By L.L. Brasier and John Wisely
An Oakland County family can continue its lawsuit against officials who took the children away and jailed the parents on charges of sexually assaulting their severely autistic daughter, a judge ruled Tuesday.
Julian and Thal Wendrow and their two teenage children are suing Oakland County, the Michigan Department of Human Services and Walled Lake Consolidated Schools in U.S. District Court.
Julian Wendrow was arrested in December 2007 and remained jailed for 80 days. Thal Wendrow was placed on an electronic tether, and their children were sent to foster care for months before prosecutors dropped the case in 2008.
The case against the Wendrows was based solely on statements their mute and autistic daughter, then 14, was said to have made using a widely debunked communication method called facilitated communication. The child's hands were guided by a trained aide using the method, but studies show it's the aide usually doing the typing.
The Wendrows filed suit in 2008. Many of the claims against prosecutors were dismissed because they are protected under governmental immunity.
Last year, the defendants asked that all the claims be dismissed. On Tuesday, Judge John Corbett O'Meara agreed to dismiss the parents' and brother's claims that they were treated unfairly because of their affiliation with the disabled girl. O'Meara concluded only the girl has standing to sue under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
O'Meara let stand a defamation claim against former Oakland County Prosecutor David Gorcyca, who sought the criminal charges and then publicly said after he left office that the Wendrows were guilty even though the case was dropped.
Oakland County Corporation Counsel Judith Cunningham said Tuesday that most of the claims against the county were dismissed. "We are nudging toward victory," she said.
O'Meara scheduled a trial on the remaining claims for June.
Sarah Prescott, an attorney for the Wendrows, said she disagreed with the judge's decision to dismiss the family's disability claims but is happy the girl's claim can be presented to a jury.
"To say that she can go forward against all these defendants is the heart of the case," Prescott said. "The quicker we can get to the courthouse steps, the better."
In his ruling, O'Meara also let stand several claims against the Walled Lake school district, which first reported the allegations, because the facilitated communication occurred at the school where the autistic girl attended classes. According to depositions, school officials knew the communication method was suspect.
Lawyers for the district did not return a message seeking comment on Tuesday's ruling. The Michigan Attorney General's Office, which is defending the state social workers involved, declined to comment.
West Bloomfield and its police department, also named in the suit, settled with the family for $1.8 million in 2011.
O'Meara refused to dismiss a claim against a state worker who is accused of violating the Wendrow children's rights when she took the girl for a gynecological exam that found no evidence of abuse. The worker also drove the couple's 13-year-old son to the police station, where he was interrogated for two hours.
Source http://www.freep.com/article/20120328/NEWS03/203280380/Judge-Oakland-County-family-can-continue-its-lawsuit-over-dismissed-child-abuse-accusations?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE%7Cp
CPS corruption hurts and destroys families worldwide. Please use caution posting about CPS here or anyplace on the internet. For your protection, using your full, real name and precise location is not advised. CPS has eyes everywhere and CPS is notorious for taking what people say, twisting it, embellishing on it and then using it against them in CPS "investigations" and at court proceedings.
Showing posts with label foster care. Show all posts
Showing posts with label foster care. Show all posts
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Boy testifies against former foster parent in sex case - NC
Diane Turbyfill
An 11-year-old boy said his foster father sexually assaulted him multiple times a week when he was 6- and 7-years-old.
The child testified Tuesday morning that George Steen would molest him while the two showered together. His foster mother was sometimes in the Lincolnton home at the time but unaware of the molestation, the child said.
“I tried to scream the first day and the second day but he covered my mouth,” the boy said from the witness stand. “He was doing wrong things to me.”
Allegations of abuse
The child was taken from his mother and put into foster care in 2005, at the age of 4. He lived with the Steens on and off until he turned 8.
The boy said that Steen threatened to punish him if he told anyone what they did in the shower. Steen also told the child that no one believes a kid anyway.
The Steens were certified foster parents. According to the child’s testimony, he struggled to tell the truth in the past. If he told a lie, the boy would be made to eat soap when living with the Steens, the child testified.
The boy didn’t speak of the alleged abuse until he was placed in another foster home. One day while watching TV with his new foster mother the boy spoke of his relationship with Steen.
Lincoln County Department of Social Services was called, and Steen was charged with three counts of child sex assault.
Steen’s attorney, T.J. Wilson, said during opening statements Monday that the boy has a history of lying.
The defense has not yet had its chance to present evidence or witnesses.
Mental and emotional issues
Several psychologists and social workers testified in Steen’s trial Tuesday.
One psychologist talked of the child’s current mental state. He functions at a second-grade level and has sexual behavior issues. The boy suffers from depression, ADHD, expressive language disorder and reactive attachment disorder, according to specialists.
Like many children who have suffered sex abuse, the boy now expresses sexual predatory behavior. He now lives in a facility for children who display such behaviors.
Seven years in foster care
The Lincoln County child moved in with the Steens at age 4. It was his first foster home. His stay was short – just 21 days.
Social Services moved the boy to another family where his two sisters had gone. But taking on three children proved too much for those foster parents so the boy was removed from the home and returned to the Steens.
The child spent the next two-and-a-half years in the Steens’ home.
DSS attempted again to reunite the boy with family, returning him to his mother. But that attempt was short-lived. A month later he went into a group home. He spent six days there before being placed with another family.
The boy began acting out, according to social workers, and he was taken to a hospital for 10 days where his medications were leveled out.
He was returned to the Steens’ home in December 2007 where he stayed until February 2009.
At age 8 the child was transferred to another family for four days followed by a group home for nine days.
His next family kept him for three months before he was sent again to a group home.
In 2009, the child was placed with a family for nine months. That’s where he reported the alleged abuse.
The child now lives in a psychiatric residential treatment facility where his sexual and behavioral issues can be addressed.
On the stand
The boy was visibly uncomfortable when talking about sex in front of a room full of people. He told Lincoln County Assistant District Attorney Beth Lari that he was nervous and just wanted to finish his testimony.
He gripped a small stuffed animal. He said the toy was a way to calm his nerves.
The boy said he didn’t want to talk about it, but he wanted to make sure Steen didn’t victimize anyone else.
“That’s why I told,” he said. “I didn’t want no one else to be involved with this.”
The child left the courtroom Tuesday morning once he finished his testimony.
Source http://www.gastongazette.com/news/foster-69239-old-boy.html
An 11-year-old boy said his foster father sexually assaulted him multiple times a week when he was 6- and 7-years-old.
The child testified Tuesday morning that George Steen would molest him while the two showered together. His foster mother was sometimes in the Lincolnton home at the time but unaware of the molestation, the child said.
“I tried to scream the first day and the second day but he covered my mouth,” the boy said from the witness stand. “He was doing wrong things to me.”
Allegations of abuse
The child was taken from his mother and put into foster care in 2005, at the age of 4. He lived with the Steens on and off until he turned 8.
The boy said that Steen threatened to punish him if he told anyone what they did in the shower. Steen also told the child that no one believes a kid anyway.
The Steens were certified foster parents. According to the child’s testimony, he struggled to tell the truth in the past. If he told a lie, the boy would be made to eat soap when living with the Steens, the child testified.
The boy didn’t speak of the alleged abuse until he was placed in another foster home. One day while watching TV with his new foster mother the boy spoke of his relationship with Steen.
Lincoln County Department of Social Services was called, and Steen was charged with three counts of child sex assault.
Steen’s attorney, T.J. Wilson, said during opening statements Monday that the boy has a history of lying.
The defense has not yet had its chance to present evidence or witnesses.
Mental and emotional issues
Several psychologists and social workers testified in Steen’s trial Tuesday.
One psychologist talked of the child’s current mental state. He functions at a second-grade level and has sexual behavior issues. The boy suffers from depression, ADHD, expressive language disorder and reactive attachment disorder, according to specialists.
Like many children who have suffered sex abuse, the boy now expresses sexual predatory behavior. He now lives in a facility for children who display such behaviors.
Seven years in foster care
The Lincoln County child moved in with the Steens at age 4. It was his first foster home. His stay was short – just 21 days.
Social Services moved the boy to another family where his two sisters had gone. But taking on three children proved too much for those foster parents so the boy was removed from the home and returned to the Steens.
The child spent the next two-and-a-half years in the Steens’ home.
DSS attempted again to reunite the boy with family, returning him to his mother. But that attempt was short-lived. A month later he went into a group home. He spent six days there before being placed with another family.
The boy began acting out, according to social workers, and he was taken to a hospital for 10 days where his medications were leveled out.
He was returned to the Steens’ home in December 2007 where he stayed until February 2009.
At age 8 the child was transferred to another family for four days followed by a group home for nine days.
His next family kept him for three months before he was sent again to a group home.
In 2009, the child was placed with a family for nine months. That’s where he reported the alleged abuse.
The child now lives in a psychiatric residential treatment facility where his sexual and behavioral issues can be addressed.
On the stand
The boy was visibly uncomfortable when talking about sex in front of a room full of people. He told Lincoln County Assistant District Attorney Beth Lari that he was nervous and just wanted to finish his testimony.
He gripped a small stuffed animal. He said the toy was a way to calm his nerves.
The boy said he didn’t want to talk about it, but he wanted to make sure Steen didn’t victimize anyone else.
“That’s why I told,” he said. “I didn’t want no one else to be involved with this.”
The child left the courtroom Tuesday morning once he finished his testimony.
Source http://www.gastongazette.com/news/foster-69239-old-boy.html
Monday, March 26, 2012
Supervised visits for children lack standards in Minnesota
Article by: JEAN HOPFENSPERGER
The state's visitation programs don't require licensing, training.
Every Thursday night, John drives to a St. Louis Park program that allows him to visit -- with constant one-on-one supervision -- his young daughter. The surveillance is ordered by the courts.
John parks his car on the left side of the building and heads to a "parenting room.'' A half hour later, the child's mother parks on the opposite side of the building and drops off her daughter. Mother and father never meet. Security systems watch for trouble. And the child gets to see a parent she is attached to, regardless of circumstances.
Each year, thousands of children across Minnesota participate in such "supervised visitations," a critical and sometimes controversial component in child protection and domestic violence cases. As counties press for family reunification for children in foster care, the visits play a critical role in a child's transition back home. They're also essential for women fleeing abusive relationships, whose ex-partners and husbands nonetheless have rights to visit their kids.
But there are no state standards for supervision or security for the nonprofits and individuals who oversee the visits. There's no required licensing or training, and each county handles things differently. While many rely on the special child visitation programs run by nonprofits, others enlist foster parents, family relatives or case aides who may oversee visits at city parks, libraries or even McDonald's.
Supervised visitation blasted into the public spotlight last month after a Washington man blew up his house during what was supposed to be a supervised session with his sons. "That story about the father who blew up his house led a lot of people to wonder about supervised visitation,'' said Linda Domholt, a vice president at Perspectives, the family services nonprofit that John goes to each week.
"There's a lot of need but not a lot of funding for this,'' she said. "It's time to shed some light on it.''
Lynn Lewis, human services manager for Hennepin County, said the service is critical.
"The cases that we see going to court, and getting supervised visitation, are some of the toughest,'' she said. "It can be a convergence of issues: drug abuse, domestic violence, poverty, untreated mental illness. You put a combination of any of those together and it could be toxic for a child.''
Minnesota a national leader
Minnesota was among the first states to create visitation centers, starting in the 1980s, said Carl Nordine, interim executive director of the Children's Safety Center/Genesis II for Families in St. Paul.
The St. Paul center, for example, was launched 20 years ago by a mother whose children were beaten with a two-by-four by their father during a visit, Nordine said. It now specializes in court-ordered visits for children hurt by domestic violence.
The center, like others, also can supervise telephone calls and e-mail exchanges between the child and potentially explosive parent, said Nordine, whose agency supervised 1,200 visits and 701 child "exchanges'' -- or child transfers between parents-- last year.
Perspectives offers something more: a pathway for parents to "graduate'' to unsupervised visits. John, who didn't want his real name used, is among parents enrolled in its "Parenting Time'' program.
He arrives a half hour early for each meeting with his daughter, and sits down with the supervisor who will monitor his visit in a room filled with toys, a doll house, a kiddie kitchenette and comfy couch.
He and the supervisor go through a parenting curriculum before the sweet 2-year-old walks in.
For the next two hours, the father-daughter conversations and actions are closely observed by the note-taking supervisor. If John were to attempt to say anything inappropriate to the child, or about her mother, the supervisor would stop him.
But the visit goes without a hitch for John, who declined to say why he was there. Dad and daughter first shared a grilled cheese sandwich and soup dinner he brought. They played with Barbie, explored the doll house.
John says he's grateful to have this place to visit his daughter. He's hopeful he will get unsupervised visitation soon.
While John's story did not involve domestic violence, its victims swell the ranks at many centers.
"From a battered women's perspective, they are critical,'' said Shelley Johnson Cline, executive director of the St. Paul Domestic Abuse Intervention Project. "Having a child in a visitation center means he is not going anywhere. The abusive parent can't make any threats, can't kidnap the child and can't use it as an opportunity to put the mother in greater danger.''
No standards
In spite of their important role in maintaining child safety and child-parent bonds, there are few standards for how or where visitation should be delivered in any state, said Jeff Nullet, executive director of the Supervised Visitation Network, a national network of nonprofits providing visitation services.
"There's nobody minding supervised visitation,'' said Nullet. "It's alarming sometimes, because anyone can provide these services.''
A growing number of private individuals oversee supervised visitation, said Michelle Basham, executive director of Genesis II for Families, which supervises about 300 to 400 visits a month in the Minneapolis area. She and Nullet are concerned about the lack of training requirements, safety procedures and other standards for individual supervisors.
County budget strains also are hitting visitation programs, said Basham. Ramsey County, for example, stopped using visitation centers for most of its child protection cases several years ago because of budget cuts. It relies on foster parents and relatives to supervise most visits, said Janine Moore, director of the county's family and children's services.
In high-risk cases, the visits can take place in a county building, supervised by county staff with law enforcement on hand to intervene if needed, she said. But having a neutral, third party overseeing the visits in a more relaxed environment could benefit both the parent and child, she said.
Said Moore: The centers "are something we would love to have.''
Source http://www.startribune.com/local/144169325.html?page=1&c=y
The state's visitation programs don't require licensing, training.
Every Thursday night, John drives to a St. Louis Park program that allows him to visit -- with constant one-on-one supervision -- his young daughter. The surveillance is ordered by the courts.
John parks his car on the left side of the building and heads to a "parenting room.'' A half hour later, the child's mother parks on the opposite side of the building and drops off her daughter. Mother and father never meet. Security systems watch for trouble. And the child gets to see a parent she is attached to, regardless of circumstances.
Each year, thousands of children across Minnesota participate in such "supervised visitations," a critical and sometimes controversial component in child protection and domestic violence cases. As counties press for family reunification for children in foster care, the visits play a critical role in a child's transition back home. They're also essential for women fleeing abusive relationships, whose ex-partners and husbands nonetheless have rights to visit their kids.
But there are no state standards for supervision or security for the nonprofits and individuals who oversee the visits. There's no required licensing or training, and each county handles things differently. While many rely on the special child visitation programs run by nonprofits, others enlist foster parents, family relatives or case aides who may oversee visits at city parks, libraries or even McDonald's.
Supervised visitation blasted into the public spotlight last month after a Washington man blew up his house during what was supposed to be a supervised session with his sons. "That story about the father who blew up his house led a lot of people to wonder about supervised visitation,'' said Linda Domholt, a vice president at Perspectives, the family services nonprofit that John goes to each week.
"There's a lot of need but not a lot of funding for this,'' she said. "It's time to shed some light on it.''
Lynn Lewis, human services manager for Hennepin County, said the service is critical.
"The cases that we see going to court, and getting supervised visitation, are some of the toughest,'' she said. "It can be a convergence of issues: drug abuse, domestic violence, poverty, untreated mental illness. You put a combination of any of those together and it could be toxic for a child.''
Minnesota a national leader
Minnesota was among the first states to create visitation centers, starting in the 1980s, said Carl Nordine, interim executive director of the Children's Safety Center/Genesis II for Families in St. Paul.
The St. Paul center, for example, was launched 20 years ago by a mother whose children were beaten with a two-by-four by their father during a visit, Nordine said. It now specializes in court-ordered visits for children hurt by domestic violence.
The center, like others, also can supervise telephone calls and e-mail exchanges between the child and potentially explosive parent, said Nordine, whose agency supervised 1,200 visits and 701 child "exchanges'' -- or child transfers between parents-- last year.
Perspectives offers something more: a pathway for parents to "graduate'' to unsupervised visits. John, who didn't want his real name used, is among parents enrolled in its "Parenting Time'' program.
He arrives a half hour early for each meeting with his daughter, and sits down with the supervisor who will monitor his visit in a room filled with toys, a doll house, a kiddie kitchenette and comfy couch.
He and the supervisor go through a parenting curriculum before the sweet 2-year-old walks in.
For the next two hours, the father-daughter conversations and actions are closely observed by the note-taking supervisor. If John were to attempt to say anything inappropriate to the child, or about her mother, the supervisor would stop him.
