Jametta Alston was our city solicitor here in Cranston before she was ousted due to a city charter rule stating that the city solicitor must live in the city. Now she is our Child Advocate here in Rhode Island, and she is doing a bang-up job of calling attention to the issue of children’s safety while they are in state care. From the Projo:

PROVIDENCE  Children in state foster care are being neglected, molested, beaten, burned with cigarettes and, in one high-profile case, killed, according to a sweeping civil rights lawsuit filed in federal court by the state child advocate, backed by a national watchdog group.

Child Advocate Jametta O. Alston is pursuing class-action status on behalf of the 3,000 children now in state custody, aiming for nothing less than an overhaul of Rhode Island’s child-welfare system, which the suit portrays as overburdened and mismanaged.