Story on DCS hotline call is blocked - Indiana

Newspaper had posted information based on report that children were abused

The Indiana Court of Appeals approved an emergency request Friday from the Department of Child Services that prevents the South Bend Tribune from publishing a story based on the recording of a call made last year to the state's child abuse hotline.

On Tuesday, a St. Joseph County judge ordered DCS to release a copy of the May call to the hotline alleging 10 children were being abused in a South Bend home.

The Tribune briefly posted a story on its website based on the tape, along with audio clips from the 20-minute call. Both were removed after the appeals court ordered a stay of the local court order late Friday afternoon.

The Court of Appeals also set a hearing on the matter for Monday.

"We were very, very disappointed," said Tribune Executive Editor Tim Harmon. "The material that we received after the juvenile court judge's order is clearly something the public needs to know about. It is something we have reported about in the past and will continue to report about."

Harmon said the newspaper planned to use material from the call "very responsibly," and the story that was briefly posted did not include the caller's name or gender. It also did not use the names of the children involved.

One of those children was 10-year-old Tramelle Sturgis, who was fatally beaten about six months later. His father, Terry Sturgis, is charged with murder in the boy's death.

DCS already has released paper copies of the Sturgis family's files. Those records included information detailing allegations made in the May call to the hotline. They also reveal that a DCS worker did not make contact with the family until four days after that call.

A few weeks later, the worker ruled the allegation of abuse was unfounded.

However, the circumstances of Tramelle's killing -- he was beaten to death with a wooden club -- closely matched details of the abuse allegation in the hotline call.

Ann Houseworth, DCS spokeswoman, said she was unable to discuss details of pending litigation but did issue a brief written statement.

"The child protection process by statute begins with the call to the hotline -- 1-800-800-5556," Houseworth said.

"The statute requires and callers expect confidentiality when those calls are made. Disclosure of the identification of a caller will have a chilling effect on the willingness of people to call in and report abuse and neglect. Children will be in harm's way if the identity of the caller is disclosed. We will aggressively defend the statute and the confidentiality of those who care about children by calling in to report abuse and neglect."

The fight comes just one day after lawmakers gave final approval to Senate Bill 286. Included in the legislation addressing a number of DCS policy issues is a provision making recordings of calls to the hotline confidential unless a judge orders the information to be released.

Gov. Mitch Daniels could sign or veto the bill. The governor's spokeswoman, Jane Jankowski, said Daniels had no comment on the legal dispute.

DCS Director James Payne repeatedly has pledged that the agency would be open and transparent.

But one critic of the agency, Dawn Robertson of the family-rights group HonkForKids.com, says that has not been her experience.

"I've heard Director Payne say over and over how DCS would be open and transparent," she said. "In the years since, families we have worked with have repeatedly run into hurdles just getting their own records.

"So why would you think DCS was going to allow more access to information that would help the public determine whether or not the agency's actions are correct or appropriate?"

Source http://www.indystar.com/article/20120310/LOCAL/203100318/Story-DCS-hotline-call-blocked?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7CNews

Child welfare confidentiality draws scrutiny - Indiana

Associated Press

SOUTH BEND, Ind.— An Indiana law that keeps all child-protection records confidential except in cases of fatality or near fatality is out of date and prevents accountability when a child dies, some judges and lawmakers say.

"I have to make decisions based on the evidence before me," said St. Joseph Probate Judge Peter Nemeth, "and I'm not always sure that DCS is telling me everything."

The Indiana House has voted to create a legislative committee to review changes in how the state investigates reports of child abuse and neglect. Democratic legislators have questioned the Department of Child Services' spending and a new child abuse hotline that routes all reports to a centralized call center in Indianapolis

Republican legislators have defended the agency's performance, saying DCS has doubled the number of caseworkers and helped reduce the number of child abuse deaths since 2005.

But critics say there is a cloak of secrecy surrounding the agency and worry that failing to provide some information could have tragic consequences.

An Indiana child fatality review team studies and reports on deaths of Indiana children. Its public reports provide a general overview and broad recommendations but don't delve into specifics of what happened or did not happen, the South Bend Tribune reported (http://bit.ly/AirHoB).

Reports from a DCS ombudsman office established in 2010 to investigate complaints involving the department also contain only general trends and non-identifying information about specific cases.

DCS Director James Payne said he supports more openness.

"I'm not opposed to loosening up the confidentiality. I've said for years that `confidential' is really `secret,"' said Payne, a former juvenile court judge who opened his Marion County courtroom to cameras for a "Dateline" television special about the juvenile justice system. "The issue really is the degree of that."