But the visit goes without a hitch for John, who declined to say why he was there. Dad and daughter first shared a grilled cheese sandwich and soup dinner he brought. They played with Barbie, explored the doll house.
John says he's grateful to have this place to visit his daughter. He's hopeful he will get unsupervised visitation soon.
While John's story did not involve domestic violence, its victims swell the ranks at many centers.
"From a battered women's perspective, they are critical,'' said Shelley Johnson Cline, executive director of the St. Paul Domestic Abuse Intervention Project. "Having a child in a visitation center means he is not going anywhere. The abusive parent can't make any threats, can't kidnap the child and can't use it as an opportunity to put the mother in greater danger.''
No standards
In spite of their important role in maintaining child safety and child-parent bonds, there are few standards for how or where visitation should be delivered in any state, said Jeff Nullet, executive director of the Supervised Visitation Network, a national network of nonprofits providing visitation services.
"There's nobody minding supervised visitation,'' said Nullet. "It's alarming sometimes, because anyone can provide these services.''
A growing number of private individuals oversee supervised visitation, said Michelle Basham, executive director of Genesis II for Families, which supervises about 300 to 400 visits a month in the Minneapolis area. She and Nullet are concerned about the lack of training requirements, safety procedures and other standards for individual supervisors.
County budget strains also are hitting visitation programs, said Basham. Ramsey County, for example, stopped using visitation centers for most of its child protection cases several years ago because of budget cuts. It relies on foster parents and relatives to supervise most visits, said Janine Moore, director of the county's family and children's services.
In high-risk cases, the visits can take place in a county building, supervised by county staff with law enforcement on hand to intervene if needed, she said. But having a neutral, third party overseeing the visits in a more relaxed environment could benefit both the parent and child, she said.
Said Moore: The centers "are something we would love to have.''
Source http://www.startribune.com/local/144169325.html?page=1&c=y
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Counselor at children's home convicted of molestation - California
A Santa Ana man who worked with children without parents living in the United States was convicted Wednesday of molestation and could face more than seven years in jail.
Victor Salazar, 30, a counselor at the Florence Crittenden Home in Fullerton, was found guilty of four felony counts of lewd acts on a child between the ages of 14 and 15 and two misdemeanor counts of sexual battery, according to the Orange County district attorney’s office.
Children whose parents live outside the country, either because they were deported or because they came to the United States alone, live in the home. The children are generally taken into protective custody until they are placed in foster care, reunited with their families or reach maturity, officials said.
Salazar was found to have molested three boys he was assigned to counsel at the home between May 25, 2007, and Feb. 5, 2008.
Officials said the acts occurred when the children went into Salazar’s office to call their families in South or Central America. While on the telephone, officials said, they were sexually assaulted and fondled by Salazar.
A sentencing date will be set Thursday. Officials said Salazar also faces a lifetime sex offender registration.
Source http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/03/counselor-convicted-molestation.html
Victor Salazar, 30, a counselor at the Florence Crittenden Home in Fullerton, was found guilty of four felony counts of lewd acts on a child between the ages of 14 and 15 and two misdemeanor counts of sexual battery, according to the Orange County district attorney’s office.
Children whose parents live outside the country, either because they were deported or because they came to the United States alone, live in the home. The children are generally taken into protective custody until they are placed in foster care, reunited with their families or reach maturity, officials said.
Salazar was found to have molested three boys he was assigned to counsel at the home between May 25, 2007, and Feb. 5, 2008.
Officials said the acts occurred when the children went into Salazar’s office to call their families in South or Central America. While on the telephone, officials said, they were sexually assaulted and fondled by Salazar.
A sentencing date will be set Thursday. Officials said Salazar also faces a lifetime sex offender registration.
Source http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/03/counselor-convicted-molestation.html
State must pay $432,000 after infant dies in foster care, Clackamas County jury rules
By Steve Mayes
A Clackamas County jury concluded Wednesday that the Oregon Department of Human Services was negligent and partially responsible for the death of Astrid Ash, an infant who died while in foster care four years ago.
The jury also found the child's father partly at fault, but awarded him $432,300 in damages.
The father, Sam Driessen, filed a wrongful death lawsuit seeking more than $1.5 million.
The testimony highlighted two contrasting and troubling versions of the events preceding the death of 10 1/2-month-old Astrid.
Driessen had twice been convicted of drug crimes before he met Emily C. Ashby through a Craigslist ad where she offered to trade sex for methamphetamine, said Dirk Pierson, a state attorney representing DHS.
Ashby became pregnant and gave birth to twins -- born almost two months prematurely -- in late June 2007. Several weeks later she was found passed out in a car at a fast-food restaurant. After she tested positive for alcohol and drugs, DHS took custody of the twins and placed them in a West Linn foster home.
Astrid failed to thrive and had difficulty gaining weight. She suffered from reflux and sometimes vomited her meals. The foster mother compared the child to "a stopped-up sink."
Driessen's attorney, David Paul, said the foster parents were overwhelmed with their own children and financial responsibilities and did not have the skills to deal with medically fragile babies. DHS workers and others praised the foster parents as well trained, diligent and capable of caring for the twins.
On May 11, 2008 -- Mother's Day -- the foster mother discovered Astrid unconscious in bed. No one had checked on the baby for several hours. The foster parents unsuccessfully tried to revive her. A hospital doctor who examined Astrid after death reported her body temperature was 103 degrees, a sign of serious infection.
"This baby did not have to die," Paul said. Had DHS done its job and involved Driessen, "he would have pushed the right button" and immediately hospitalized the baby, Paul said.
DHS took a blood sample from Driessen in mid-March 2008 and knew he was the father almost two weeks before Astrid died. The agency, however, did not tell him until after Astrid was buried. The death certificate listed the cause of death -- and the name of the father -- as "unknown."
Pierson, the DHS attorney, said Driessen showed no interest in the twins or their welfare during Astrid's short life "and now he wants a million and a half bucks."
Although Ashby told Driessen he was probably the twin's father, he took no action to protect or support the children even though he knew Ashby used illegal drugs while nursing the infants, Pierson said.
The jury agreed up to a point. It found DHS was 56 percent responsible for the death.
DHS bears more blame because it was responsible for Astrid's care but failed to adequately address her on-going medical problems, said a juror, who spoke on condition he not be identified. The jury found other DHS actions troubling, said the juror: the delay in telling Driessen that he was the father, the lack of an autopsy that could determine the cause of death and burying the body the day after the death.
Driessen said he has changed since Astrid's death. He quit drugs, is employed and engaged to be married. He was given custody of the surviving twin, Axel, who reportedly is doing well.
Source http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-city/index.ssf/2012/03/state_must_pay_432000_after_in.html
A Clackamas County jury concluded Wednesday that the Oregon Department of Human Services was negligent and partially responsible for the death of Astrid Ash, an infant who died while in foster care four years ago.
The jury also found the child's father partly at fault, but awarded him $432,300 in damages.
The father, Sam Driessen, filed a wrongful death lawsuit seeking more than $1.5 million.
The testimony highlighted two contrasting and troubling versions of the events preceding the death of 10 1/2-month-old Astrid.
Driessen had twice been convicted of drug crimes before he met Emily C. Ashby through a Craigslist ad where she offered to trade sex for methamphetamine, said Dirk Pierson, a state attorney representing DHS.
Ashby became pregnant and gave birth to twins -- born almost two months prematurely -- in late June 2007. Several weeks later she was found passed out in a car at a fast-food restaurant. After she tested positive for alcohol and drugs, DHS took custody of the twins and placed them in a West Linn foster home.
Astrid failed to thrive and had difficulty gaining weight. She suffered from reflux and sometimes vomited her meals. The foster mother compared the child to "a stopped-up sink."
Driessen's attorney, David Paul, said the foster parents were overwhelmed with their own children and financial responsibilities and did not have the skills to deal with medically fragile babies. DHS workers and others praised the foster parents as well trained, diligent and capable of caring for the twins.
On May 11, 2008 -- Mother's Day -- the foster mother discovered Astrid unconscious in bed. No one had checked on the baby for several hours. The foster parents unsuccessfully tried to revive her. A hospital doctor who examined Astrid after death reported her body temperature was 103 degrees, a sign of serious infection.
"This baby did not have to die," Paul said. Had DHS done its job and involved Driessen, "he would have pushed the right button" and immediately hospitalized the baby, Paul said.
DHS took a blood sample from Driessen in mid-March 2008 and knew he was the father almost two weeks before Astrid died. The agency, however, did not tell him until after Astrid was buried. The death certificate listed the cause of death -- and the name of the father -- as "unknown."
Pierson, the DHS attorney, said Driessen showed no interest in the twins or their welfare during Astrid's short life "and now he wants a million and a half bucks."
Although Ashby told Driessen he was probably the twin's father, he took no action to protect or support the children even though he knew Ashby used illegal drugs while nursing the infants, Pierson said.
The jury agreed up to a point. It found DHS was 56 percent responsible for the death.
DHS bears more blame because it was responsible for Astrid's care but failed to adequately address her on-going medical problems, said a juror, who spoke on condition he not be identified. The jury found other DHS actions troubling, said the juror: the delay in telling Driessen that he was the father, the lack of an autopsy that could determine the cause of death and burying the body the day after the death.
Driessen said he has changed since Astrid's death. He quit drugs, is employed and engaged to be married. He was given custody of the surviving twin, Axel, who reportedly is doing well.
Source http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-city/index.ssf/2012/03/state_must_pay_432000_after_in.html
County to pay $500K to settle foster care sexual abuse case - California
From wire service reports
LOS ANGELES - The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors agreed Tuesday to pay $500,000 to settle a lawsuit involving the sexual assault of a 9- year-old girl by a 17-year-old boy in foster care.
"The certified foster parents allowed children to have unsupervised, unmonitored play behind closed doors resulting in the assault of a 9-year-old girl by a 17-year-old boy," according to the case summary provided by county attorneys.
The girl -- listed as Jane Doe in the suit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Oct. 28, 2009 -- is the biological child of the boy's foster parents.
Other details of the case, including the parents' names, were not disclosed.
The county has already spent more than $287,000 -- more than half the settlement amount -- on attorneys' fees and costs related to the claim, according to the attorneys' summary.
The supervisors met behind closed doors with their lawyers to discuss the case before voting 3-1 in open session to approve the settlement, with Supervisor Michael Antonovich casting the dissenting vote and Supervisor Gloria Molina absent due to illness.
Source http://www.contracostatimes.com/california/ci_20170623/county-pay-500k-settle-foster-care-sexual-abuse
LOS ANGELES - The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors agreed Tuesday to pay $500,000 to settle a lawsuit involving the sexual assault of a 9- year-old girl by a 17-year-old boy in foster care.
"The certified foster parents allowed children to have unsupervised, unmonitored play behind closed doors resulting in the assault of a 9-year-old girl by a 17-year-old boy," according to the case summary provided by county attorneys.
The girl -- listed as Jane Doe in the suit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Oct. 28, 2009 -- is the biological child of the boy's foster parents.
Other details of the case, including the parents' names, were not disclosed.
The county has already spent more than $287,000 -- more than half the settlement amount -- on attorneys' fees and costs related to the claim, according to the attorneys' summary.
The supervisors met behind closed doors with their lawyers to discuss the case before voting 3-1 in open session to approve the settlement, with Supervisor Michael Antonovich casting the dissenting vote and Supervisor Gloria Molina absent due to illness.
Source http://www.contracostatimes.com/california/ci_20170623/county-pay-500k-settle-foster-care-sexual-abuse
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Off-Label Use Of Risky Antipsychotic Drugs Raises Concerns
By Sandra G. Boodman
Adriane Fugh-Berman was stunned by the question: Two graduate students who had no symptoms of mental illness wondered if she thought they should take a powerful schizophrenia drug each had been prescribed to treat insomnia.
"It's a total outrage," said Fugh-Berman, a physician who is an associate professor of pharmacology at Georgetown University. "These kids needed some basic sleep [advice], like reducing their intake of caffeine and alcohol, not a highly sedating drug."
Those Georgetown students exemplify a trend that alarms medical experts, policymakers and patient advocates: the skyrocketing increase in the off-label use of an expensive class of drugs called atypical antipsychotics. Until the past decade these 11 drugs, most approved in the 1990s, had been reserved for the approximately 3 percent of Americans with the most disabling mental illnesses, chiefly schizophrenia and bipolar disorder; more recently a few have been approved to treat severe depression.
But these days atypical antipsychotics -- the most popular are Seroquel, Zyprexa and Abilify -- are being prescribed by psychiatrists and primary-care doctors to treat a panoply of conditions for which they have not been approved, including anxiety, attention-deficit disorder, sleep difficulties, behavioral problems in toddlers and dementia. These new drugs account for more than 90 percent of the market and have eclipsed an older generation of antipsychotics. Two recent reports found that children and adolescents in foster care, some less than a year old, are taking more psychotropic drugs than other children, including those with the severest forms of mental illness.
In 2010 antipsychotic drugs racked up more than $16 billion in sales, according to IMS Health, a firm that tracks drug trends for the health-care industry. For the past three years they have ranked near or at the top of the best-selling classes of drugs, outstripping antidepressants and sometimes cholesterol medicines. A study published last year found that off-label antipsychotic prescriptions doubled between 1995 and 2008, from 4.4 million to 9 million. And a recent report by pharmacy benefits manager Medco estimated that the prevalence of the drugs' use among adults ballooned more than 169 percent between 2001 and 2010.
Critics say the popularity of atypical antipsychotics reflects a combination of hype that the expensive medicines, which can cost $500 per month, are safer than the earlier generation of drugs; hope that they will work for a variety of ailments when other treatments have not; and aggressive marketing by drug companies to doctors and patients.
"Antipsychotics are overused, overpriced and oversold," said Allen Frances, former chair of psychiatry at Duke University School of Medicine, who headed the task force that wrote the DSM-IV, psychiatry's diagnostic bible. While judicious off-label use may be appropriate for those who have not responded to other treatments for, say, severe obsessive-compulsive disorder, Frances said the drugs, which are designed to calm patients and to moderate the hallucinations and delusions of psychosis, are being used "promiscuously, recklessly," often to control behavior and with little regard for their serious side effects. These include major, rapid weight gain -- 40 pounds is not uncommon -- Type 2 diabetes, breast development in boys, irreversible facial tics and, among the elderly, an increased risk of death.
The Latest Fad?
Doctors are allowed to prescribe drugs for unapproved uses, but companies are forbidden to promote them for such purposes. In the past few years major drugmakers have paid more than $2 billion to settle lawsuits brought by states and the federal government alleging illegal marketing; some cases are still being litigated, as are thousands of claims by patients. In 2009 Eli Lilly and Co. paid the federal government a record $1.4 billion to settle charges that it illegally marketed Zyprexa through, among other things, a "5 at 5 campaign" that urged nursing homes to administer 5 milligrams of the drug at 5 p.m. to induce sleep.
Wayne Blackmon, a psychiatrist and lawyer who teaches at George Washington University Law School, said he commonly sees patients taking more than one antipsychotic, which raises the risk of side effects. Blackmon regards them as the "drugs du jour," too often prescribed for "problems of living. Somehow doctors have gotten it into their heads that this is an acceptable use." Physicians, he said, have a financial incentive to prescribe drugs, widely regarded as a much quicker fix than a time-intensive
evaluation and nondrug treatments such as behavior therapy, which might not be covered by insurance.
In a series in the New York Review of Books last year, Marcia Angell, former editor in chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, argued that the apparent "raging epidemic of mental illness" partly reflects diagnosis creep: the expansion of the elastic boundaries that define mental illnesses to include more people, which enlarges the market for psychiatric drugs.
"You can't push a drug if people don't think they have a disease," said Fugh-Berman, who directs PharmedOut, a Georgetown program that educates doctors about drug marketing and promotion. "How do you normalize the use of antipsychotics? By using key opinion leaders to emphasize their use and through CMEs (continuing medical education) and ghost-written articles in medical journals," which, she said "affect the whole information stream."
James H. Scully Jr., medical director of the American Psychiatric Association, sees the situation differently. He agrees that misuse of the drugs is a problem and says that off-label prescribing should be based on some evidence of effectiveness. But Scully suggests that a key factor driving use of the drugs, in addition to "intense marketing and some effectiveness," is the growing number of non-psychiatrists prescribing them. Many lack the expertise and experience necessary to properly diagnose and treat mental health problems, he said.
Among psychiatrists, use of antipsychotics is rooted in a desire to heal, according to Scully. "All of the meds we use have their limits. If you're trying to help somebody, you think, 'What else might I be able to do for them?' "
Since 2005, antipsychotics have carried a black-box warning, the strongest possible, cautioning against their use in elderly patients with dementia, because the drugs increase the risk of death. In 2008 the Food and Drug Administration reiterated its earlier warning, noting that "antipsychotics are not indicated for the treatment of dementia-related psychosis." But experts say such use remains widespread.
In one Northern California nursing home in 2006 and 2007, 22 residents, many suffering from dementia, were given antipsychotics for the convenience of the staff or because the residents refused to go to the dining room. In some cases the drugs were forcibly injected, state officials said. Three residents died.
