Gov. Chris Sununu issued an update on Friday in the case of missing 7-year-old Harmony Montgomery, along with recommendations to improve New Hampshire’s child welfare system to better identify missing children.
His suggestions included passing legislation to streamline communication regarding the movement of children between states and changes to bolster the ability of the New Hampshire Division for Children, Youth and Families to ensure children’s wellbeing.
A review of the Montgomery case was conducted on Feb. 9, 2022, but remains confidential.
“We left no stone unturned in our fact-finding mission to help determine what happened in the hopes that it will help bring Harmony home safe,” Sununu said. “Everything we could make public, we did make public.”
Montgomery was last seen in 2019, when she was 5, and in the custody of her father Adam Montgomery. Harmony had lived with her mother Crystal Sorey in Masschusetts before a court awarded custody to her father in New Hampshire in early 2019.
New Hampshire Division for Children, Youth and Families investigated reports of abuse in summer 2019, including conducting multiple home visits. Child protective service workers did not find that Harmony had been abused, but found the “situation was scored high risk for future child welfare involvement,” according to the case summary from the Governor’s Office.
In January 2020, Adam Montgomery told a DCYF child protection worker that Harmony was again living with her mother, but the worker was unable to reach Sorey. The following year, Adam Montogomery again told a child protection worker that Harmony was living with Sorey.
The Manchester DCYF District Office received a report in September 2021 that Sorey had not seen Harmony since 2019 and began attempting to locate the Montgomery family. By December, it became clear that Harmony was missing.
Adam Montgomery was arrested by Manchester police on Jan. 4 on one misdemeanor charge of interference with custody, two misdemeanor charges of endangering the welfare of a child and one felony charge of second-degree assault. Harmony’s stepmother Kayla Montgomery was arrested for felony welfare fraud on Jan. 6, charged with collecting food stamp benefits on Harmony’s behalf when the child was no longer living in the household.
In his series of recommended improvements, Sununu urged the New Hampshire House of Representatives to amend Senate Bill 397 in order to update the Interstate Compact for the Placement of Children, an agreement adopted in 1965 that governs the protection of children across state lines.
A new version of the compact will go into effect when 35 states have passed the new law, which includes clearer processes for communication and dispute resolutions between states. The governor wrote that in the meantime, New Hampshire should enter into a collaboration agreement with other New England states.
Other improvements aimed at augmenting DCYF’s capacity to protect children included replacing an old case management system called “Bridges,” adopting a model that refers families at-risk for child welfare system involvement to community resources, and adding an assistant supervisor position to the Manchester District Office.
“The Manchester District Office is one of the busiest offices in the state and has a higher volume of assessments deemed as high risk than other parts of the state,” Sununu wrote. “Many of the frontline staff have less experience than in other parts of the state, rendering strong and frequent supervision very important.”
The agency has experienced high turnover among child protection workers. In September 2021, 196 out of a total of 283 child protection workers had quit to transferred to new positions since 2019.
Sununu also recommended that DYCF work to decrease assessment caseloads, which have climbed from 16 per person to 90 per person in the last five years, and require that the agency confirm the residency of all children who have supposedly moved to a new home.