Foster Kids Prescribed Psychotropic Drugs - ABC's 20/20 - Aired 12-01-2011

Blogger note:
This is a very good report but for the fact that it doesn't address anything to do with some children have no reason to be in foster care and that they have willing and able parents or relatives to take care of them but CPS forces the children to stay in foster care. Even so, the basic message of the expose is quite informative about the misuse of psychotropic drugs on foster children.
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California auditor: 1,000 state-licensed facilities match sex offenders' addresses

By Michael Martinez, CNN

Los Angeles (CNN) -- The California state auditor has found that more than 1,000 state-licensed facilities -- including more than 600 for kids -- matched addresses in the sex-offender registry, saying oversight mechanisms lag behind state requirements.

The state Department of Social Services "cites the lack of resources as the primary reason why it has not implemented an automated sex offender address match and why its oversight mechanisms are falling short of requirements," said the state auditor's report, released Thursday.

Specifically, the report said that 677 foster and group homes and other state-licensed facilities for children matched sex offenders' addresses, as well as 385 state-licensed facilities for vulnerable adults.

The auditor found that almost 600 of the 1,000 address matches were "high risk and in need of immediate investigation," the report said. It was not clear from the report how many foster and group homes are in California, in total.

This month, the state social services agency and county child welfare agencies investigated 99% of the matches and began legal actions against eight licensees of facilities, including four license revocations, said the report, titled "Child Welfare Services -- California Can and Must Provide Better Protection and Support for Abused and Neglected Children."

In six of those actions, registered sex offenders were living or present in the child facilities, and counties found 36 sex offenders having "some association" with foster homes -- prompting authorities to remove children from the facilities and ordering the offenders out of the homes, the report said.

State costs for housing foster children have also grown dramatically, California State Auditor Elaine M. Howle found.

"The percentage of children placed with private foster family agencies — agencies that recruit and certify foster homes and are compensated at a higher rate than state- or county-licensed foster homes — has dramatically increased over the last 10 years and resulted in an additional $327 million in foster care payments during that time," the report said. "The counties we visited admit to placing children with these agencies out of convenience rather than for elevated treatment needs as originally intended."

The state social services agency "generally agreed" with the auditor's findings and outlined an action plan in response to several recommendations, the auditor said.

In an October 7 response to the report, director Will Lightbourne of the California Department of Social Services wrote he agreed that "address comparison provides an additional protection for vulnerable clients in care, and agrees that prevention should be part of the protection."

"We are concerned, however, that performing matches against every known sex offender address may not be the most effective means of prevention and ensuring protection. The process involved in this audit required CDSS and counties to investigate every known address of sex offenders, including addresses that were years and in some cases, decades, out of date," Lightbourne said.

"The California Sex and Arson Registry (CSAR) includes effective dates of address and identifies active and inactive addresses, and future processes to compare addresses therefore should focus on information technology solutions to minimize the need for staff to manually search through and verify information," the director continued. "The CDSS is exploring solutions that leverage technology and key partners to create an efficient and effective process to provide this additional protection."

The state auditor also recommended that the social service agency "complete comprehensive reviews of agencies' licensing activities more timely as well as on-site reviews of state-licensed foster homes, foster family agencies, and group homes. Moreover, Social Services should ensure that rates paid to private foster family agencies are appropriate and should monitor placements with these agencies," the auditor said.

In 2010, child welfare agencies in California's 58 counties received 480,000 allegations of child abuse or neglect. Each county maintains its own child welfare service program, and the state Department of Social Services provides oversight, the report said.

Source http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/27/us/california-sex-offenders/

Report: S.D. skirts law protecting Native American children

By Melanie Eversley, USA TODAY

Thirty-two states are failing to abide by the Indian Child Welfare Act, a law passed by Congress in 1978 to stop thousands of Native American children from being forcibly removed from their families and being sent to boarding schools, where they were abused, or into other abusive conditions, a National Public Radio investigation has found.

The problem is most pronounced in South Dakota, NPR reports.

"Cousins are disappearing, family members are disappearing," Peter Lengkeek, a Crow Creek Tribal Council member, tells NPR. "It's kidnapping. That's how we see it."

About 700 Native American children in South Dakota are removed from their homes, some of them under questionable circumstances, NPR finds. The majority of those placed in foster care are sent to non-native homes or group homes, although the Child Welfare Act requires that Native American children must be placed with their relatives or tribes, except in rare circumstances.

South Dakota state officials say they have to do what's in the best interest of the child.

"We come from a stance of safety," Virgena Wieseler of South Dakota's Department of Social Services tells NPR. "That's our overarching goal with all children. If they can be returned to their parent or returned to a relative and be safe and that safety can be managed, then that's our goal."