A 2011 report by the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services found that in a six-month period in 2007, 14 percent of nursing home residents were given antipsychotics. In one case a patient with an undetected urinary-tract infection was given the drugs to control agitation.
"The primary reason is that there's not enough staff," said Toby S. Edelman, senior policy attorney for the Center for Medicare Advocacy, a Washington-based nonprofit group, who recently testified about the problem before the Senate Special Committee on Aging. "If you can't tie people up, you give 'em a drug" she said, referring to restrictions on the use of physical restraints in nursing homes.
Drugs At 18 Months
Nursing home residents aren't the only ones gobbling antipsychotics.
Mark E. Helm, a Little Rock pediatrician who was a medical director of Arkansas's Medicaid evidence-based prescription drug program from 2004 to 2010, said he had seen 18-month-olds being given potent antipsychotic drugs for bipolar disorder, an illness he said rarely develops before adolescence. Antipsychotics, which he characterized as the fastest-growing and most expensive class of drugs covered by the state's Medicaid program, were typically prescribed to children to control disruptive
behavior, which often stemmed from their impoverished, chaotic or dysfunctional families, Helm said. "Sedation is the key reason these meds get used," he observed.
More than any other factor, experts agree, the explosive growth in the diagnosis of pediatric bipolar disorder has fueled antipsychotic use among children. Between 1994 and 2003, reported diagnoses increased 40-fold, from about 20,000 to approximately 800,000, according to Columbia University researchers.
That diagnosis, popularized by several prominent child psychiatrists in Boston who claimed that extreme irritability, inattention and mood swings were actually pediatric bipolar disorder that can occur before age 2, has undergone a reevaluation in recent years. The reasons include the highly publicized death of a 4-year-old girl in Massachusetts, who along with her two young siblings had been taking a cocktail of powerful drugs for several years to treat bipolar disorder; the revelation of more than $1 million in unreported drug company payments to the leading proponent of the diagnosis; and growing doubts about its validity.
Helm said that antipsychotics, which he believes have become more socially acceptable, serve another purpose: as a gateway to mental health services. "To get a child qualified for SSI disability, it is helpful to have a child on a medicine," he said, referring to the federal program that assists families of children who are disabled by illness.
Ask Your Doctor
Psychiatrist David J. Muzina, a national practice leader at pharmacy benefits manager Medco, said he believes direct-to-consumer advertising has helped fuel rising use of the drugs. As former director of the mood disorders center at the Cleveland Clinic, he encountered patients who asked for antipsychotics by name, citing a TV commercial or print ad.
Some states are attempting to rein in their use and cut escalating costs. Texas has announced it will not allow a child younger than 3 to receive antipsychotics without authorization from the state. Arkansas now requires parents to give informed consent before a child receives an anti-psychotic drug. The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced it is summoning state officials to a meeting this summer to address the use of antipsychotics in foster care. And Sens. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) and Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) introduced legislation that would require doctors who prescribe antipsychotics off-label to nursing home patients to complete forms certifying that they are appropriate.
Medco is asking doctors to document that they have performed diabetes tests in patients taking the drugs. "Our intention here is to get doctors to reexamine prescriptions," Muzina said.
"In the short term, I don't see a change in this trend unless external forces intervene."
Source http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2012/March/13/off-label-use-of-risky-antipsychotic-drugs.aspx
Adriane Fugh-Berman was stunned by the question: Two graduate students who had no symptoms of mental illness wondered if she thought they should take a powerful schizophrenia drug each had been prescribed to treat insomnia.
"It's a total outrage," said Fugh-Berman, a physician who is an associate professor of pharmacology at Georgetown University. "These kids needed some basic sleep [advice], like reducing their intake of caffeine and alcohol, not a highly sedating drug."
Those Georgetown students exemplify a trend that alarms medical experts, policymakers and patient advocates: the skyrocketing increase in the off-label use of an expensive class of drugs called atypical antipsychotics. Until the past decade these 11 drugs, most approved in the 1990s, had been reserved for the approximately 3 percent of Americans with the most disabling mental illnesses, chiefly schizophrenia and bipolar disorder; more recently a few have been approved to treat severe depression.
But these days atypical antipsychotics -- the most popular are Seroquel, Zyprexa and Abilify -- are being prescribed by psychiatrists and primary-care doctors to treat a panoply of conditions for which they have not been approved, including anxiety, attention-deficit disorder, sleep difficulties, behavioral problems in toddlers and dementia. These new drugs account for more than 90 percent of the market and have eclipsed an older generation of antipsychotics. Two recent reports found that children and adolescents in foster care, some less than a year old, are taking more psychotropic drugs than other children, including those with the severest forms of mental illness.
In 2010 antipsychotic drugs racked up more than $16 billion in sales, according to IMS Health, a firm that tracks drug trends for the health-care industry. For the past three years they have ranked near or at the top of the best-selling classes of drugs, outstripping antidepressants and sometimes cholesterol medicines. A study published last year found that off-label antipsychotic prescriptions doubled between 1995 and 2008, from 4.4 million to 9 million. And a recent report by pharmacy benefits manager Medco estimated that the prevalence of the drugs' use among adults ballooned more than 169 percent between 2001 and 2010.
Critics say the popularity of atypical antipsychotics reflects a combination of hype that the expensive medicines, which can cost $500 per month, are safer than the earlier generation of drugs; hope that they will work for a variety of ailments when other treatments have not; and aggressive marketing by drug companies to doctors and patients.
"Antipsychotics are overused, overpriced and oversold," said Allen Frances, former chair of psychiatry at Duke University School of Medicine, who headed the task force that wrote the DSM-IV, psychiatry's diagnostic bible. While judicious off-label use may be appropriate for those who have not responded to other treatments for, say, severe obsessive-compulsive disorder, Frances said the drugs, which are designed to calm patients and to moderate the hallucinations and delusions of psychosis, are being used "promiscuously, recklessly," often to control behavior and with little regard for their serious side effects. These include major, rapid weight gain -- 40 pounds is not uncommon -- Type 2 diabetes, breast development in boys, irreversible facial tics and, among the elderly, an increased risk of death.
The Latest Fad?
Doctors are allowed to prescribe drugs for unapproved uses, but companies are forbidden to promote them for such purposes. In the past few years major drugmakers have paid more than $2 billion to settle lawsuits brought by states and the federal government alleging illegal marketing; some cases are still being litigated, as are thousands of claims by patients. In 2009 Eli Lilly and Co. paid the federal government a record $1.4 billion to settle charges that it illegally marketed Zyprexa through, among other things, a "5 at 5 campaign" that urged nursing homes to administer 5 milligrams of the drug at 5 p.m. to induce sleep.
Wayne Blackmon, a psychiatrist and lawyer who teaches at George Washington University Law School, said he commonly sees patients taking more than one antipsychotic, which raises the risk of side effects. Blackmon regards them as the "drugs du jour," too often prescribed for "problems of living. Somehow doctors have gotten it into their heads that this is an acceptable use." Physicians, he said, have a financial incentive to prescribe drugs, widely regarded as a much quicker fix than a time-intensive
evaluation and nondrug treatments such as behavior therapy, which might not be covered by insurance.
In a series in the New York Review of Books last year, Marcia Angell, former editor in chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, argued that the apparent "raging epidemic of mental illness" partly reflects diagnosis creep: the expansion of the elastic boundaries that define mental illnesses to include more people, which enlarges the market for psychiatric drugs.
"You can't push a drug if people don't think they have a disease," said Fugh-Berman, who directs PharmedOut, a Georgetown program that educates doctors about drug marketing and promotion. "How do you normalize the use of antipsychotics? By using key opinion leaders to emphasize their use and through CMEs (continuing medical education) and ghost-written articles in medical journals," which, she said "affect the whole information stream."
James H. Scully Jr., medical director of the American Psychiatric Association, sees the situation differently. He agrees that misuse of the drugs is a problem and says that off-label prescribing should be based on some evidence of effectiveness. But Scully suggests that a key factor driving use of the drugs, in addition to "intense marketing and some effectiveness," is the growing number of non-psychiatrists prescribing them. Many lack the expertise and experience necessary to properly diagnose and treat mental health problems, he said.
Among psychiatrists, use of antipsychotics is rooted in a desire to heal, according to Scully. "All of the meds we use have their limits. If you're trying to help somebody, you think, 'What else might I be able to do for them?' "
Since 2005, antipsychotics have carried a black-box warning, the strongest possible, cautioning against their use in elderly patients with dementia, because the drugs increase the risk of death. In 2008 the Food and Drug Administration reiterated its earlier warning, noting that "antipsychotics are not indicated for the treatment of dementia-related psychosis." But experts say such use remains widespread.
In one Northern California nursing home in 2006 and 2007, 22 residents, many suffering from dementia, were given antipsychotics for the convenience of the staff or because the residents refused to go to the dining room. In some cases the drugs were forcibly injected, state officials said. Three residents died.
A 2011 report by the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services found that in a six-month period in 2007, 14 percent of nursing home residents were given antipsychotics. In one case a patient with an undetected urinary-tract infection was given the drugs to control agitation.
"The primary reason is that there's not enough staff," said Toby S. Edelman, senior policy attorney for the Center for Medicare Advocacy, a Washington-based nonprofit group, who recently testified about the problem before the Senate Special Committee on Aging. "If you can't tie people up, you give 'em a drug" she said, referring to restrictions on the use of physical restraints in nursing homes.
Drugs At 18 Months
Nursing home residents aren't the only ones gobbling antipsychotics.
Mark E. Helm, a Little Rock pediatrician who was a medical director of Arkansas's Medicaid evidence-based prescription drug program from 2004 to 2010, said he had seen 18-month-olds being given potent antipsychotic drugs for bipolar disorder, an illness he said rarely develops before adolescence. Antipsychotics, which he characterized as the fastest-growing and most expensive class of drugs covered by the state's Medicaid program, were typically prescribed to children to control disruptive
behavior, which often stemmed from their impoverished, chaotic or dysfunctional families, Helm said. "Sedation is the key reason these meds get used," he observed.
More than any other factor, experts agree, the explosive growth in the diagnosis of pediatric bipolar disorder has fueled antipsychotic use among children. Between 1994 and 2003, reported diagnoses increased 40-fold, from about 20,000 to approximately 800,000, according to Columbia University researchers.
That diagnosis, popularized by several prominent child psychiatrists in Boston who claimed that extreme irritability, inattention and mood swings were actually pediatric bipolar disorder that can occur before age 2, has undergone a reevaluation in recent years. The reasons include the highly publicized death of a 4-year-old girl in Massachusetts, who along with her two young siblings had been taking a cocktail of powerful drugs for several years to treat bipolar disorder; the revelation of more than $1 million in unreported drug company payments to the leading proponent of the diagnosis; and growing doubts about its validity.
Helm said that antipsychotics, which he believes have become more socially acceptable, serve another purpose: as a gateway to mental health services. "To get a child qualified for SSI disability, it is helpful to have a child on a medicine," he said, referring to the federal program that assists families of children who are disabled by illness.
Ask Your Doctor
Psychiatrist David J. Muzina, a national practice leader at pharmacy benefits manager Medco, said he believes direct-to-consumer advertising has helped fuel rising use of the drugs. As former director of the mood disorders center at the Cleveland Clinic, he encountered patients who asked for antipsychotics by name, citing a TV commercial or print ad.
Some states are attempting to rein in their use and cut escalating costs. Texas has announced it will not allow a child younger than 3 to receive antipsychotics without authorization from the state. Arkansas now requires parents to give informed consent before a child receives an anti-psychotic drug. The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced it is summoning state officials to a meeting this summer to address the use of antipsychotics in foster care. And Sens. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) and Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) introduced legislation that would require doctors who prescribe antipsychotics off-label to nursing home patients to complete forms certifying that they are appropriate.
Medco is asking doctors to document that they have performed diabetes tests in patients taking the drugs. "Our intention here is to get doctors to reexamine prescriptions," Muzina said.
"In the short term, I don't see a change in this trend unless external forces intervene."
Source http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2012/March/13/off-label-use-of-risky-antipsychotic-drugs.aspx
National child welfare advocate says Nebraska overhaul proposals won't solve problem
GRANT SCHULTE Associated Press
LINCOLN, Neb. — Nebraska's attempt to reform its child welfare system this year fails to address the fact that too many children are yanked from their homes and kept in foster care, a national child advocacy group said Monday.
The National Coalition for Child Protection Reform criticized Nebraska's reform proposals in a biting new report, which blamed most of the state's problems on a "take the child and run" mentality that needlessly splits families apart.
Lawmakers are on the verge of passing child welfare measures this session that would scale back caseloads for social workers, create a child welfare watchdog that reports to the Legislature and end the state's experiment with privatized services in all but two Omaha-area counties.
But family advocates said most of the measures fail to address the core problems: Nebraska removes children from their homes at a rate twice the national average, and keeps a higher proportion of its children in foster care than any other state.
Nebraska state officials say they use an evidence-based tool to decide which children are safe and unsafe in their homes, and will work with families and community services when possible to keep them together.
Richard Wexler, the coalition's executive director, said Nebraska child welfare workers too often see poverty in homes and assume the children are suffering from neglect.
Wexler said the glut of children becoming state wards led to high caseloads, which contributed to caseworker burnout and turnover that has destabilized the system. Costs have soared as well, and some children have had more than four caseworkers.
"Not only does Nebraska's obscene rate of removal do enormous harm to the children needlessly taken, it also overloads caseworkers so they have even less time to find children in real danger," Wexler said. "As a result, the take-the-child-and-run mentality which dominates Nebraska child welfare leaves all children less safe."
Richard Wexler, the group's executive director, says Nebraska social workers too often see poverty in homes and assume the children are suffering from neglect.
Melanie Williams-Smotherman, executive director of the Nebraska's Family Advocacy Movement, said the state's child welfare services are comprised of "career child savers" who use confidentiality and safety laws to pry children away from families.
"Their spirit is broken, their children have been harmed and alienated, and they have lost all necessary resources to remain stable and functioning," Williams-Smotherman said.
State child welfare officials said they are "on the same page" as the family advocates, and want to see fewer children taken from their homes. Lawmakers and child advocates have repeatedly criticized the state Department of Health and Human Services for failing to reduce caseloads and control costs.
Vicki Maca, who oversees the Division of Children and Family Services, said the state's Families Matter effort "is built on the goal of having fewer children in the state's care and serving them at home when it's safe to do so.
"We want a system that allows parents the opportunity to have access to services in their own community without state involvement," she said. "That is what our reform is all about."
Maca said the Department of Health and Human Services plans to apply for a federal waiver that would give the state more flexibility in how it uses child welfare dollars.
States are required to use most of the federal money for out-of-home services, which, according to some critics, creates a financial incentive to keep children in the system. Lawmakers and child advocates have pushed a measure that would require the department to apply for the waiver, which would free state officials to use the money for in-home services, such as parental counseling and substance abuse programs.
Child advocates have said Nebraska should seek the waiver right away, because states must compete for the waiver. Maca said the state needs to maximize the amount of waiver money the state can receive.
Nearly 8 out of 1,000 children were taken from their homes in Nebraska in 2010, compared with 3.4 nationally, the report found. The report also found a "racial bias" in foster care placements, with African-American children entering the system at a rate 3.4 times higher than the general population, and Native American children at 6.8 times greater.
Source http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/de2585a5c2254972946afca8e961d683/NE--Child-Welfare-Report/
LINCOLN, Neb. — Nebraska's attempt to reform its child welfare system this year fails to address the fact that too many children are yanked from their homes and kept in foster care, a national child advocacy group said Monday.
The National Coalition for Child Protection Reform criticized Nebraska's reform proposals in a biting new report, which blamed most of the state's problems on a "take the child and run" mentality that needlessly splits families apart.
Lawmakers are on the verge of passing child welfare measures this session that would scale back caseloads for social workers, create a child welfare watchdog that reports to the Legislature and end the state's experiment with privatized services in all but two Omaha-area counties.
But family advocates said most of the measures fail to address the core problems: Nebraska removes children from their homes at a rate twice the national average, and keeps a higher proportion of its children in foster care than any other state.
Nebraska state officials say they use an evidence-based tool to decide which children are safe and unsafe in their homes, and will work with families and community services when possible to keep them together.
Richard Wexler, the coalition's executive director, said Nebraska child welfare workers too often see poverty in homes and assume the children are suffering from neglect.
Wexler said the glut of children becoming state wards led to high caseloads, which contributed to caseworker burnout and turnover that has destabilized the system. Costs have soared as well, and some children have had more than four caseworkers.
"Not only does Nebraska's obscene rate of removal do enormous harm to the children needlessly taken, it also overloads caseworkers so they have even less time to find children in real danger," Wexler said. "As a result, the take-the-child-and-run mentality which dominates Nebraska child welfare leaves all children less safe."
Richard Wexler, the group's executive director, says Nebraska social workers too often see poverty in homes and assume the children are suffering from neglect.
Melanie Williams-Smotherman, executive director of the Nebraska's Family Advocacy Movement, said the state's child welfare services are comprised of "career child savers" who use confidentiality and safety laws to pry children away from families.