Child protection officials say they worry that more openness could expose parents to unfounded tips and stigmatize children.

But others note that unsubstantiated reports of abuse or neglect are only kept for three months and say that has prevented child welfare workers from having all the information they need in some cases, including the beating death of Tramelle Sturgis, a 10-year-old South Bend boy, in November.

In that case, prosecutors learned that earlier reports to DCS about the boy and his family had been destroyed.

State Sen. John Broden, D-South Bend, introduced an amendment this session to change DCS record-keeping rules to store records of unsubstantiated reports for at least three years.

Broden, a former DCS attorney, advocates easing the system's confidentiality requirements so long as names of children and parents remain confidential.

"If the press wants to come and look at various cases and orders, I'd have no problem with that," he said.

Source http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-in-childservices-con,0,1108594.story

Reasons unclear for fatal CPS decision to return a child to her parents

Blogger Note:

#CPS FAILURE

It is obvious that CPS does not know a good home or good parents from bad ones.
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By Brad Branan

Giovanni Melchor was just a year old when he drowned in the stagnant water of his family's backyard swimming pool in late 2006.

The family's single-story, purple-trimmed home in south Sacramento seemed well maintained on the outside. But inside, a neighbor said, the house was infested with roaches and city inspectors later cited Giovanni's father for an unsecured pool fence, the lack of a door closing off the garage from the pool, and a host of other health and safety code violations.

Not even three years later, Giovanni's sister, Yeinira, who had been removed from the home and then returned, was also dead, a victim of medical neglect by her parents.

Case files from Sacramento County Child Protective Services, recently obtained by The Bee, show how the 2-year-old girl died. Court records show that her parents, Jose Jaime Melchor, 35, and Elizabeth Melchor, 29, pleaded no contest to child endangerment charges in July and were deported this year.

What the records don't explain is how the agency made the decision to return the child to care that led to her death.

County officials say they cannot discuss the case or the records because of confidentiality laws.

But without documentation, evaluating the agency's actions is difficult, said Ed Howard, senior counsel at the Children's Advocacy Institute in San Diego, who reviewed Yeinira's file at the request of The Bee.

"If we take them at face value – that there is no documentation for reuniting this child with a very troubled family – then this is a fiasco," Howard said. "You can't do this job without documenting your reasons for making such a decision."

Specifically, CPS records for Yeinira do not show whether the agency conducted an assessment about the risk of returning her to the home – using what's called the Structured Decision Making tool – in violation of its own policies.

"In all of its reports, the (CPS) Oversight Committee has recommended comprehensive and consistent use of the tool," said Gina Roberson, co-chair of the committee. "It means social workers are using the best practices in trying to prevent child abuse."

The CPS Oversight Committee, echoing the complaints of experts and child welfare advocates, has repeatedly found the agency's social workers have made questionable decisions and serious errors in high-risk cases such as the Melchor's. That assessment was repeated in other reports this year, including one by the California State Auditor.

CPS released two sets of files on the Yeinira case. The first contained 12 pages and no information about the family's extensive record with CPS. The second, released after The Bee requested it under the California Public Records Act, had 124 pages.

County Health and Human Services Director Ann Edwards said the release of the incomplete file was unintentional. But neither set answers the questions about the fatal decision to return her to her parents.

A troubled history

The year Giovanni died, the Melchors were living in a working-class neighborhood on Center Parkway. They had five children.

Neighbors, attorneys and a social worker who had contact over the years with the Melchors, an immigrant family from Mexico, said the family needed help. They said Elizabeth Melchor seemed incapable of caring for her children and, according to court records, Jose Jaime Melchor physically abused his wife.

Five reports of alleged abuse or neglect involving the family were made to CPS prior to Yeinira's birth in July 2006, court records show.

Some of the reports involved the father, who allegedly had a drinking problem and abused his wife, according to court and CPS files. Other reports involved the mother, accused of hitting the children. Two of the reports were upheld by CPS.

Yeinira had a heart defect and a cleft palate that made feeding her difficult. Less than a month after she was born, CPS received another complaint, noting the mother wasn't learning how to take care of her fragile daughter. The child was still in the hospital and at risk of dehydration if not properly nourished.

Melchor "admits she is depressed and overwhelmed," according to an unidentified reporter quoted in the CPS case file. The mother and the father were refusing the training needed to feed Yeinira, according to the report. The source recommended placing Yeinira in a special foster home for her medical needs.

The complaint was upheld. CPS started monitoring the child, but allowed her to go home with her mother. Yvette Washington, a home visitation worker with the county's Birth and Beyond program, was assigned to counsel the family.

