Sanchez remains child advocate, on holdover status, nearly two months after Ayotte pick withdrew

Cassandra Sanchez packed up her desk at the Office of the Child Advocate weeks ago, but her final day still hasn’t arrived.

Sanchez has served as New Hampshire’s child advocate, the official watchdog that oversees the state’s youth-focused systems, such as the foster care or juvenile justice, since 2022. She’s the second person to hold the position, following Moira O’Neill, which was created by state law in 2018. However, in January, Gov. Kelly Ayotte announced she was nominating Diana Fenton, a former assistant attorney general and lawyer for the Department of Education, to replace Sanchez.

Before Fenton could officially take office as the child advocate, she needed to be confirmed by the state’s Executive Council, an elected body unique to New Hampshire that serves as a check on the governor’s power. But her nomination was met by intense criticism, most notably from those who believed her personal background presented a conflict of interest.

Fenton is the foster parent of a child involved in an active case with the Division for Children, Youth, and Families. Additionally, her husband, Todd Prevett, is a judge in the family division circuit court. The biological mother of their 4-year-old foster child, Sherly Harianto, is seeking to regain custody of the child. During a confirmation hearing in early March, Fenton’s nomination was challenged through questioning and testimony, including from Harianto herself, over how she could be an independent monitor of the foster care system given this deep involvement, according to previous Bulletin reporting.

Following the hearing, Fenton withdrew from consideration for the role before the council could vote on her nomination. Sanchez told the Bulletin she has not heard from the governor’s office since Fenton’s decision.

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In the meantime, Sanchez has served in the role on holdover status. And she’s been busy.

In late March, Sanchez wrote a letter to state officials reporting that her team discovered potential abuse and neglect occurring at the Sununu Youth Services Center, the state’s youth detention center that has a long history of abuse. Staff at the facility, Sanchez said, were putting child inmates under an excessively restrictive lockdown that denied them access to the outdoors or education, and her team found security footage of an employee breaking a child’s bone through an illegal restraint. The Disability Rights Center-NH reported weeks later that they too had discovered possible abuse in the form of illegal restraints.

“For me, the important and most critical piece of this is the safety of the children,” Sanchez said. “And so there was never even a consideration about how or when this would come out around me being in holdover status. It was: This is really harmful to children, and we need to talk about it, and we need to engage in the process of digging deeper into what is happening here and preparing for a report.”

In January when she first learned she would not be renominated to her position, Sanchez told the Bulletin she was planning to move out of New Hampshire. That has been put on hold, she said.

Asked about the status of the office earlier this month, Ayotte did not answer a reporter’s question about an alternative nomination for child advocate. She responded by saying: “We’re always, for any position, always looking at candidates and the best individuals to make sure — and this is a really important position, obviously. And right now I’m very focused on making sure, because I myself ask the attorney general as well, to make sure there’s an independent investigation (into the recent reports at the Sununu Youth Services Center). So what is before us right now is the priority. Of course, we’ll look at making sure that we have the appropriate background and experience in that position, but independent of that, it’s really about making sure that any allegations are thoroughly investigated, and that’s happening right now.”