"Their spirit is broken, their children have been harmed and alienated, and they have lost all necessary resources to remain stable and functioning," Williams-Smotherman said.
State child welfare officials said they are "on the same page" as the family advocates, and want to see fewer children taken from their homes. Lawmakers and child advocates have repeatedly criticized the state Department of Health and Human Services for failing to reduce caseloads and control costs.
Vicki Maca, who oversees the Division of Children and Family Services, said the state's Families Matter effort "is built on the goal of having fewer children in the state's care and serving them at home when it's safe to do so.
"We want a system that allows parents the opportunity to have access to services in their own community without state involvement," she said. "That is what our reform is all about."
Maca said the Department of Health and Human Services plans to apply for a federal waiver that would give the state more flexibility in how it uses child welfare dollars.
States are required to use most of the federal money for out-of-home services, which, according to some critics, creates a financial incentive to keep children in the system. Lawmakers and child advocates have pushed a measure that would require the department to apply for the waiver, which would free state officials to use the money for in-home services, such as parental counseling and substance abuse programs.
Child advocates have said Nebraska should seek the waiver right away, because states must compete for the waiver. Maca said the state needs to maximize the amount of waiver money the state can receive.
Nearly 8 out of 1,000 children were taken from their homes in Nebraska in 2010, compared with 3.4 nationally, the report found. The report also found a "racial bias" in foster care placements, with African-American children entering the system at a rate 3.4 times higher than the general population, and Native American children at 6.8 times greater.
Source http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/de2585a5c2254972946afca8e961d683/NE--Child-Welfare-Report/
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Tell Congress Your Foster Care Horror Stories
Here's a very good blog we want to share with our readers.
http://beverlytran.blogspot.com/2012/03/tell-congress-your-foster-care-horror.html#axzz1omlKOygs
http://beverlytran.blogspot.com/2012/03/tell-congress-your-foster-care-horror.html#axzz1omlKOygs
Monday, March 5, 2012
Iowa settles suit over boy's foster care injuries
Associated Press
Iowa will pay $275,000 to settle a lawsuit brought against two state employees on behalf of a toddler who suffered brain damage from severe head injuries while in the state foster care system, according to records released this week.
The payment settles a lawsuit that alleged that an Iowa Department of Human Services worker and a supervisor were warned that Jayden Clark was suffering neglect and abuse while under the care of foster parents in Albia but failed to take action. Half of the money will be invested for the 4-year-old boy, who will get access when he turns 18, while his parents will get $15,000 apiece and his attorney will get $101,000 in fees.
The lawsuit in federal court continues against foster parents Jason and Christen Morgan, who have denied wrongdoing.
"We are satisfied with the way it came out. But because there is ongoing litigation against the foster parents, I really can't comment beyond that," said the boy's attorney, Jeffrey Lipman of Clive.
Authorities responded to the Morgans' home in February 2010 when Clark, then 2, was found unresponsive with extensive injuries to the head and were told he had fallen out of a bunk bed. Fighting for his life, the boy was treated for head trauma and a lacerated liver and was hospitalized and forced to undergo rehabilitation for months.
Local and state investigators conducted an extensive look into whether he was abused, but they filed no criminal charges. The lawsuit blames the foster parents' "abuse or neglect" for the injuries, without elaborating on how they occurred.
A DHS investigation resulted in a finding of confirmed child abuse that was not serious enough to be placed on the Child Abuse Registry, a designation used for cases involving a lack of proper supervision or physical abuse that was minor. In court documents, state lawyers said the finding was not for physical abuse and denied that "findings of neglect, as such, were made."
After the boy's hospitalization, child welfare officials removed his siblings from the home while then-Gov. Chet Culver expressed outrage and ordered an investigation.
The lawsuit alleges Clark's parents, Travis and April Clark, and a social worker started noticing significant black bruises across his forehead "from ear to ear" in January 2010 after he and three siblings were placed with the Morgans the prior month. The foster parents blamed his siblings for causing the bruises, but his parents and the social worker suspected abuse and reported it to the DHS worker and his supervisor, who failed to visit the home or conduct an investigation, the suit claims.
As the bruising got worse in following weeks, the social worker warned DHS about the "increased level of abuse and injury" and said the agency needed to consider removing him from the home, but no action was taken, the suit said. Clark's parents took photographs to document the bruising and also warned DHS, the lawsuit said.
Ultimately, Clark "suffered a closed head injury as a result of the abuse or neglect and has permanent brain damage," the lawsuit said. Lipman said the boy was now living with his parents, who are originally from Centerville, but he would not say where.
"He's always going to have some impairment from this," Lipman said.
In a memo made public with the details of the settlement, Assistant Attorney General Diane Stahle said the state decided on the cash payment after investigating the case and "balancing the likelihood of an adverse verdict against the likelihood of a defense verdict." The details were worked out during mediation, she wrote.
In court documents, state lawyers acknowledged DHS employees were twice told about the bruising to the boy but said that it was attributed to his siblings. The foster parents have denied they breached their duty to provide a safe environment for Jayden and also blamed his siblings for the bruises. Their attorney didn't return a phone message.
DHS spokesman Roger Munns declined comment on the case but said both employees named in the lawsuit remain in state employment, one by his agency and one by Iowa Workforce Development.
Source http://muscatinejournal.com/news/state-and-regional/iowa/iowa-settles-suit-over-boy-s-foster-care-injuries/article_9dba63e2-acd1-5f09-bed1-c08ea86c42ef.html
Iowa will pay $275,000 to settle a lawsuit brought against two state employees on behalf of a toddler who suffered brain damage from severe head injuries while in the state foster care system, according to records released this week.
The payment settles a lawsuit that alleged that an Iowa Department of Human Services worker and a supervisor were warned that Jayden Clark was suffering neglect and abuse while under the care of foster parents in Albia but failed to take action. Half of the money will be invested for the 4-year-old boy, who will get access when he turns 18, while his parents will get $15,000 apiece and his attorney will get $101,000 in fees.
The lawsuit in federal court continues against foster parents Jason and Christen Morgan, who have denied wrongdoing.
"We are satisfied with the way it came out. But because there is ongoing litigation against the foster parents, I really can't comment beyond that," said the boy's attorney, Jeffrey Lipman of Clive.
Authorities responded to the Morgans' home in February 2010 when Clark, then 2, was found unresponsive with extensive injuries to the head and were told he had fallen out of a bunk bed. Fighting for his life, the boy was treated for head trauma and a lacerated liver and was hospitalized and forced to undergo rehabilitation for months.
Local and state investigators conducted an extensive look into whether he was abused, but they filed no criminal charges. The lawsuit blames the foster parents' "abuse or neglect" for the injuries, without elaborating on how they occurred.
A DHS investigation resulted in a finding of confirmed child abuse that was not serious enough to be placed on the Child Abuse Registry, a designation used for cases involving a lack of proper supervision or physical abuse that was minor. In court documents, state lawyers said the finding was not for physical abuse and denied that "findings of neglect, as such, were made."
After the boy's hospitalization, child welfare officials removed his siblings from the home while then-Gov. Chet Culver expressed outrage and ordered an investigation.
The lawsuit alleges Clark's parents, Travis and April Clark, and a social worker started noticing significant black bruises across his forehead "from ear to ear" in January 2010 after he and three siblings were placed with the Morgans the prior month. The foster parents blamed his siblings for causing the bruises, but his parents and the social worker suspected abuse and reported it to the DHS worker and his supervisor, who failed to visit the home or conduct an investigation, the suit claims.
As the bruising got worse in following weeks, the social worker warned DHS about the "increased level of abuse and injury" and said the agency needed to consider removing him from the home, but no action was taken, the suit said. Clark's parents took photographs to document the bruising and also warned DHS, the lawsuit said.
Ultimately, Clark "suffered a closed head injury as a result of the abuse or neglect and has permanent brain damage," the lawsuit said. Lipman said the boy was now living with his parents, who are originally from Centerville, but he would not say where.
"He's always going to have some impairment from this," Lipman said.
In a memo made public with the details of the settlement, Assistant Attorney General Diane Stahle said the state decided on the cash payment after investigating the case and "balancing the likelihood of an adverse verdict against the likelihood of a defense verdict." The details were worked out during mediation, she wrote.
In court documents, state lawyers acknowledged DHS employees were twice told about the bruising to the boy but said that it was attributed to his siblings. The foster parents have denied they breached their duty to provide a safe environment for Jayden and also blamed his siblings for the bruises. Their attorney didn't return a phone message.
DHS spokesman Roger Munns declined comment on the case but said both employees named in the lawsuit remain in state employment, one by his agency and one by Iowa Workforce Development.
Source http://muscatinejournal.com/news/state-and-regional/iowa/iowa-settles-suit-over-boy-s-foster-care-injuries/article_9dba63e2-acd1-5f09-bed1-c08ea86c42ef.html
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
SD DSS and ACLU Director Issues
Blogger Note:
It would be intresting to know who much of this story may have to do with the following story below. It would be quite surprising if there is absolutely no connection but it appears that something fishy is going on.
---
Indian Child Welfare Act Violations Prompts ACLU Investigation Into South Dakota Foster Care System
ACLU Seeks Input from American Indian Families With Children in DSS
SIOUX FALLS, SD - The appalling treatment of American Indian children, family, and tribes by the South Dakota Department of Social Services as described in recent NPR News reports has prompted the ACLU of South Dakota to investigate the actions as violations of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA).
The NPR News series, "Native Foster Care: Lost Children, Shattered Families," explains how American Indian children represent more than half of all children in foster care, yet account for less than 15 percent of the state's total child population. The report also features interviews from tribal members who recall DSS officials driving onto the reservation, removing children from homes, and preventing contact with family.
The report describes several instances of ICWA violations, as well as blatant disregard of fundamental Constitutional norms and international human rights as affirmed by the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, according to Robert Doody Esq., Executive Director of the ACLU of South Dakota.
"The ACLU is firmly committed to addressing this most recent manifestation of racism and colonization in our state," Doody said. "It is shocking to see politicians and members of the government, who hold themselves out as "pro-family," react in utter contempt and callous disregard to the legitimate grievances of American Indians."
The ACLU of South Dakota wants to hear from American Indians who recently had children removed by DSS in order to ascertain the depth and breadth of the problem. Any American Indian with concerns regarding their experiences with or treatment by DSS should contact the ACLU at (605) 332-2508 or email southdakota@aclu.org.
###
Please direct media inquiries to Taté Walker, ACLU of South Dakota Communications Director: (605) 332-2508, (646) 421-9387 or twalker@aclu.org. For more information about the ACLU of South Dakota, visit www.aclusd.org, or find us on Facebook and Twitter.
http://www.aclusd.org/indian-child-welfare-act-violations-prompts-aclu-investigation-into-south-dakota-foster-care-system.html
It would be intresting to know who much of this story may have to do with the following story below. It would be quite surprising if there is absolutely no connection but it appears that something fishy is going on.
---
Indian Child Welfare Act Violations Prompts ACLU Investigation Into South Dakota Foster Care System
ACLU Seeks Input from American Indian Families With Children in DSS
SIOUX FALLS, SD - The appalling treatment of American Indian children, family, and tribes by the South Dakota Department of Social Services as described in recent NPR News reports has prompted the ACLU of South Dakota to investigate the actions as violations of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA).
The NPR News series, "Native Foster Care: Lost Children, Shattered Families," explains how American Indian children represent more than half of all children in foster care, yet account for less than 15 percent of the state's total child population. The report also features interviews from tribal members who recall DSS officials driving onto the reservation, removing children from homes, and preventing contact with family.
The report describes several instances of ICWA violations, as well as blatant disregard of fundamental Constitutional norms and international human rights as affirmed by the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, according to Robert Doody Esq., Executive Director of the ACLU of South Dakota.
"The ACLU is firmly committed to addressing this most recent manifestation of racism and colonization in our state," Doody said. "It is shocking to see politicians and members of the government, who hold themselves out as "pro-family," react in utter contempt and callous disregard to the legitimate grievances of American Indians."
The ACLU of South Dakota wants to hear from American Indians who recently had children removed by DSS in order to ascertain the depth and breadth of the problem. Any American Indian with concerns regarding their experiences with or treatment by DSS should contact the ACLU at (605) 332-2508 or email southdakota@aclu.org.
###
Please direct media inquiries to Taté Walker, ACLU of South Dakota Communications Director: (605) 332-2508, (646) 421-9387 or twalker@aclu.org. For more information about the ACLU of South Dakota, visit www.aclusd.org, or find us on Facebook and Twitter.
http://www.aclusd.org/indian-child-welfare-act-violations-prompts-aclu-investigation-into-south-dakota-foster-care-system.html
Monday, February 6, 2012
One-Time Religious Publisher, Foster Parent Charged With Sex Abuse Of Two Girls - Illinois
RIVER FOREST, Ill. (STMW) – A River Forest man who took in dozens of foster children since 1996 and volunteered with local youth groups was charged Friday with the sexual abuse of two girls.
Robert L. Gaskill, 63, of the 600 block of Ashland Ave., was ordered held Saturday in lieu of $50 million full cash bond by Judge Gregory P. Vasquez.
In bond court Saturday, prosecutors said Gaskill sexually abused two adolescent girls over a period from 1996 to 2009.
He is scheduled to be arraigned at 9 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 9, at the Maybrook Courthouse in Maywood. Sources said the case is expected to go to a grand jury for possible formal indictment.
A River Forest detective assisted by members of the WEDGE task force arrested Gaskill at his home Thursday. On Friday the Cook County State’s Attorney approved two counts of predatory criminal sexual assault, which is a Class X felony.
Gaskill and his wife have operated a foster care service in their large three-story frame home on Ashland Avenue, and a foster care support system called Tapestry Chicago. He also served on the board of the River Forest Youth Soccer program and was a program coordinator in the late 1990s.
Gaskill currently works as the marketing director at Lydia Home in Chicago, a residential facility for abused children. He previously worked for Mercy Home for Boys and Girls in Chicago.
Gaskill is also a former publisher of the Oak Leaves/Pioneer Press West Group, where he worked for 16 years until the mid 1980s. Following that, he was the president and publisher of Chicago Catholic Publications, which publishes the Chicago Archdiocese’s official newspaper, the New World.
Gaskill was not currently an employee of the Catholic New World or New World Publications, Archdiocese of Chicago spokeswoman Susan Burritt said Saturday. She did not immediately have any information on when he had served as publisher for Chicago Catholic Publications.
In a 2009 interview with the Forest Leaves, Gaskill said he and his wife had “been opening their home to foster children for about 15 years.” Many of them had disabilities of some kind.
He said he had fostered “about 75 different children over that time.”
In 2009, the Gaskills had 12 children, four biological, six adopted and two in foster care.
“Long before we got married, while we were dating, we both agreed we wanted to have large families,” Rob Gaskill said in 2009. “We thought it would be fun to have a lot of children.”
Source http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/02/04/one-time-religious-publisher-foster-parent-charged-with-sex-abuse-of-two-girls/
Robert L. Gaskill, 63, of the 600 block of Ashland Ave., was ordered held Saturday in lieu of $50 million full cash bond by Judge Gregory P. Vasquez.
In bond court Saturday, prosecutors said Gaskill sexually abused two adolescent girls over a period from 1996 to 2009.
He is scheduled to be arraigned at 9 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 9, at the Maybrook Courthouse in Maywood. Sources said the case is expected to go to a grand jury for possible formal indictment.
A River Forest detective assisted by members of the WEDGE task force arrested Gaskill at his home Thursday. On Friday the Cook County State’s Attorney approved two counts of predatory criminal sexual assault, which is a Class X felony.
Gaskill and his wife have operated a foster care service in their large three-story frame home on Ashland Avenue, and a foster care support system called Tapestry Chicago. He also served on the board of the River Forest Youth Soccer program and was a program coordinator in the late 1990s.
Gaskill currently works as the marketing director at Lydia Home in Chicago, a residential facility for abused children. He previously worked for Mercy Home for Boys and Girls in Chicago.
Gaskill is also a former publisher of the Oak Leaves/Pioneer Press West Group, where he worked for 16 years until the mid 1980s. Following that, he was the president and publisher of Chicago Catholic Publications, which publishes the Chicago Archdiocese’s official newspaper, the New World.
Gaskill was not currently an employee of the Catholic New World or New World Publications, Archdiocese of Chicago spokeswoman Susan Burritt said Saturday. She did not immediately have any information on when he had served as publisher for Chicago Catholic Publications.
In a 2009 interview with the Forest Leaves, Gaskill said he and his wife had “been opening their home to foster children for about 15 years.” Many of them had disabilities of some kind.
He said he had fostered “about 75 different children over that time.”
In 2009, the Gaskills had 12 children, four biological, six adopted and two in foster care.
“Long before we got married, while we were dating, we both agreed we wanted to have large families,” Rob Gaskill said in 2009. “We thought it would be fun to have a lot of children.”