"She seemed withdrawn," Washington said of Elizabeth Melchor in an interview with The Bee.
Washington said she brought a public health nurse to the family's home to explain the risks of having a pool with stagnant water and a small and unsecured fence.

The mother didn't seem to take the matter seriously, Washington said, adding that she stopped providing service to the family in 2006 because Melchor was unreceptive.

Giovanni drowned in October that year. Melchor told police she was taking care of Yeinira, and left her other children unattended in the garage for about an hour, records show. Giovanni apparently wandered from the garage and into the pool.

Police found the missing garage door and the unsecured pool fence. Neither parent was charged. CPS also initially declined to take protective action, determining that an allegation of neglect was unfounded, court records show.

That reluctance befuddled some of the Melchors' neighbors.

Andrea Garcia, who lived next door to the family, said the Melchors were troubled. Her interactions with the family usually came when something went wrong, she said, such as when the children were left outside in diapers in cold weather.

The Garcias watched the other Melchor children while the parents dealt with the emergency of finding Giovanni in the pool.

Andrea Garcia said the children were filthy. She said she entered the Melchor home for clean clothes and saw cockroaches everywhere.

Her father, Jesus Garcia, said he had worried about the safety of the Melchor children under their mother's care."We never understood why CPS let her keep the kids," he said.

Taken away, brought back

Ten months after the drowning, the four Melchor children became dependents of the county as a result of abuse and neglect, court records show.

In Yeinira's case, her parents repeatedly failed to bring her to doctor's appointments, CPS records show. She missed eight appointments in seven months. Doctor's notes indicated a growing concern about her well-being.

In foster care, she had surgery for her ailments and had recovered well. But in May 2008, less than two months after her surgery, Yeinira returned to her parents' home, joining her siblings who had been reunited with them several months earlier.

To place a foster child back in a parent's home, CPS must convince a dependency court judge that the conditions that originally made the home unsafe had been fixed. For Yeinira, CPS needed to ensure the issues at home had been addressed, said Bill Grimm, senior counsel at the National Center for Youth Law in Oakland, who reviewed the child's file at The Bee's request.

"Given all that was going on before, there was a pretty high threshold for them to resume care," Grimm said.

The lack of documentation calls the agency's decisions into question, said Grimm, adding that returning Yeinira home without doing a risk assessment would have been a serious error, if that's what happened.

Without care

After Yeinira returned, she did not see a doctor for about a year because the family didn't have insurance, her father told Sacramento police investigators in 2009.

During that time, Yeinira had a seizure, her mother told police. She said she put rubbing alcohol on a cotton ball and placed it under Yeinira's nose to revive her.

A couple of months later, Yeinira had another seizure. Yeinira "fell back, arched her back, and her feet twisted" as she fell onto concrete, her mother said, according to the investigative report. She again used rubbing alcohol and an onion to revive Yeinira.

The problem returned the next day, as Yeinira "fell forward, and her head hit the wall and her eyes went up," her mother said.

Again, Melchor turned to an onion and rubbing alcohol to revive her daughter. Her father was holding Yeinira in his lap when the mother noticed Yeinira wasn't breathing, she told investigators.

The father brought her to Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, south Sacramento, minutes away from their home. Two days later, April 20, 2009, Yeinira died at Kaiser's Roseville hospital because of a lack of oxygen in the brain, an autopsy found.

The Coroner's Office said physical abuse also may have contributed to her death, noting that she'd had a broken arm and other recent injuries.

In court documents, Dr. Michael Myette of Kaiser said he could say with "95 percent to 99 percent certainty that if the parents had accessed care when she began seizing, she would still be alive."

One of the Melchors' attorneys, Lori Calvert, said the couple grew up without doctors and that Elizabeth Melchor had been taught to revive her mother, who also suffered from seizures, as she had revived Yeinira.

The Melchors faced a number of obstacles, their attorneys said. They were illiterate in their native Spanish, couldn't speak English and were poor.

The prosecutor handling their neglect case agreed and cited those factors when explaining to a judge why she sought approval for a plea agreement resulting in a two-year jail sentence for the Melchors, the lowest under sentencing guidelines.

The judge agreed to the sentencing recommendation. The Melchors had served about a year in jail awaiting trial and, with various credits, were released in July after pleading no contest to the charges. They were deported to Mexico shortly afterward, without any of their children. Their attorneys said the children were put up for adoption by the county.

Source http://www.sacbee.com/2011/12/26/4145705/reasons-unclear-for-fatal-cps.html