Nearly two months after Gov. Kelly Ayotte’s pick to lead New Hampshire’s Office of the Child Advocate abruptly withdrew her name from consideration, the office is still being run by the woman she was meant to replace — Cassandra Sanchez — who has continued in the role on holdover status with no clear end date in sight.
Sanchez, who was first appointed to the post in 2022, has told the New Hampshire Bulletin that she has not heard from the governor’s office about a replacement since Diana Fenton’s withdrawal in March. The unusual standoff has left one of New Hampshire’s most consequential watchdog offices — the official monitor of state systems that affect children, including foster care and juvenile justice — without permanent leadership and without a public timeline for resolving the question.
The Position, And Why It Matters
The Office of the Child Advocate was created by state law in 2018 as an independent watchdog over the state’s youth-focused systems. The office reviews how children are treated in foster care, in the Division for Children, Youth and Families (DCYF), in juvenile justice settings, and in other state-run programs that touch minors. Sanchez is only the second person to hold the job; she succeeded the office’s first leader, Moira O’Neill.
The role has taken on outsize importance in New Hampshire because of the long-running scandal at the Sununu Youth Services Center — the state’s only state-run juvenile detention facility — and a series of civil and criminal cases stemming from alleged abuse of children in state custody. The Child Advocate’s reports to lawmakers and the governor are often the first formal acknowledgment that something has gone wrong inside a closed institution.
How The Vacancy Happened
In January, Ayotte announced she was nominating Diana Fenton, a former assistant attorney general and longtime Department of Education lawyer, to take over from Sanchez. Under New Hampshire’s unusual constitutional structure, executive appointments must be confirmed by the Executive Council, an elected five-member body that serves as a check on the governor’s power.
Fenton’s nomination ran into immediate criticism. Fenton is the foster parent of a child involved in an active DCYF case, and her husband, Todd Prevett, is a judge in the family division circuit court — the same court system whose decisions the Child Advocate sometimes reviews. The biological mother of the four-year-old foster child in Fenton’s home, Sherly Harianto, is seeking to regain custody, and she testified at a confirmation hearing in early March about her concerns that Fenton could not be an independent monitor of the foster system.
After that hearing, Fenton withdrew from consideration before the Executive Council could vote. The governor’s office has not, since then, advanced another name.
Sanchez Has Not Been Idle
Even on holdover status, Sanchez has continued doing what she said the job requires. In late March, she sent a letter to state officials reporting that her team had documented potential abuse and neglect at the Sununu Youth Services Center. The letter described inmates being held under what she characterized as an excessively restrictive lockdown that denied them access to outdoor time and education, and detailed security footage in which a staff member appears to break a child’s bone using an illegal restraint.
Weeks later, the Disability Rights Center–NH, an independent advocacy organization, reported that it too had identified illegal restraints at the same facility — corroborating findings that have triggered a fresh round of political fallout for the Ayotte administration and renewed criticism of a 2025 law that reduced the Office of the Child Advocate’s required inspection cadence from monthly to quarterly.
“For me, the important and most critical piece of this is the safety of the children,” Sanchez told the Bulletin, defending her decision to push the findings into public view despite the political timing.
Why The Holdover Matters
Holdover status, in New Hampshire’s executive-branch tradition, is meant to be a brief bridge — a way to ensure no critical office sits empty while a successor moves through the confirmation process. It is not designed to be a permanent arrangement, and the longer it stretches, the more questions it raises about the governor’s bench, the political calculus behind a second nomination, and the willingness of the Executive Council to confirm anyone the administration sends forward.
For now, Sanchez retains full statutory authority. She can issue reports, demand documents, and inspect facilities. She is also, however, working without the political backing of the administration that nominated her successor — a dynamic that may sharpen, rather than soften, her willingness to call out problems she sees inside state institutions.
What To Watch Next
Two questions hang over the office. First, when does Ayotte send up another name, and who is it? A nominee with prosecutorial or child-welfare experience and no perceived conflicts of interest would likely move smoothly through the council; a more political pick could trigger a second confirmation fight. Second, will lawmakers revisit the 2025 law that loosened the office’s inspection schedule, particularly given the new Sununu Center findings? Several Democrats — and at least some Republicans — have signaled they may push to restore monthly inspections.
Until those questions are resolved, New Hampshire’s children-in-state-care watchdog will keep operating in what amounts to a constitutional gray zone — fully empowered, but without permanent leadership.
Source: Sanchez remains child advocate, on holdover status, nearly two months after Ayotte pick withdrew — New Hampshire Bulletin
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