Source http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/02/04/one-time-religious-publisher-foster-parent-charged-with-sex-abuse-of-two-girls/
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Friday, February 3, 2012
L.A. judge plans to open child dependency courts to press, public
The presiding judge of Los Angeles County’s juvenile court said Monday he would issue an order in the coming days that would increase access for the press and public in a branch of the legal system that handles child abuse and foster care cases.
Judge Michael Nash’s annoucement capped a hearing on his proposed order that drew an overflow crowd to hear a debate that had sharply divided many involved in the child welfare system.
Much of the debate since his proposal was floated in November centered on the perceived benefits or weaknesses of more openness, but Nash opened his hearing by saying he wanted to focus solely on existing law and stay clear of broader policy discussions.
“My purpose is to implement the statute that applies and the case law that applies,” Nash said.
Under his proposed order, the news media would be presumed to have a legitimate interest that would allow them to attend hearings. Other members of the public would have to demonstrate a legitimate interest or be present with the consent of the child or the child's attorney.
The news media and other members of the public could be barred from the courtroom but only after an objection is raised by one of the parties to the case. The objection would have to demonstrate that “there is a reasonable likelihood that access will be harmful to the child’s or children’s best interest.”
Kelli Sager, an attorney for the Los Angeles Times, said Nash’s proposed order finally provides a road map for judges who are attempting to implement a law that allows them to “admit such persons as he deems to have a direct and legitimate interest.”
“For 20 years,” she said, “there has been no process set up … and the process has been inconsistent or ad hoc at best.”
Leslie Starr Heimov, executive director of the Children’s Law Center of California, which represents the vast majority of children in the dependency system, said her firm continues to consider an appeal if the order is implemented. However, she said recent revisions “largely cured” her objections by raising the bar for non-news-media members of the public to remain in the courtroom.
Heimov said in an interview that her biggest remaining concern involves the hearings that would take place if an objection to public or news media attendance is raised. Such hearings should be closed to the public, she said, while lawyers argue about the potential harm to the child’s interests.
“Otherwise, we’re exposing the child to harm before the finding of the harm,” she said.
If that issue is resolved, she said her office may not appeal the order.
Source http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/01/judge-to-allow-public-access-to-dependency-court.html
Judge Michael Nash’s annoucement capped a hearing on his proposed order that drew an overflow crowd to hear a debate that had sharply divided many involved in the child welfare system.
Much of the debate since his proposal was floated in November centered on the perceived benefits or weaknesses of more openness, but Nash opened his hearing by saying he wanted to focus solely on existing law and stay clear of broader policy discussions.
“My purpose is to implement the statute that applies and the case law that applies,” Nash said.
Under his proposed order, the news media would be presumed to have a legitimate interest that would allow them to attend hearings. Other members of the public would have to demonstrate a legitimate interest or be present with the consent of the child or the child's attorney.
The news media and other members of the public could be barred from the courtroom but only after an objection is raised by one of the parties to the case. The objection would have to demonstrate that “there is a reasonable likelihood that access will be harmful to the child’s or children’s best interest.”
Kelli Sager, an attorney for the Los Angeles Times, said Nash’s proposed order finally provides a road map for judges who are attempting to implement a law that allows them to “admit such persons as he deems to have a direct and legitimate interest.”
“For 20 years,” she said, “there has been no process set up … and the process has been inconsistent or ad hoc at best.”
Leslie Starr Heimov, executive director of the Children’s Law Center of California, which represents the vast majority of children in the dependency system, said her firm continues to consider an appeal if the order is implemented. However, she said recent revisions “largely cured” her objections by raising the bar for non-news-media members of the public to remain in the courtroom.
Heimov said in an interview that her biggest remaining concern involves the hearings that would take place if an objection to public or news media attendance is raised. Such hearings should be closed to the public, she said, while lawyers argue about the potential harm to the child’s interests.
“Otherwise, we’re exposing the child to harm before the finding of the harm,” she said.
If that issue is resolved, she said her office may not appeal the order.
Source http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/01/judge-to-allow-public-access-to-dependency-court.html
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Budget Cuts Threaten Parental Rights - New Hampshire
By Dan Gorenstein
Until last July, when the state charged low-income parents with abuse or neglect of their children, the state provided them with a lawyer.
But to help balance the budget, that funding was eliminated.
New Hampshire is believed to be the only state in the country that’s ever taken such a step.
The people charged with enforcing the new policy are worried that it doesn’t serve parents or their children very well.
When Governor John Lynch and his staff were preparing his budget proposal last year, the governor made a decision.
He recommended the state cut the money to pay lawyers to represent parents in abuse and neglect cases.
The savings...$1.2 million dollars a year.
And with the Legislature in a race to balance the budget, lawmakers quickly accepted that plan along with millions of dollars worth of other cuts proposed by the governor.
That decision by Governor Lynch - made in some meeting at the statehouse in early 2011- is now playing out in court rooms like this.
“So Mr. ____ one of the topics that we are going to go through today is making sure you have an understanding of what the potential consequences of this type of case are to your parental rights and responsibilities.”
We’re in a preliminary hearing with Judge Susan Ashley in the Rochester Family Division Courthouse.
We masked any names to protect the identity of the father and his child.
Speaking to the father, a man we’ll call ‘Donald,’ the judge stressed just what’s at stake.
“Ultimately if the court made a decision that your parental rights should be terminated, it would be at that point, you would no longer have any legal rights, duties, or obligations with regard to ____. Do you understand that’s a potential consequence to this type of a cases?”
After the hearing Donald says he completely gets there’s a chance he could lose his 4-year old forever.
But what he needs to do to prevent that, he not sure at all.
“It’s all happening it pretty quick. And I having a hard time kind of processing everything that’s going on and knowing what’s going to go on.”
This is not a case of abuse...it’s neglect.
The 34-year-old father explains he doesn’t have any place for his child to live right now.
So, she’s headed to foster care.
Donald cuts trees for a living.
He has a thick bush of black beard.
A tattoo stretches across his collarbone, an ink necklace.
“What’s the highest level of education you have...10thgrade...you dropped out...yes. I have dyslexia, I have a hard time reading and writing.”
How hard?
Donald’s fiancé Megan points to the an ‘Emergency Exit’ sign
Donald can’t read it.
Megan says her fiancé is counting on her to help him through this process....help him go through all the paperwork.
The 21-year-old says she’s out of her league.
“I can read what’s on the paper...but I can’t explain what it means in layman’s terms. Just b/c I can read it, doesn’t mean I get it. B/c half the time, I don’t.”
Judges and lawyers know the 900-some cases they’ll likely see this year will have parents who are unfit to represent themselves.
And they don’t like it...it doesn’t fit their idea of justice.
“It’s like shooting fish in a barrel sometimes. And it’s not fun. It doesn’t make me feel good about doing my job.”
Peter Brunette is an attorney for the state.
His job is to argue against the parents.
“Without a lawyer, there’s no way they can navigate this system to ensure that their rights are being adequately protected. That’s the problem we are all struggling with right now.”
Lawyers and judges are bending over backwards, taking extra time with these cases.
A routine 10 minute hearings 8 months ago, now can take an hour.
It’s because people like Judge Ashley try to explain things simply, and answer question after question.
But Ashley says that may not be enough.
“It concerns me there are too many parents feeling isolated against a group of people who appear to be expert in these types of cases, who parents see as ‘on the other side.’”
Essentially, parents have 12 months to shape up and address the source of the neglect.
Sometimes that’s counseling for substance abuse, or mental illness, or getting out of a violent relationship.
But without a lawyer to navigate the process, Ashley thinks parents are more likely to get overwhelmed and give up.
“Suddenly those 12 months have slipped away. And we find ourselves at a permanency hearing where the parent hasn’t done what they needed to do to correct the conditions of neglect. So I worry that there are parents who may face petitions to terminate their parental rights when they may have had the ability to fix the situation.”
University of Michigan Law Professor Vivek Sankaran worries the state may get exactly what it would normally try to avoid – a generation of kids who grow up without their parents.
Sankaran is a leading expert on child advocacy in the courts.
“It just flies in the face of everything we know about child welfare practice and policy and how to make good decisions. What makes what happens in New Hampshire so striking, is that over the past 30 years the practice of child welfare has become much more sophisticated...and then you get this, where we’ve just reverted back to where we were in the 1960’s or the 1950’s.”
“You do the best you can with budgets. And budgets is about setting priorities.”
That’s Governor Lynch.
Lynch says New Hampshire continues to fund lawyers for parents if the state files a termination of parental rights case.
That’s that step after parents were given the 12 months to correct their problems.
It’s widely believed that by the time the state files a termination of parental rights, it’s too late to reunite parent with child.
But the governor says he stands by his decision.
“A budget is about making tough choices. And that’s what we had to do with the budget we proposed.”
Donald and Megan feel they’re not going to get much sympathy from people like Governor Lynch and lawmakers in Concord.
“I think people just look at people who are losing their kids, people just look at them like they are scumbags....I don’t think people understand it ain’t always due to abuse or anything like that. Sometimes it’s over financial problems why they need help.”
“The people in Concord don’t care...They go home every night to their kids and wife and their husband and live the life that they want. But they have people like us sitting here, not knowing what’s going to happen tomorrow. Ever. They don’t have that. I wish they would just live in people’s shoes who don’t have everything and that can’t figure it out as easily as they can.”
Lawyers representing parents are taking this to the state Supreme Court.
Oral arguments on the constitutionality of this budget cut are expected sometime this spring.
By the time the case is settled, the window for Donald to reunite with his 4-year-old could be closed.
Source http://www.nhpr.org/post/budget-cuts-threaten-parental-rights
Until last July, when the state charged low-income parents with abuse or neglect of their children, the state provided them with a lawyer.
But to help balance the budget, that funding was eliminated.
New Hampshire is believed to be the only state in the country that’s ever taken such a step.
The people charged with enforcing the new policy are worried that it doesn’t serve parents or their children very well.
When Governor John Lynch and his staff were preparing his budget proposal last year, the governor made a decision.
He recommended the state cut the money to pay lawyers to represent parents in abuse and neglect cases.
The savings...$1.2 million dollars a year.
And with the Legislature in a race to balance the budget, lawmakers quickly accepted that plan along with millions of dollars worth of other cuts proposed by the governor.
That decision by Governor Lynch - made in some meeting at the statehouse in early 2011- is now playing out in court rooms like this.
“So Mr. ____ one of the topics that we are going to go through today is making sure you have an understanding of what the potential consequences of this type of case are to your parental rights and responsibilities.”
We’re in a preliminary hearing with Judge Susan Ashley in the Rochester Family Division Courthouse.
We masked any names to protect the identity of the father and his child.
Speaking to the father, a man we’ll call ‘Donald,’ the judge stressed just what’s at stake.
“Ultimately if the court made a decision that your parental rights should be terminated, it would be at that point, you would no longer have any legal rights, duties, or obligations with regard to ____. Do you understand that’s a potential consequence to this type of a cases?”
After the hearing Donald says he completely gets there’s a chance he could lose his 4-year old forever.
But what he needs to do to prevent that, he not sure at all.
“It’s all happening it pretty quick. And I having a hard time kind of processing everything that’s going on and knowing what’s going to go on.”
This is not a case of abuse...it’s neglect.
The 34-year-old father explains he doesn’t have any place for his child to live right now.
So, she’s headed to foster care.
Donald cuts trees for a living.
He has a thick bush of black beard.
A tattoo stretches across his collarbone, an ink necklace.
“What’s the highest level of education you have...10thgrade...you dropped out...yes. I have dyslexia, I have a hard time reading and writing.”
How hard?
Donald’s fiancé Megan points to the an ‘Emergency Exit’ sign
Donald can’t read it.
Megan says her fiancé is counting on her to help him through this process....help him go through all the paperwork.
The 21-year-old says she’s out of her league.
“I can read what’s on the paper...but I can’t explain what it means in layman’s terms. Just b/c I can read it, doesn’t mean I get it. B/c half the time, I don’t.”
Judges and lawyers know the 900-some cases they’ll likely see this year will have parents who are unfit to represent themselves.
And they don’t like it...it doesn’t fit their idea of justice.
“It’s like shooting fish in a barrel sometimes. And it’s not fun. It doesn’t make me feel good about doing my job.”
Peter Brunette is an attorney for the state.
His job is to argue against the parents.
“Without a lawyer, there’s no way they can navigate this system to ensure that their rights are being adequately protected. That’s the problem we are all struggling with right now.”
Lawyers and judges are bending over backwards, taking extra time with these cases.
A routine 10 minute hearings 8 months ago, now can take an hour.
It’s because people like Judge Ashley try to explain things simply, and answer question after question.
But Ashley says that may not be enough.
“It concerns me there are too many parents feeling isolated against a group of people who appear to be expert in these types of cases, who parents see as ‘on the other side.’”
Essentially, parents have 12 months to shape up and address the source of the neglect.
Sometimes that’s counseling for substance abuse, or mental illness, or getting out of a violent relationship.
But without a lawyer to navigate the process, Ashley thinks parents are more likely to get overwhelmed and give up.
“Suddenly those 12 months have slipped away. And we find ourselves at a permanency hearing where the parent hasn’t done what they needed to do to correct the conditions of neglect. So I worry that there are parents who may face petitions to terminate their parental rights when they may have had the ability to fix the situation.”
University of Michigan Law Professor Vivek Sankaran worries the state may get exactly what it would normally try to avoid – a generation of kids who grow up without their parents.
Sankaran is a leading expert on child advocacy in the courts.
“It just flies in the face of everything we know about child welfare practice and policy and how to make good decisions. What makes what happens in New Hampshire so striking, is that over the past 30 years the practice of child welfare has become much more sophisticated...and then you get this, where we’ve just reverted back to where we were in the 1960’s or the 1950’s.”
“You do the best you can with budgets. And budgets is about setting priorities.”
That’s Governor Lynch.
Lynch says New Hampshire continues to fund lawyers for parents if the state files a termination of parental rights case.
That’s that step after parents were given the 12 months to correct their problems.
It’s widely believed that by the time the state files a termination of parental rights, it’s too late to reunite parent with child.
But the governor says he stands by his decision.
“A budget is about making tough choices. And that’s what we had to do with the budget we proposed.”
Donald and Megan feel they’re not going to get much sympathy from people like Governor Lynch and lawmakers in Concord.
“I think people just look at people who are losing their kids, people just look at them like they are scumbags....I don’t think people understand it ain’t always due to abuse or anything like that. Sometimes it’s over financial problems why they need help.”
“The people in Concord don’t care...They go home every night to their kids and wife and their husband and live the life that they want. But they have people like us sitting here, not knowing what’s going to happen tomorrow. Ever. They don’t have that. I wish they would just live in people’s shoes who don’t have everything and that can’t figure it out as easily as they can.”
Lawyers representing parents are taking this to the state Supreme Court.
Oral arguments on the constitutionality of this budget cut are expected sometime this spring.
By the time the case is settled, the window for Donald to reunite with his 4-year-old could be closed.
Source http://www.nhpr.org/post/budget-cuts-threaten-parental-rights
Monday, January 23, 2012
Star Watch: Could deaths of Indiana children have been prevented?
Bogger note:
Sometimes parents are at fault in child abuse and neglect cases. In many of those cases, CPS fails the children for a number of reasons, none of which are reasonable or make any kind of sense - simply - CPS failed. It's a shame that children who are in truly abusive homes are suffering which sometimes leads to their death whild children who are not in abusive homes are kidnapped by CPS and sold to the highest bidder. Seems that CPS should stop the baby selling business and focus on the job that they were originally intended to do - protecting children. We question if CPS has any idea how to do their jobs and how they deem homes safe and etc. Seems that they fail miserably at their job.
---
Investigation raises questions about whether Department of Child Services could have done more to protect kids
Written by Tim Evans
Taylor Creech, 5 months old.
Nygell Easter, 6 months old.
Julian Hurley, 4 years old.
Devin Parsons, 12 years old.
Tramelle Sturgis, 10 years old.
Irdessa Vazquez, 6 months old.
Six Hoosier children -- white, black and Hispanic, from small towns and big cities. All dead.
Their short, disparate lives are connected by one common thread: the Indiana Department of Child Services.
Before each of these children died last year, concerns about their care and treatment were reported -- repeatedly, in some cases -- to the state agency responsible for investigating allegations of child abuse and neglect.
In some cases, DCS determined the allegations did not merit an investigation. In others, the agency opened investigations but was unable to make contact with the family or found no problems -- case closed. And in two of the deaths, DCS had open cases at the time the children were killed.
But in each case -- and despite evidence of mounting trouble -- DCS ultimately left the children with their parents.
The 2011 fatalities uncovered by The Indianapolis Star raise questions about the quality of the agency's investigations and safety assessments, as well as with the services provided to struggling families.
It is not child deaths alone, however, that suggest lingering problems. There are other troubling indicators that the system is still failing too many Hoosier children:
The rate at which children suffer repeat abuse or neglect within six months of a DCS intervention -- a telling and nationally recognized measure -- remains basically unchanged from 2004 at about 8 percent. The federal government has a target standard of 5.4 percent, which 27 states met in 2010. Twelve states had a higher re-abuse rate than Indiana.
