PROVIDENCE — The Senate Committee on Health and Human Services will take testimony from the public Thursday on their experiences with the state Department of Children, Youth and Families.

The committee launched a series of hearings, partly in response to the state child advocate’s lawsuit over DCYF’s handling of children in state care. At a hearing last month, lawmakers asked about high caseloads among DCYF workers, the length of wait time for licensing as a foster parent, and the rate of recurrence of abuse and neglect among children with whom DCYF is involved.

A room full of people showed up, some with written testimony they were prepared to deliver, but the committee gave DCYF Director Patricia Martinez and state Secretary of Health and Human Services Jane A. Hayward only the chance to speak. This week is the public’s chance to have its say.

“We’re looking for specific experiences that foster parents have had, experiences from young men and women who have been in foster care and feel strongly that certain things should change in the system,” Sen. Rhoda E. Perry, who heads the committee, said last week.

Perry plans to begin the hearing by revisiting the topics discussed last month, then seek answers from Martinez and Hayward regarding the new contract for DCYF social workers, the role of supervisors in the department, the distribution of cases and of workers between regions of the state, and night-to-night placements.

After that, Perry said she would open up the hearing for public input, and that witnesses would be taken in the order of names on the sign-up sheet.

Perry asked people to keep their remarks relatively brief and to submit written testimony if they have more to say. If people can’t attend the hearing, Perry asked that they submit written testimony before then, so that it can be distributed to committee members before the hearing. “We will collate it and make sure all members have it and read it,” Perry said.

Child Advocate Jametta O. Alston, a plaintiff in the lawsuit against DCYF, said she would not attend the hearing, in part because she did not want to jeopardize attorney-client privilege or her case against the state. But she said she is glad the hearings are happening.

“The plight of children in DCYF care, no matter who’s talking about it or how it’s being presented, is so important,” Alston said last week. “Children are not faring well in our system. It’s important to talk about, and it’s important that the conversation happens in different arenas.”

Alston said she would probably testify at the series’ next installment, planned for next month, which will touch on the fate of 17-year-olds now automatically tried as adults on all criminal charges, and of youths who would have received state services through age 21 but are now cut off at 18, due to two changes in the law this year.

Thursday’s hearing begins at 3 p.m. in the Senate Lounge, on the second floor of the State House.

Perry asked those with questions, or who wish to submit written testimony, to contact committee clerk Judy Dennis at (401) 276-5567.

egudrais@projo.com