No litigation guardians again for children sent abroad
None of the ten children in care who were sent overseas by the Family Court in 2024 and 2025 had an independent social worker to voice their views during the legal proceedings, it can be revealed.
The Department of Child and Family Services — which asked the court to order that the vulnerable youngsters go off the island for therapeutic assessment and services unavailable locally — shared the fact in a public access to information response to The Royal Gazette.
Its disclosure said that two of the children in care had legal representation.
However, it did not show if the court considered whether to appoint advocates, known as litigation guardians, for the children before they were sent thousands of miles from home to youth residential treatment facilities as part of the DCFS’s overseas therapeutic programme.
The figures were provided eight years after a judge in the Supreme Court ruled that magistrates must consider appointing legal representatives to protect the rights of children appearing in court and seven years after the Court of Appeal found that the Government had shown a “flagrant disregard” for children by failing to pay for them to have independent legal representation.
A source, who asked not to be named, told the Gazette the information shared by the DCFS “should concern all who truly care about the welfare and protection of children”.
They explained that Section 35 of the Children Act 1998 required the Family Court to appoint a litigation guardian in specified proceedings unless satisfied it was not necessary.
“The decision to send a child overseas for assessment or treatment is significant, and it is precisely when decisions of this magnitude are being made that the child’s independent voice and interests must be protected,” the source said.
“The Pati response does not tell us whether Section 35 was considered in each of these cases or, if it was, on what basis a litigation guardian was considered unnecessary.
“That is an important question that deserves an answer.”
The source said that since the 2018 and 2019 court rulings, much work had gone into establishing and strengthening a litigation guardian framework.
They added: “It is therefore deeply concerning if children, particularly those facing some of the most consequential decisions that can be made about their lives, continue to move through these processes without the benefit of the independent safeguard contemplated by Section 35.”
A second source, who also requested anonymity, suggested that magistrates and judges were used to taking into account the reports of court-appointed social workers, who have a broader mandate, and so some were perhaps “inclined to overlook appointing litigation guardians”.
“There is really no one who can request a litigation guardian be appointed, so it’s 100 per cent up to the magistrate to consider if a litigation guardian is appropriate,” they added.
“They have all had some type of education about the litigation guardian programme.”
The Ministry of Youth, Social Development and Seniors and the Department of Child and Family Services said this week they were “not legally responsible for deciding who has a litigation guardian” as it was a matter for the court to determine.
“The ministry and department work hard to keep this separate,” a ministry statement said. “This protects the independence of the courts and the litigation guardians, and helps avoid conflicts of interest.
“Independence is particularly important when the court considers decisions that can profoundly affect a child's family relationship, placement and future.”
It added that the ministry “remains steadfast in its commitment to safeguarding the rights and wellbeing of children in Bermuda and will continue working closely with all stakeholders to strengthen the litigation guardian framework”.
Senior magistrate Maxanne Anderson, the chairwoman of the Family Court, did not respond to a request for comment for this article.
In 2025, 16 Bermudian children in care with mental healthcare needs were at overseas institutions accessing help unavailable on the island.
The Royal Gazette asked the Department of Child and Family Services under public access to information for the number of youngsters in care who were able to access local mental healthcare.
The department replied: “This is not a data point that the department tracks.
“However, it should be noted that all children in care who are identified as needing mental health services are linked with the relevant supports, regardless of whether those services are delivered locally or abroad.”
A source with experience dealing with children in care, who asked not to be named, said the response was “disturbing” and raised serious questions about “how we understand the extent of the need, identify gaps in local provision and plan appropriately for children in care”.
They said: “It is not enough to say that children identified as requiring services are connected to supports, whether locally or overseas.
“If we are not tracking how many children require these services, what can be accessed locally, where those services are unavailable and how often children must leave Bermuda to have their needs met, then how are we meaningfully assessing whether our local system is adequately resourced to meet the needs of some of our most vulnerable children?”
The source added: “You cannot effectively plan for what you do not measure.
“If we are serious about improving outcomes for children in care, this is information that should matter, and not simply at the point when an individual child requires intervention, but in determining what Bermuda needs to build, strengthen and invest in for future generations.
“In the absence of doing so, we are essentially resigning ourselves to a continued trajectory of sending children overseas, rather than intentionally building the local capacity needed to meet their needs here at home.”
The troubled teen industry in the United States is a multibillion-dollar business of mostly unregulated private facilities that has come in for severe scrutiny and criticism in recent years.
In July, Provo Canyon School — a residential treatment facility in Utah used in the past by the DCFS and highlighted by celebrity Paris Hilton in her campaign against the industry — had its licence to treat children with behavioural and mental health issues revoked.
Youngsters from Bermuda continue to be sent to the US, even to institutions whose serious failings were highlighted by American lawmakers after a high-profile, two-year inquiry.
The Pati disclosure revealed that four children aged between 8 and 17 were sent to US institutions as new admissions in 2024 and eight children aged between 11 and 17 were sent in 2025.
That took the numbers of Bermudian youngsters at overseas residential treatment facilities to eight in 2024 and 16 in 2025.
In 2024, the children went to Devereux Advanced Behavioural Health in Florida, Uinta Academy Residential Treatment in Utah and Kings Daughters School in Tennessee.
Last year, they went to Uinta, Harbour Point Behavioural Health Centre in Virginia, Huntsman Mental Health Institute and Elevations Residential Treatment Centre, both in Utah, and Cardinal Cushing Centres in Massachusetts.
The DCFS disclosure showed that of the 12 children sent overseas for “assessment and enrolment in therapeutic” programmes during 2024 and 2025, two were voluntary parent placements and ten were children in the care of the department’s director.
It stated: “Of the ten children in the care of the [department’s] director, none had a litigation guardian appointed by the courts and two had legal representation.”
Calls for children involved in court proceedings to have a voice were made a decade ago by lawyer Saul Dismont, who claimed thousands were being deprived of their right to an independent social worker.
The Royal Gazette reported extensively on the issue, including in 2018 when a Pati disclosure showed 48 of 50 children sent abroad since April 2014 as part of the Department of Child and Family Services’ psychoeducational programme — as it was then known — had no legal representation.
The Government launched a five-person litigation guardian panel in January 2020 and a consultant with the British Foreign Office was drafted in to help ensure it was utilised by the Family Court.
Yet, the Gazettereported in January 2024, of 12 children in care sent to overseas institutions since 2021, only two received legal representation beforehand.
A source, who asked not to be named, said: “This is not a new conversation in Bermuda.”
Records seen by the newspaper show the Family Court has appointed panel members to represent youngsters in certain cases, though the figures do not reveal how many of those referrals involved minors being sent overseas.
There were an estimated 40 referrals to the litigation guardian panel between 2020 and 2022.
There were 27 referrals in 2023 and 21 in 2024. Magistrate Maria Sofianos made 13 of the referrals in 2023 and magistrate Auralee Cassidy made 14 in 2024.
A recent Pati disclosure showed that none of the children in care sent abroad in 2024 and 2025 had a litigation guardian.
A Ministry of Youth, Social Development and Seniors statement said the court appointed a litigation guardian for four children who were either in the overseas therapeutic programme or in foster care in the past 12 months.
• To read the Pati disclosure, see Related Media
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