Despite a significant increase in the number of reports made to DCS, the agency is investigating a smaller percentage of the reports it receives -- and it is substantiating a smaller percentage of the cases that are investigated.
Altogether, the issues raise serious questions about the ambitious and costly reform project initiated in 2005 by Gov. Mitch Daniels to fix Indiana's long-troubled child welfare system and protect vulnerable children.
Despite hiring nearly 800 new field workers, setting caseload limits and expanding training, it is not clear that children involved with DCS are any safer now than they were before the overhaul.
"Clearly," said state Sen. Jean Breaux, D-Indianapolis, "the system is still broken."
In a written response to questions submitted by The Star, DCS spokeswoman Ann Houseworth disagreed.
"We are providing better outcomes for kids," she said.
Houseworth cited the added caseworkers, a centralized call center that provides uniformity in response to reports of abuse and neglect, a reduction in the number of children placed outside of their homes, and a decrease in the number of children who languish in the system for years with no permanent homes.
The agency's work was honored last week by Casey Family Programs for excellence in leadership, in part because of its efforts to decrease the number of children in institutional and foster care.
The approach DCS calls "Safely Home-Families First" is a concept that is gaining acceptance in child welfare circles across the country. It is based on research that shows the trauma of being torn from family can be as devastating to a child as some forms of neglect and abuse.
The key to success in the "family preservation" approach, according to experts, is making sure that there is a thorough and accurate assessment of a family's challenges and strengths -- and that adequate services are available to ensure that the problems of parents are addressed so their children can safely remain at home.
Houseworth acknowledged "DCS is concerned" about its inability to reduce the re-abuse rate but said the agency has no control over the behavior of parents once a case is closed.
Others have an idea why the rate hasn't budged.
Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, is an outspoken proponent of keeping families together while working through their problems. He said the state's inability to reduce re-abuse indicates DCS is not providing adequate or appropriate services to families.
"The question is: What is DCS doing before a case is closed?" he said. "It sounds to me like DCS lacked the competence to build the programs that are needed."
Intensive services that are proven to keep children safe don't come cheap, Wexler said.
That said, DCS officials have given back $320 million since 2009 to the state treasury -- including $103 million in 2011.
That was money lawmakers earmarked to help abused and neglected children but instead was used, at the governor's urging, to help bolster the state's balance sheet during the economic downturn. And it happened as reports of abuse and neglect increased in the state.
"The money DCS 'threw away' may well have helped children and families," Wexler said, "if it had been spent for the right kinds of programs."
Houseworth said returning the money has not caused children to suffer.
"Our goal is not just to spend money on services," she said. "We're charged with providing appropriate services children need and at the same time use our dollars wisely."
How that money is spent to help families is determined by a team -- which includes DCS staff, family members and local service providers -- that works to identify the kinds of help a troubled family needs.
The bulk of the money that was returned by DCS was not the result of skimping on those types of services, Houseworth said. Rather, it was not needed because of the significant savings provided by slashing the number of children placed in residential facilities. The cost for such services can run as high as $100,000 a year per child.
But state Rep. William Crawford, D-Indianapolis, said common sense makes him think some of the cases in which children died -- and many others across the state where children suffered repeat abuse and neglect -- might have turned out differently if DCS had used more of the money to better monitor and help those families.
"Their mantra is that they are doing more with less," he said, "but that doesn't appear to be working for the children."
Crawford has filed legislation to create a Commission on Improving the Status of Children, which would monitor and review state services and programs -- including those of DCS -- and produce an annual report detailing the state's successes and shortcomings.
"You have to wonder," said Crawford, "if (DCS) didn't put vulnerable children in jeopardy just so the governor could say 'look at what the state has in the bank' when he leaves office."
Breaux also questioned whether the agency's budget decisions have been in the best interest of children and families.
"It just breaks my heart when I hear those stories about children dying," she said. "It seems to me that DCS would want to keep as many dollars as it could to protect and help children."
How were concerns handled?
Each of the six deaths investigated by The Star highlights one or more continuing concerns about the agency's work.
There are likely many other victims. The Star's investigation has found at least 17 other deaths over the past five years -- DCS says that's not something the agency tracks -- including many that revealed the same problems that showed up in the 2011 cases.
Clearly, DCS is not solely responsible for the deaths; it was the abuse and neglect that killed the children. But there had been desperate cries for help calling these very children and adults to the attention of DCS.
The death of Devin Parsons, a Greensburg boy who had just completed the fourth grade, raises questions about the agency's increasing push to leave children with troubled parents and the quality of services DCS provides to those families.
Devin's mother had been investigated for allegations of abuse or neglect at least 18 times since Devin was born in 1999, including nine reports in the last year of his life. The agency repeatedly ordered Tasha Parsons to participate in counseling and other services but never removed Devin or his siblings -- even after the Greensburg boy told a caseworker in April that he was afraid to go back home.
A little more than one month later, police say, Devin was savagely beaten to death by his mother and her boyfriend.
The death of Nygell Easter in Indianapolis raises questions about the sufficiency of DCS investigations at a time when the agency is citing parents in a smaller percentage of the reports it investigates.
Nygell was 3 months old when he ended up at an Indianapolis hospital in December 2010. Medical personnel suspected abuse and called DCS. The agency opened an investigation. But it was closed with an "unsubstantiated" finding in January 2011 after the family blamed Nygell's older brother for the injury.
Less than two months later, Nygell was dead. Once again, his family tried to blame Nygell's fatal head injury on his 1-year-old brother. An investigation by police and the coroner, however, determined the injury could not have happened the way the family described, and his father -- who was convicted one year earlier for sexual misconduct with a minor -- faces murder charges.
The death of Taylor Creech in Columbia City raises questions about the urgency and tenacity with which DCS investigates reports, and also the agency's collaboration with law enforcement.
Before Taylor was born, family members said DCS had removed two of Janele Creech's other children because of her drug use. In November 2010, Janele's sisters turned to Janele's probation officer and DCS, reporting Taylor was in danger because their sister was making and using methamphetamine around her new baby.
They said the report prompted DCS to send a caseworker to Creech's home. But when no one answered the door, the worker left a card with a note asking Creech to call the agency. She didn't. Instead, Creech basically went into hiding, avoiding contact with her family.
Creech subsequently failed a mandatory probation department drug test on Dec. 23, 2010, but a warrant for her arrest was not issued for an additional week -- and probation officials apparently did not notify DCS.
Three days after a judge issued the warrant for Creech's arrest, she still had not been picked up for the probation violation or contacted by DCS -- and Taylor was dead.
The coroner told her aunts the baby died after a case of bronchitis. Creech had allowed it to go untreated while trying to avoid authorities, and it developed into sepsis. That condition pushed poisons into Taylor's bloodstream, contributing to her suffocation as she slept on a sofa with Creech's boyfriend.
"You hear all the time that if you suspect abuse or neglect, you need to report it," said Taylor's aunt, Michele Freewalt, who went to the Whitley County DCS office to report her fears for the baby.
"But it didn't do us any good. That's what makes me the most angry: We did exactly what we were supposed to do, and they dropped the ball."
The death of Tramelle Sturgis in South Bend also raises questions about the quality of DCS assessments.
A caseworker investigated a report in May that Tramelle's father and grandmother were beating children in the home with a wooden club -- a very specific allegation. But the DCS investigator reported on June 20 that there was no evidence of abuse.
Five months later, Tramelle, 10, was dead. A police investigation revealed the boy "suffered from numerous injuries, both old and new," according to court documents.
The final, fatal beating, investigators allege, was administered by his father. Tramelle was beaten to death with a wooden club.
Source http://www.indystar.com/article/20120122/LOCAL/201220337/Star-Watch-Could-deaths-Indiana-children-been-prevented-?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7CIndyStar.com
Sometimes parents are at fault in child abuse and neglect cases. In many of those cases, CPS fails the children for a number of reasons, none of which are reasonable or make any kind of sense - simply - CPS failed. It's a shame that children who are in truly abusive homes are suffering which sometimes leads to their death whild children who are not in abusive homes are kidnapped by CPS and sold to the highest bidder. Seems that CPS should stop the baby selling business and focus on the job that they were originally intended to do - protecting children. We question if CPS has any idea how to do their jobs and how they deem homes safe and etc. Seems that they fail miserably at their job.
---
Investigation raises questions about whether Department of Child Services could have done more to protect kids
Written by Tim Evans
Taylor Creech, 5 months old.
Nygell Easter, 6 months old.
Julian Hurley, 4 years old.
Devin Parsons, 12 years old.
Tramelle Sturgis, 10 years old.
Irdessa Vazquez, 6 months old.
Six Hoosier children -- white, black and Hispanic, from small towns and big cities. All dead.
Their short, disparate lives are connected by one common thread: the Indiana Department of Child Services.
Before each of these children died last year, concerns about their care and treatment were reported -- repeatedly, in some cases -- to the state agency responsible for investigating allegations of child abuse and neglect.
In some cases, DCS determined the allegations did not merit an investigation. In others, the agency opened investigations but was unable to make contact with the family or found no problems -- case closed. And in two of the deaths, DCS had open cases at the time the children were killed.
But in each case -- and despite evidence of mounting trouble -- DCS ultimately left the children with their parents.
The 2011 fatalities uncovered by The Indianapolis Star raise questions about the quality of the agency's investigations and safety assessments, as well as with the services provided to struggling families.
It is not child deaths alone, however, that suggest lingering problems. There are other troubling indicators that the system is still failing too many Hoosier children:
The rate at which children suffer repeat abuse or neglect within six months of a DCS intervention -- a telling and nationally recognized measure -- remains basically unchanged from 2004 at about 8 percent. The federal government has a target standard of 5.4 percent, which 27 states met in 2010. Twelve states had a higher re-abuse rate than Indiana.
Despite a significant increase in the number of reports made to DCS, the agency is investigating a smaller percentage of the reports it receives -- and it is substantiating a smaller percentage of the cases that are investigated.
Altogether, the issues raise serious questions about the ambitious and costly reform project initiated in 2005 by Gov. Mitch Daniels to fix Indiana's long-troubled child welfare system and protect vulnerable children.
Despite hiring nearly 800 new field workers, setting caseload limits and expanding training, it is not clear that children involved with DCS are any safer now than they were before the overhaul.
"Clearly," said state Sen. Jean Breaux, D-Indianapolis, "the system is still broken."
In a written response to questions submitted by The Star, DCS spokeswoman Ann Houseworth disagreed.
"We are providing better outcomes for kids," she said.
Houseworth cited the added caseworkers, a centralized call center that provides uniformity in response to reports of abuse and neglect, a reduction in the number of children placed outside of their homes, and a decrease in the number of children who languish in the system for years with no permanent homes.
The agency's work was honored last week by Casey Family Programs for excellence in leadership, in part because of its efforts to decrease the number of children in institutional and foster care.
The approach DCS calls "Safely Home-Families First" is a concept that is gaining acceptance in child welfare circles across the country. It is based on research that shows the trauma of being torn from family can be as devastating to a child as some forms of neglect and abuse.
The key to success in the "family preservation" approach, according to experts, is making sure that there is a thorough and accurate assessment of a family's challenges and strengths -- and that adequate services are available to ensure that the problems of parents are addressed so their children can safely remain at home.
Houseworth acknowledged "DCS is concerned" about its inability to reduce the re-abuse rate but said the agency has no control over the behavior of parents once a case is closed.
Others have an idea why the rate hasn't budged.
Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, is an outspoken proponent of keeping families together while working through their problems. He said the state's inability to reduce re-abuse indicates DCS is not providing adequate or appropriate services to families.
"The question is: What is DCS doing before a case is closed?" he said. "It sounds to me like DCS lacked the competence to build the programs that are needed."
Intensive services that are proven to keep children safe don't come cheap, Wexler said.
That said, DCS officials have given back $320 million since 2009 to the state treasury -- including $103 million in 2011.
That was money lawmakers earmarked to help abused and neglected children but instead was used, at the governor's urging, to help bolster the state's balance sheet during the economic downturn. And it happened as reports of abuse and neglect increased in the state.
"The money DCS 'threw away' may well have helped children and families," Wexler said, "if it had been spent for the right kinds of programs."
Houseworth said returning the money has not caused children to suffer.
"Our goal is not just to spend money on services," she said. "We're charged with providing appropriate services children need and at the same time use our dollars wisely."
How that money is spent to help families is determined by a team -- which includes DCS staff, family members and local service providers -- that works to identify the kinds of help a troubled family needs.
The bulk of the money that was returned by DCS was not the result of skimping on those types of services, Houseworth said. Rather, it was not needed because of the significant savings provided by slashing the number of children placed in residential facilities. The cost for such services can run as high as $100,000 a year per child.
But state Rep. William Crawford, D-Indianapolis, said common sense makes him think some of the cases in which children died -- and many others across the state where children suffered repeat abuse and neglect -- might have turned out differently if DCS had used more of the money to better monitor and help those families.
"Their mantra is that they are doing more with less," he said, "but that doesn't appear to be working for the children."
Crawford has filed legislation to create a Commission on Improving the Status of Children, which would monitor and review state services and programs -- including those of DCS -- and produce an annual report detailing the state's successes and shortcomings.
"You have to wonder," said Crawford, "if (DCS) didn't put vulnerable children in jeopardy just so the governor could say 'look at what the state has in the bank' when he leaves office."
Breaux also questioned whether the agency's budget decisions have been in the best interest of children and families.
"It just breaks my heart when I hear those stories about children dying," she said. "It seems to me that DCS would want to keep as many dollars as it could to protect and help children."
How were concerns handled?
Each of the six deaths investigated by The Star highlights one or more continuing concerns about the agency's work.
There are likely many other victims. The Star's investigation has found at least 17 other deaths over the past five years -- DCS says that's not something the agency tracks -- including many that revealed the same problems that showed up in the 2011 cases.
Clearly, DCS is not solely responsible for the deaths; it was the abuse and neglect that killed the children. But there had been desperate cries for help calling these very children and adults to the attention of DCS.
The death of Devin Parsons, a Greensburg boy who had just completed the fourth grade, raises questions about the agency's increasing push to leave children with troubled parents and the quality of services DCS provides to those families.
Devin's mother had been investigated for allegations of abuse or neglect at least 18 times since Devin was born in 1999, including nine reports in the last year of his life. The agency repeatedly ordered Tasha Parsons to participate in counseling and other services but never removed Devin or his siblings -- even after the Greensburg boy told a caseworker in April that he was afraid to go back home.
A little more than one month later, police say, Devin was savagely beaten to death by his mother and her boyfriend.
The death of Nygell Easter in Indianapolis raises questions about the sufficiency of DCS investigations at a time when the agency is citing parents in a smaller percentage of the reports it investigates.
Nygell was 3 months old when he ended up at an Indianapolis hospital in December 2010. Medical personnel suspected abuse and called DCS. The agency opened an investigation. But it was closed with an "unsubstantiated" finding in January 2011 after the family blamed Nygell's older brother for the injury.
Less than two months later, Nygell was dead. Once again, his family tried to blame Nygell's fatal head injury on his 1-year-old brother. An investigation by police and the coroner, however, determined the injury could not have happened the way the family described, and his father -- who was convicted one year earlier for sexual misconduct with a minor -- faces murder charges.
The death of Taylor Creech in Columbia City raises questions about the urgency and tenacity with which DCS investigates reports, and also the agency's collaboration with law enforcement.
Before Taylor was born, family members said DCS had removed two of Janele Creech's other children because of her drug use. In November 2010, Janele's sisters turned to Janele's probation officer and DCS, reporting Taylor was in danger because their sister was making and using methamphetamine around her new baby.
They said the report prompted DCS to send a caseworker to Creech's home. But when no one answered the door, the worker left a card with a note asking Creech to call the agency. She didn't. Instead, Creech basically went into hiding, avoiding contact with her family.
Creech subsequently failed a mandatory probation department drug test on Dec. 23, 2010, but a warrant for her arrest was not issued for an additional week -- and probation officials apparently did not notify DCS.
Three days after a judge issued the warrant for Creech's arrest, she still had not been picked up for the probation violation or contacted by DCS -- and Taylor was dead.
The coroner told her aunts the baby died after a case of bronchitis. Creech had allowed it to go untreated while trying to avoid authorities, and it developed into sepsis. That condition pushed poisons into Taylor's bloodstream, contributing to her suffocation as she slept on a sofa with Creech's boyfriend.
"You hear all the time that if you suspect abuse or neglect, you need to report it," said Taylor's aunt, Michele Freewalt, who went to the Whitley County DCS office to report her fears for the baby.
"But it didn't do us any good. That's what makes me the most angry: We did exactly what we were supposed to do, and they dropped the ball."
The death of Tramelle Sturgis in South Bend also raises questions about the quality of DCS assessments.
A caseworker investigated a report in May that Tramelle's father and grandmother were beating children in the home with a wooden club -- a very specific allegation. But the DCS investigator reported on June 20 that there was no evidence of abuse.
Five months later, Tramelle, 10, was dead. A police investigation revealed the boy "suffered from numerous injuries, both old and new," according to court documents.
The final, fatal beating, investigators allege, was administered by his father. Tramelle was beaten to death with a wooden club.
