hospital staff to ensure family access.
Strengthening Team Decision Meetings
The legislation should be expanded to increase parental involvement in Team Decision Meetings by requiring DYRS to document parental input and DYRS’s responses to family recommendations. Parents should be empowered to request TDM meetings when they have concerns about their child’s progress or treatment.
GPS Monitoring and Technical Violations
Before resorting to GPS monitoring or pursuing revocation for technical violations, the bill should mandate that Care Coordination make a minimum of two home visits within the first 30 days of a child’s return to the community and attempt to contact parents to verify curfew arrangements and discuss any challenges. Families deserve the chance to problem-solve before their children face re-incarceration for technical matters.
Family Engagement Specialists
Finally, I encourage the Council to bring back true Family Engagement Specialists. These positions once served as vital liaisons between families and DYRS, helping parents navigate the system and ensuring their voices were heard throughout their children’s rehabilitation. Re-establishing these roles with clear scope and dedicated funding would significantly strengthen the parental engagement framework this bill seeks to create.
These aren’t just policy recommendations. Each one represents a moment when a parent either gets to remain connected to their child or loses another piece of those precious years. Each one is the difference between a parent feeling like a partner in their child’s rehabilitation or feeling even more distance and alienation from their child.
You cannot do this work alone as legislators. Just as we parents cannot do it alone, we must rely on our village. Let’s make our village strong so that we can make our children healthy, well, and full of joy.
I ask you today to lead from your heart. Your heart as a parent or family member. Or as a leader who simply believes in the importance of parents’ involvement in raising their children. Thank you.