Source http://www.indystar.com/article/20120122/LOCAL/201220337/Star-Watch-Could-deaths-Indiana-children-been-prevented-?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7CIndyStar.com
Friday, January 20, 2012
Young mom refuses to give up on children - Washington DC
by Valencia Mohammed
This holiday season was the greatest celebration ever when Jewel Stroman, 23, finally got her daughter back from DC Child and Family Services Administration (CFSA). It has been 15 long months since the mother and child have spent time together as a family.
“This was long overdue. It feels good to be able to raise my own child once again. It’s a joy I can’t express in simple terms,” said Stroman. Her struggles of trying to keep her family intact date back years ago when Stroman was a teen mom.
In 2005, Stroman approached the AFRO about the struggles she faced trying to get her son out of foster care. Her father, Bruce Smith, suffering from kidney failure, placed his daughter and three-month old grandson in the Montgomery County Child and Family Services.
“I was advised to do so by social services because they thought I was going to die,” said Smith. His chances for survival were very slim at the time with no apparent kidney donor. He was on the transplant list for four years.
“I thought it was the right decision at that time. I had no idea that it would haunt me for the rest of my life and prove detrimental for me as a grandparent,” Smith said.
Stroman was released by the system on her 18th birthday, but her son remained. She filed a lawsuit, went to trial and won. But the scrutiny of the system of the teen mom did not stop there.
Hoping that a change of venue would make a difference, in 2006, Stroman moved to southeast Washington, got her own apartment and a job.
In 2007, Stroman became pregnant with a second son. In that year, she and the baby’s father were involved in a domestic quarrel. Both Stroman and the child’s father were locked up overnight. Instead of the police contacting her father or next of kin, child protective services was called and her eldest son was taken away. She felt the system was punishing her for outsmarting it years ago. Her eldest child is up for adoption. Although Stroman’s father was capable to raise the child after he received a kidney transplant, both systems denied him the right because he placed him in foster care years ago.
“I’m good enough to have my grandson for weekends and summertime visits but not good enough to raise him as his blood relative,” said Smith.
Stroman felt hopeless. “It’s like the system can get away with whatever it wants and as a young mother, you have no rights. No reunification was ever offered,” said Stroman.
While Stroman fought vigorously, other events affected her life. Her son’s placement didn’t stop her from loving him. She filed a complaint against CFSA when her son broke his femur under the watch of a foster care parent.
“If I didn’t bring it up, CFSA wouldn’t have done anything about it. No one punished the system for allowing this to happen,” said Stroman.
After the second child was born Stroman worked in Virginia and asked her second son’s aunt to take care of the child during the week. One Friday, when she came to get her son, the aunt refused to give him up. The aunt filed for custody with CFSA testifying on the aunt’s behalf using the Montgomery County case and removal of the first child as reasons for kinship custody. The baby’s father signed over his rights to his aunt. However, neither the court nor CFSA contacted the mother about the hearing until it was over.
“If I knew that overnight care with a family member would result in complete loss of my child, I would have placed him in kiddycare that had night hours. People have no idea how the system can work against a young mother,” said Stroman. The court order gave supervised visitation to Stroman but it has not been enforced. “I haven’t seen him in four years. Whenever I bring it up to the judge, nothing is done. It’s like he was legally stolen from me,” Stroman said.
Court officials said it provides attorneys for all parents to ensure that their rights are protected. “Federal and DC law and court rules require that reasonable efforts be made to keep the family intact.” said Leah Gurowitz, public information officer for the DC Superior Court.
But Stroman said the court ignored her requests through the attorney. So she kept filing complaints and her own lawsuits.
But the drama didn’t stop there. In 2008, Stroman was sentenced to 90 days in jail for articulating a threat to the 31-year old mother of her third boyfriend who refused to return Stroman’s car so she could get to work. She lost her apartment. Although the charges were dropped after Stroman successfully completed the terms of her probation, the conviction has been used against her numerous times in court proceedings.
In 2009, Stroman was pregnant with her third child. In February, 2010, the father of her second child was killed. The father of the third child was convicted of carjacking and is currently serving long term prison sentence.
Stroman joined a transitional housing program. One of the caseworkers was caught using the personal identifiable information of the clients to obtain credit cards, loans and cashed the money orders paid for rent. When Stroman reported the caseworker to authorities and confronted the culprit, she was given a two-hour notice to vacate.
Police illegally evicted Stroman with her daughter in the rain. The next day Stroman filed a complaint in court and the judge ordered her return to the premises. Stroman’s daughter caught pneumonia from the incident and was hospitalized. It was this incident that led to CFSA removing her daughter from the home claiming that the mother was negligent for not taking the child to a pediatric developmental evaluation.
“CFSA removes children when they can't be safe at home. In the vast majority of cases, the initial goal is reunification. To achieve that, parents must fulfill requirements of a case plan designed to reduce risk and increase safety. After a removal, parents have to meet requirements to get their children back,” said Mindy Good, public information officer for CFSA.
Stroman continued her quest to be a mother. At Stroman’s behest, the daughter was removed from two foster care families for extreme negligence. She filed four lawsuits and numerous complaints to the chief judge about illegal behavior of the family court judge who denied her legal rights for opportunities to reunify with her children.
To get custody of her daughter, Stroman was required to complete mental health evaluation, psychotherapy and anger management sessions, parenting classes, supervised visits, weekly urines, court proceedings, job placement program, maintain housing and attend bi-monthly meetings with caseworkers for reunification. The process was completed in February 2011 yet the daughter remained in the system until Dec. 16 of the same year.
Stroman’s complaints fell on deaf ears until recently. Stroman has received notification from the DC Superior Court family court monitor and CFSA citizens’ review board that they will examine her complaints.
“There’s no telling how many more mothers have been victimized by this system,” Stroman said.
Currently, there are over 4,000 children involved in court supervision and CFSA monitoring in the District. Stroman said, “It’s like this is a business of baby snatchers.”
Source http://www.afro.com/sections/news/Washington/story.htm?storyid=73796
This holiday season was the greatest celebration ever when Jewel Stroman, 23, finally got her daughter back from DC Child and Family Services Administration (CFSA). It has been 15 long months since the mother and child have spent time together as a family.
“This was long overdue. It feels good to be able to raise my own child once again. It’s a joy I can’t express in simple terms,” said Stroman. Her struggles of trying to keep her family intact date back years ago when Stroman was a teen mom.
In 2005, Stroman approached the AFRO about the struggles she faced trying to get her son out of foster care. Her father, Bruce Smith, suffering from kidney failure, placed his daughter and three-month old grandson in the Montgomery County Child and Family Services.
“I was advised to do so by social services because they thought I was going to die,” said Smith. His chances for survival were very slim at the time with no apparent kidney donor. He was on the transplant list for four years.
“I thought it was the right decision at that time. I had no idea that it would haunt me for the rest of my life and prove detrimental for me as a grandparent,” Smith said.
Stroman was released by the system on her 18th birthday, but her son remained. She filed a lawsuit, went to trial and won. But the scrutiny of the system of the teen mom did not stop there.
Hoping that a change of venue would make a difference, in 2006, Stroman moved to southeast Washington, got her own apartment and a job.
In 2007, Stroman became pregnant with a second son. In that year, she and the baby’s father were involved in a domestic quarrel. Both Stroman and the child’s father were locked up overnight. Instead of the police contacting her father or next of kin, child protective services was called and her eldest son was taken away. She felt the system was punishing her for outsmarting it years ago. Her eldest child is up for adoption. Although Stroman’s father was capable to raise the child after he received a kidney transplant, both systems denied him the right because he placed him in foster care years ago.
“I’m good enough to have my grandson for weekends and summertime visits but not good enough to raise him as his blood relative,” said Smith.
Stroman felt hopeless. “It’s like the system can get away with whatever it wants and as a young mother, you have no rights. No reunification was ever offered,” said Stroman.
While Stroman fought vigorously, other events affected her life. Her son’s placement didn’t stop her from loving him. She filed a complaint against CFSA when her son broke his femur under the watch of a foster care parent.
“If I didn’t bring it up, CFSA wouldn’t have done anything about it. No one punished the system for allowing this to happen,” said Stroman.
After the second child was born Stroman worked in Virginia and asked her second son’s aunt to take care of the child during the week. One Friday, when she came to get her son, the aunt refused to give him up. The aunt filed for custody with CFSA testifying on the aunt’s behalf using the Montgomery County case and removal of the first child as reasons for kinship custody. The baby’s father signed over his rights to his aunt. However, neither the court nor CFSA contacted the mother about the hearing until it was over.
“If I knew that overnight care with a family member would result in complete loss of my child, I would have placed him in kiddycare that had night hours. People have no idea how the system can work against a young mother,” said Stroman. The court order gave supervised visitation to Stroman but it has not been enforced. “I haven’t seen him in four years. Whenever I bring it up to the judge, nothing is done. It’s like he was legally stolen from me,” Stroman said.
Court officials said it provides attorneys for all parents to ensure that their rights are protected. “Federal and DC law and court rules require that reasonable efforts be made to keep the family intact.” said Leah Gurowitz, public information officer for the DC Superior Court.
But Stroman said the court ignored her requests through the attorney. So she kept filing complaints and her own lawsuits.
But the drama didn’t stop there. In 2008, Stroman was sentenced to 90 days in jail for articulating a threat to the 31-year old mother of her third boyfriend who refused to return Stroman’s car so she could get to work. She lost her apartment. Although the charges were dropped after Stroman successfully completed the terms of her probation, the conviction has been used against her numerous times in court proceedings.
In 2009, Stroman was pregnant with her third child. In February, 2010, the father of her second child was killed. The father of the third child was convicted of carjacking and is currently serving long term prison sentence.
Stroman joined a transitional housing program. One of the caseworkers was caught using the personal identifiable information of the clients to obtain credit cards, loans and cashed the money orders paid for rent. When Stroman reported the caseworker to authorities and confronted the culprit, she was given a two-hour notice to vacate.
Police illegally evicted Stroman with her daughter in the rain. The next day Stroman filed a complaint in court and the judge ordered her return to the premises. Stroman’s daughter caught pneumonia from the incident and was hospitalized. It was this incident that led to CFSA removing her daughter from the home claiming that the mother was negligent for not taking the child to a pediatric developmental evaluation.
“CFSA removes children when they can't be safe at home. In the vast majority of cases, the initial goal is reunification. To achieve that, parents must fulfill requirements of a case plan designed to reduce risk and increase safety. After a removal, parents have to meet requirements to get their children back,” said Mindy Good, public information officer for CFSA.
Stroman continued her quest to be a mother. At Stroman’s behest, the daughter was removed from two foster care families for extreme negligence. She filed four lawsuits and numerous complaints to the chief judge about illegal behavior of the family court judge who denied her legal rights for opportunities to reunify with her children.
To get custody of her daughter, Stroman was required to complete mental health evaluation, psychotherapy and anger management sessions, parenting classes, supervised visits, weekly urines, court proceedings, job placement program, maintain housing and attend bi-monthly meetings with caseworkers for reunification. The process was completed in February 2011 yet the daughter remained in the system until Dec. 16 of the same year.
Stroman’s complaints fell on deaf ears until recently. Stroman has received notification from the DC Superior Court family court monitor and CFSA citizens’ review board that they will examine her complaints.
“There’s no telling how many more mothers have been victimized by this system,” Stroman said.
Currently, there are over 4,000 children involved in court supervision and CFSA monitoring in the District. Stroman said, “It’s like this is a business of baby snatchers.”
Source http://www.afro.com/sections/news/Washington/story.htm?storyid=73796
Former DHS employee faces sex charge against 15-year-old foster child - Oklahoma
By GINNIE GRAHAM
Correction: A Wednesday Tulsa World story about a criminal charge filed against former Oklahoma Department of Human Services worker Ronald Jay Green II contained incorrect information. The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation received the referral from the Stillwater Police Department to handle the investigation on Sept. 26. This story has been corrected.
-----
A former employee of the state Department of Human Services has been charged with committing a sex crime against a teenage girl in foster care while he was on staff with DHS.
Ronald Jay Green II, 23, was charged Thursday in Tulsa County District Court with one count of forcible oral sodomy, and Special Judge David Youll issued a warrant for his arrest.
Green worked in the Stillwater DHS office from May through October 2010 as a temporary social worker aide and was paid $8.80 an hour, according to DHS spokeswoman Sheree Powell.
On Sept. 13, 2010, Green was transporting a 15-year-old foster child from Stillwater to a Tulsa placement when he allegedly engaged in the sex act, said Jessica Brown, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation.
The victim came forward last year with the allegations, and the OSBI was called by Stillwater police Sept. 26 to oversee the investigation, Brown said.
The alleged abuse occurred in Tulsa County, Brown said.
Green has no disciplinary actions on file with DHS because the allegations were made after he resigned, Powell stated in an email.
"The accusations against Mr. Green are disgusting and extremely disturbing," Powell wrote. "The safety of the children entrusted into our care is our top priority. Although the disclosure of this incident came out almost a year after Mr. Green resigned from (DHS), our staff immediately reported it to the proper authorities for investigation."
The commission overseeing the DHS this month agreed to a settlement agreement of a federal class-action lawsuit that had alleged abuses in the state's foster-care system. Part of the allegations involved staffing, training and reasonable workloads to ensure the safety of children while they are in DHS care.
The settlement agreement has to be approved by a federal judge.
The suit was filed by Children's Rights, a New York-based child advocacy group.
Source http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20120118_11_A9_Aforme289796
Correction: A Wednesday Tulsa World story about a criminal charge filed against former Oklahoma Department of Human Services worker Ronald Jay Green II contained incorrect information. The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation received the referral from the Stillwater Police Department to handle the investigation on Sept. 26. This story has been corrected.
-----
A former employee of the state Department of Human Services has been charged with committing a sex crime against a teenage girl in foster care while he was on staff with DHS.
Ronald Jay Green II, 23, was charged Thursday in Tulsa County District Court with one count of forcible oral sodomy, and Special Judge David Youll issued a warrant for his arrest.
Green worked in the Stillwater DHS office from May through October 2010 as a temporary social worker aide and was paid $8.80 an hour, according to DHS spokeswoman Sheree Powell.
On Sept. 13, 2010, Green was transporting a 15-year-old foster child from Stillwater to a Tulsa placement when he allegedly engaged in the sex act, said Jessica Brown, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation.
The victim came forward last year with the allegations, and the OSBI was called by Stillwater police Sept. 26 to oversee the investigation, Brown said.
The alleged abuse occurred in Tulsa County, Brown said.
Green has no disciplinary actions on file with DHS because the allegations were made after he resigned, Powell stated in an email.
"The accusations against Mr. Green are disgusting and extremely disturbing," Powell wrote. "The safety of the children entrusted into our care is our top priority. Although the disclosure of this incident came out almost a year after Mr. Green resigned from (DHS), our staff immediately reported it to the proper authorities for investigation."
The commission overseeing the DHS this month agreed to a settlement agreement of a federal class-action lawsuit that had alleged abuses in the state's foster-care system. Part of the allegations involved staffing, training and reasonable workloads to ensure the safety of children while they are in DHS care.
The settlement agreement has to be approved by a federal judge.
The suit was filed by Children's Rights, a New York-based child advocacy group.
Source http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20120118_11_A9_Aforme289796
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
State officials investigating several cases of abuse of adopted children
By Barbara LaBoe
An alleged child starvation case near Longview is one of more than a dozen cases — including one death — that have state officials reviewing how adopted children are placed and treated.
The number of abuse cases is small compared to all adoptions. But a string of high-profile child starvation cases last year — including one from May accusing Jeffrey and Rebecca Trebilcock of starving their five adopted children at their Bunker Hill-area home — has state officials alarmed.
"Starting in the beginning of 2011 we started seeing a cluster effect of these types of cases," said Mary Meinig, director of the state's Family and Children's Ombudsman office, who included a section about adoption abuse in her annual report, released last week.
Many of the cases include starvation. "We have so many great adoptive homes in the state, but then we also have these. ... I think it's apparent that it needs to be looked at."
"We want to jump start this as quickly as possible," said Denise Revels Robinson, assistant secretary of the state Department of Social and Health Services. "There's a sense of urgency here. Not crisis, but urgency, because these are very serious issues."
One adopted child, 13-year-old Hana Williams of Sedro Wooley, died in May from hypothermia and starvation after being left outside as punishment. The Trebilcock's adopted son, then 13, landed in emergency room in March so severely malnourished that he weighed just 49 pounds, according to court documents.
Officials are concerned at the severity of these cases, the apparent spike in them and that so many seem to involve adopted children. The adoption cases are particularly concerning because screening by the state or private adoption agencies should catch unfit parents before children are placed.
Dr. Frances Chalmers, a Mount Vernon pediatrician who consults with DSHS, began to get a "nagging feeling" that something was up and started tracking starvation cases herself. Meinig started doing the same, finding 15 adoption or guardianship cases since 2009 that involved starvation or severe abuse. Eleven of those cases were in 2011.
Not all the cases listed in Meinig's report became public because, unlike the Trebilcocks, not all the parents were criminally charged. All are horrific, though, including cases where children were beaten with wooden boards embedded with nails, sexually abused and severely malnourished.
While Hana Williams' death is the most serious and disturbing case, "even the kids who don't die are significantly traumatized," Chalmers, said.
Adoptions, concerns increasing
Officials aren't sure if the surge of cases in 2011 is the start of a disturbing new trend — but they're working to find out. A work group of child experts - ordered by Gov. Chris Gregoire — will look at adoptions, including foreign adoptions, as well as abuse by withholding food.
Among other topics, they'll investigate:
• Are neglect and abuse — including withholding food — on the rise and are they more prevalent in adoptive homes?
The state hasn't tracked withholding food cases before. Anecdotally, though, the number of cases seems to be rising. Of the five criminal withholding food cases statewide in 2011, four involved adoptions.
It's also possible that increased social worker training — and publicity about the most horrific cases — may have led to more cases being reported last year, said DSHS Spokeswoman Sherry Hill.
• Did a rapid increase in adoptions let some unfit parents slip through the cracks?
In recent years, state and federal law encouraged quicker adoptions to move children out of foster care and into permanent homes. Meinig said they need to examine if it's also lead to unfit parents being approved for adoption.
In 2002, there were 1,074 adoptions of Washington children in foster care or other child welfare programs. By 2009 that number nearly doubled to 2,091. The increase from 2008 to 2009 alone was 66 percent. Nationally, the increase from 2002 to 2009 was only 12 percent.
• Does the adoption process itself need to be reworked?
Child welfare officials screen parents adopting through the state foster care system and license private adoption agencies, but state workers do not screen private adoptions or adoptions in other states or countries. Some of the cases highlighted by Meinig included non-Washington adoptions or families who had no prior contact with state Child Protective Services. The state group will investigate if more oversight is needed.
• Does age, race or gender play a role in abuse of adopted children?
Some of the cases highlighted by Meinig involved foreign and/or cross-race adoptions. Officials don't know if that played a role in these cases, but want to examine it further. Three of the Trebilcock's five adopted were from Haiti.
There isn't one simple answer, though, because abuse itself is so complex.
"Nobody's going to say during screening that ‘If I don't like them, I'm not going to feed them,' " Meinig said. "And I don't think anyone actually envisions that they're going to do this. I think it's a progression thing that happens."
Local case, common threads
The Trebilcocks deny they starved their children and are fighting the charges in both the criminal and child dependency courts. (See related story.)
But Meinig said the allegations in the case bear several of the hallmarks common in all the cases she reviewed.
The five adopted Trebilcock children, ages 8 to 14, told investigators they were denied food. Kitchen cabinets had alarms on them and the children were punished for "stealing food," they said. Other family members, though, appeared well-fed, according to investigators.
"There was plenty of food" in all the cases, Meinig said. "These were really purposeful withholding and punishment and control. ... Food is kind of the ultimate control."
The Trebilcock children also told investigators they were beaten and made to stand outside, isolated from the rest of the family - another commonality Meinig found in many of the cases. The Trebilcocks also were home-schooled, which some officials say can be a way hiding the signs of starvation.
"Food withholding as a form of abuse has been around forever, from its mildest form of a misbehaving child being sent to bed without dinner to really severe cases of withholding that lead to medical problems," said Dr. Chalmers, who helps train social workers to look for signs of abuse. "So I've been trying to think about ways we could identify these kids before they die or end up in the hospital for malnutrition."
Reluctance to call
State officials hope the group of child experts can meet by early February and complete its work by May.
Any recommendations will be forwarded to DSHS, which will brief the governor's office as well as the Legislature, Revels Robinson said.
The state's budget crunch doesn't leave much extra money for new programs or enforcement, but Revels Robinson said she believes many of the recommendations could be relatively inexpensive. Some of the changes could be a change of emphasis in screenings, for example. Additional or substitute training also could provided to social workers at little cost, she said.
Officials also stress one of the best defenses against child abuse is for people to speak up when they suspect it. Too often people are afraid to "cause trouble" and then live to regret it, they said. And while there may not be immediate action from one report or call, that doesn't mean the calls are ignored, they said.
"We really do rely on the eyes and ears of the community to alert us," Revels Robinson said.
Hana Williams — the 13-year-old who died in May — "had a number of friends and family who now say ‘I wish I'd called earlier,'" Chalmers said. "We really need to encourage people to be less reluctant to make those calls."
Source http://tdn.com/news/local/state-officials-investigating-several-cases-of-abuse-of-adopted-children/article_7fac29c2-3f25-11e1-b980-0019bb2963f4.html
An alleged child starvation case near Longview is one of more than a dozen cases — including one death — that have state officials reviewing how adopted children are placed and treated.
The number of abuse cases is small compared to all adoptions. But a string of high-profile child starvation cases last year — including one from May accusing Jeffrey and Rebecca Trebilcock of starving their five adopted children at their Bunker Hill-area home — has state officials alarmed.
"Starting in the beginning of 2011 we started seeing a cluster effect of these types of cases," said Mary Meinig, director of the state's Family and Children's Ombudsman office, who included a section about adoption abuse in her annual report, released last week.
Many of the cases include starvation. "We have so many great adoptive homes in the state, but then we also have these. ... I think it's apparent that it needs to be looked at."
"We want to jump start this as quickly as possible," said Denise Revels Robinson, assistant secretary of the state Department of Social and Health Services. "There's a sense of urgency here. Not crisis, but urgency, because these are very serious issues."
One adopted child, 13-year-old Hana Williams of Sedro Wooley, died in May from hypothermia and starvation after being left outside as punishment. The Trebilcock's adopted son, then 13, landed in emergency room in March so severely malnourished that he weighed just 49 pounds, according to court documents.
Officials are concerned at the severity of these cases, the apparent spike in them and that so many seem to involve adopted children. The adoption cases are particularly concerning because screening by the state or private adoption agencies should catch unfit parents before children are placed.
Dr. Frances Chalmers, a Mount Vernon pediatrician who consults with DSHS, began to get a "nagging feeling" that something was up and started tracking starvation cases herself. Meinig started doing the same, finding 15 adoption or guardianship cases since 2009 that involved starvation or severe abuse. Eleven of those cases were in 2011.
Not all the cases listed in Meinig's report became public because, unlike the Trebilcocks, not all the parents were criminally charged. All are horrific, though, including cases where children were beaten with wooden boards embedded with nails, sexually abused and severely malnourished.
While Hana Williams' death is the most serious and disturbing case, "even the kids who don't die are significantly traumatized," Chalmers, said.
Adoptions, concerns increasing
Officials aren't sure if the surge of cases in 2011 is the start of a disturbing new trend — but they're working to find out. A work group of child experts - ordered by Gov. Chris Gregoire — will look at adoptions, including foreign adoptions, as well as abuse by withholding food.
Among other topics, they'll investigate:
• Are neglect and abuse — including withholding food — on the rise and are they more prevalent in adoptive homes?
The state hasn't tracked withholding food cases before. Anecdotally, though, the number of cases seems to be rising. Of the five criminal withholding food cases statewide in 2011, four involved adoptions.
It's also possible that increased social worker training — and publicity about the most horrific cases — may have led to more cases being reported last year, said DSHS Spokeswoman Sherry Hill.
• Did a rapid increase in adoptions let some unfit parents slip through the cracks?
In recent years, state and federal law encouraged quicker adoptions to move children out of foster care and into permanent homes. Meinig said they need to examine if it's also lead to unfit parents being approved for adoption.
In 2002, there were 1,074 adoptions of Washington children in foster care or other child welfare programs. By 2009 that number nearly doubled to 2,091. The increase from 2008 to 2009 alone was 66 percent. Nationally, the increase from 2002 to 2009 was only 12 percent.
• Does the adoption process itself need to be reworked?
Child welfare officials screen parents adopting through the state foster care system and license private adoption agencies, but state workers do not screen private adoptions or adoptions in other states or countries. Some of the cases highlighted by Meinig included non-Washington adoptions or families who had no prior contact with state Child Protective Services. The state group will investigate if more oversight is needed.
• Does age, race or gender play a role in abuse of adopted children?
Some of the cases highlighted by Meinig involved foreign and/or cross-race adoptions. Officials don't know if that played a role in these cases, but want to examine it further. Three of the Trebilcock's five adopted were from Haiti.
There isn't one simple answer, though, because abuse itself is so complex.
"Nobody's going to say during screening that ‘If I don't like them, I'm not going to feed them,' " Meinig said. "And I don't think anyone actually envisions that they're going to do this. I think it's a progression thing that happens."
Local case, common threads
The Trebilcocks deny they starved their children and are fighting the charges in both the criminal and child dependency courts. (See related story.)
But Meinig said the allegations in the case bear several of the hallmarks common in all the cases she reviewed.
The five adopted Trebilcock children, ages 8 to 14, told investigators they were denied food. Kitchen cabinets had alarms on them and the children were punished for "stealing food," they said. Other family members, though, appeared well-fed, according to investigators.
"There was plenty of food" in all the cases, Meinig said. "These were really purposeful withholding and punishment and control. ... Food is kind of the ultimate control."
The Trebilcock children also told investigators they were beaten and made to stand outside, isolated from the rest of the family - another commonality Meinig found in many of the cases. The Trebilcocks also were home-schooled, which some officials say can be a way hiding the signs of starvation.
"Food withholding as a form of abuse has been around forever, from its mildest form of a misbehaving child being sent to bed without dinner to really severe cases of withholding that lead to medical problems," said Dr. Chalmers, who helps train social workers to look for signs of abuse. "So I've been trying to think about ways we could identify these kids before they die or end up in the hospital for malnutrition."
Reluctance to call
State officials hope the group of child experts can meet by early February and complete its work by May.
Any recommendations will be forwarded to DSHS, which will brief the governor's office as well as the Legislature, Revels Robinson said.
The state's budget crunch doesn't leave much extra money for new programs or enforcement, but Revels Robinson said she believes many of the recommendations could be relatively inexpensive. Some of the changes could be a change of emphasis in screenings, for example. Additional or substitute training also could provided to social workers at little cost, she said.
Officials also stress one of the best defenses against child abuse is for people to speak up when they suspect it. Too often people are afraid to "cause trouble" and then live to regret it, they said. And while there may not be immediate action from one report or call, that doesn't mean the calls are ignored, they said.
"We really do rely on the eyes and ears of the community to alert us," Revels Robinson said.
Hana Williams — the 13-year-old who died in May — "had a number of friends and family who now say ‘I wish I'd called earlier,'" Chalmers said. "We really need to encourage people to be less reluctant to make those calls."
Source http://tdn.com/news/local/state-officials-investigating-several-cases-of-abuse-of-adopted-children/article_7fac29c2-3f25-11e1-b980-0019bb2963f4.html
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Colorado appeals court allows abused siblings to sue social workers
By Felisa Cardona
Three siblings severely abused in the home of their biological mother and later in foster care can pursue their lawsuit against Adams County social workers who allegedly failed to protect them and deceived their adoptive parents about the extent of their problems, the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled Thursday.
In the summer of 2002, the siblings — then ages 9, 6 and 3 — were adopted by a couple who only learned about the history of abuse on the eve of the adoption. The children were engaging in incestuous acts with each other, and one of them had to be removed from their home because she was suicidal.
The fallout of the abuse was so egregious that the adoptive parents installed alarms in the children's rooms to prevent them from abusing each other. The couple ended up divorcing, blaming the failure of the marriage on the stress caused by the children's emotional problems.
The names of the parents and siblings are being withheld by The Denver Post because the children are victims of sexual abuse and naming their adoptive parents would identify them.
The adoptive parents sued the Adams County Department of Social Services, asserting that social workers had a duty to fully disclose the background of the children. But the parents lost their case when a jury decided that the social workers were not "willful and wanton" in failing to inform them of the history of abuse.
Thursday's ruling allows lawyers for the children to proceed to trial with different claims — that the siblings' rights to be free from harm were violated by the workers entrusted to protect them.
"Evidence was presented at the first trial about the extraordinary challenges these children would face as a result of the defendants' conduct, and unfortunately it all seems to be coming to pass," said attorney Jordan Factor, who argued the case at the Colorado Court of Appeals.
Adams County argued that the social workers, Joan Forsmark, Cathy O'Donnell and Angela Lytle, were protected from the lawsuit by the state's governmental immunity law.
The court disagreed and concluded that Lytle, who as a division director of child welfare supervised O'Donnell and Forsmark, acted "recklessly."
"Lytle increased the children's vulnerability to the danger by not preparing the (adoptive parents) to deal with their extraordinary emotional needs, and by continuing to support the children's adoption as a sibling group, despite the revelations of incest, which distinguished them from the type of children the (adoptive parents) had indicated they were ready to adopt," the court's opinion reads. "This conduct put the children at substantial risk of serious, immediate, and proximate harm that was known to or suspected by Lytle at the time of the adoption. Such allegations show that Lytle acted recklessly in conscious disregard of that risk. And such conduct, when viewed in total, is conscience shocking."
Adams County Attorney Hal Warren declined to comment on the merits of the claims because the case is heading to trial.
Warren is reviewing the court's ruling to decide whether an appeal to the state Supreme Court is possible.
O'Donnell is still employed by the county. Forsmark has since retired. Lytle works for the Arapahoe County Department of Human Services.
The decision Thursday comes a month after a federal judge ruled that social workers in Denver were not immune from a lawsuit in the case of 7-year-old Chandler Grafner, who was starved to death by his foster parents.
In that case, the judge noted the neglect of Chandler by social services was also "conscious-shocking" and that a complaint of child abuse made by a teacher's aide a month before his death was not thoroughly investigated by Denver Human Services.
Factor, one of the siblings' lawyers in the Adams County case, said he hopes the rulings will have an impact on the quality of care for children.
"Each circumstance is a little different, and this adds to the mix of circumstances in which the courts consistently say that children in the custody of the state of Colorado have a right to be kept safe from harm," he said. "It is a case that has an opportunity to do real justice."
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_19685387
Three siblings severely abused in the home of their biological mother and later in foster care can pursue their lawsuit against Adams County social workers who allegedly failed to protect them and deceived their adoptive parents about the extent of their problems, the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled Thursday.
In the summer of 2002, the siblings — then ages 9, 6 and 3 — were adopted by a couple who only learned about the history of abuse on the eve of the adoption. The children were engaging in incestuous acts with each other, and one of them had to be removed from their home because she was suicidal.
The fallout of the abuse was so egregious that the adoptive parents installed alarms in the children's rooms to prevent them from abusing each other. The couple ended up divorcing, blaming the failure of the marriage on the stress caused by the children's emotional problems.
The names of the parents and siblings are being withheld by The Denver Post because the children are victims of sexual abuse and naming their adoptive parents would identify them.
The adoptive parents sued the Adams County Department of Social Services, asserting that social workers had a duty to fully disclose the background of the children. But the parents lost their case when a jury decided that the social workers were not "willful and wanton" in failing to inform them of the history of abuse.
Thursday's ruling allows lawyers for the children to proceed to trial with different claims — that the siblings' rights to be free from harm were violated by the workers entrusted to protect them.
"Evidence was presented at the first trial about the extraordinary challenges these children would face as a result of the defendants' conduct, and unfortunately it all seems to be coming to pass," said attorney Jordan Factor, who argued the case at the Colorado Court of Appeals.
Adams County argued that the social workers, Joan Forsmark, Cathy O'Donnell and Angela Lytle, were protected from the lawsuit by the state's governmental immunity law.
The court disagreed and concluded that Lytle, who as a division director of child welfare supervised O'Donnell and Forsmark, acted "recklessly."
"Lytle increased the children's vulnerability to the danger by not preparing the (adoptive parents) to deal with their extraordinary emotional needs, and by continuing to support the children's adoption as a sibling group, despite the revelations of incest, which distinguished them from the type of children the (adoptive parents) had indicated they were ready to adopt," the court's opinion reads. "This conduct put the children at substantial risk of serious, immediate, and proximate harm that was known to or suspected by Lytle at the time of the adoption. Such allegations show that Lytle acted recklessly in conscious disregard of that risk. And such conduct, when viewed in total, is conscience shocking."
Adams County Attorney Hal Warren declined to comment on the merits of the claims because the case is heading to trial.
Warren is reviewing the court's ruling to decide whether an appeal to the state Supreme Court is possible.
O'Donnell is still employed by the county. Forsmark has since retired. Lytle works for the Arapahoe County Department of Human Services.
The decision Thursday comes a month after a federal judge ruled that social workers in Denver were not immune from a lawsuit in the case of 7-year-old Chandler Grafner, who was starved to death by his foster parents.
In that case, the judge noted the neglect of Chandler by social services was also "conscious-shocking" and that a complaint of child abuse made by a teacher's aide a month before his death was not thoroughly investigated by Denver Human Services.
Factor, one of the siblings' lawyers in the Adams County case, said he hopes the rulings will have an impact on the quality of care for children.
"Each circumstance is a little different, and this adds to the mix of circumstances in which the courts consistently say that children in the custody of the state of Colorado have a right to be kept safe from harm," he said. "It is a case that has an opportunity to do real justice."
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_19685387
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