Critics say the situation appears to be financially lucrative for foster care providers, one of whom has ties with state officials, NPR reports.

Source http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/10/report-south-dakota-skirts-law-protecting-native-american-children/1

Nevada auditors fault Vegas foster home

By Geoff Dornan

Auditors reviewing Nevada's facilities for children in state care were so concerned about the mess they found in a Las Vegas foster home in March that they called Clark County Child Protective Services.

Deputy Legislative Auditor Sandra McGuirk wrote that, when they entered the home, they saw an empty insulin syringe on the floor, an empty prescription medicine bottle, unsecured flammable liquids, a hammer and sharp knives, pans full of grease on the stove, overflowing garbage cans and filthy bathroom sinks, as well as food remnants and soda cans on the carpet.

She said this is the first time conditions have been so bad in an inspection that they felt it necessary to call Child Protective Services.

“These conditions are unacceptable in any foster home,” said Sen. Sheila Leslie, D-Reno.

The foster home was one of more than 30 operated by Eagle Quest, which has homes in Las Vegas and Pahrump. Director of Operations Dave Doyle said the mess happened after the foster parent running the home suffered a medical issue and was taken to the hospital. He said the woman's husband was overwhelmed and he was not informed that she wasn't there.

Doyle apologized to the legislative audit subcommittee but added that the home was under a corrective action plan from Child Protective Services in Clark County and he was never told about that. He admitted that conditions in the house were “atrocious” when the audit team showed up and, and he said that's why he immediately moved the six foster children there to another home.

He said numerous changes have been made by the company since then to ensure that nothing like that ever happens again in one of its homes.

Foster home operators in his system must tell him immediately if they are being investigated by a government agency. He said that if a foster parent has a medical issue or another problem requiring their absence, his staff is to be informed within 24 hours so they can put someone in there. He said other changes have been made as well, including tightening controls over medications given to children in foster care — a perennial complaint by legislators.

“We now have multiple people signing off on the medication logs,” Doyle said.

Leslie, who chairs the audit subcommittee, said the medications issue is still showing up in every six-month audit of the child care system, yet she was unable to get a bill through this past session requiring training for foster care and group home workers so they keep accurate records.

Doyle said that standardized training is needed and that operators like himself need to hold their employees accountable.

The practice of investigating a sample of both governmental and private child-care facilities every six months was started about four years ago after serious charges were raised about conditions and treatment of those confined to the state's juvenile prison, the Nevada Youth Training Center in Elko.

Source http://www.nevadaappeal.com/article/20111018/NEWS/111019762/1070&ParentProfile=1058

State’s child, family welfare reforms collapse

by George Lauby (North Platte Bulletin) - 10/1/2011

First, three top private companies backed out of their deals to provide child and family welfare services in Nebraska.

Second, the Nebraska State Auditor found severe financial problems with the two-year-old “privatized” program.

Third, the man at the top resigned.

That was how a sweeping state welfare reform collapsed in just two years.

Director Todd Reckling announced his resignation one week after a state audit of the program’s finances reported serious problems.

Reckling, 44, said he is resigning for health reasons effective Oct. 14. Already thin, he had been losing weight, coworkers told an Omaha news reporter.

Reckling was in charge of Nebraska’s controversial child welfare privatization, which put the child welfare system in the hands of five privately-owned "lead" agencies.

The system-wide reform was aimed at decreasing the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services’s hand, while allowing the department to retain oversight.

The idea was capitalism and competition, with government supervision, would drive costs down while ensuring the quality of care stayed high.

It never worked in most of Nebraska.

Early on, trouble appeared. Only one company applied to lead the programs in central and western Nebraska, so there was no competition.

Small-scale group homes for vulnerable children were closed in western and central Nebraska, such as the Alliance Boys Ranch, North Platte’s Boy’s and Girl’s Home and two Salvation Army group homes.

When the North Platte group homes closed, employees told the Bulletin that the program was taking a giant step backward -- eliminating existing programs and moving already alienated children to new and strange places.

Officials, including Reckling, were reassuring. When the Salvation Army homes closed, officials said children would be cared for in an expanded Boys and Girls Home in North Platte, or in Cedars Home near Broken Bow.

But those homes closed too.

Big scale

In contrast to small group homes, the Nebraska division of children and family services is a large unit -- employing more than 1,800 people.

It is the largest of six state health and human services divisions, including not only child welfare and juvenile services, but also adult protective services, economic assistance/welfare programs, the refugee program and child support enforcement activities.

As the privatization got underway, Reckling signed contracts with five large companies in 2009 to oversee those programs. The state program came to be called “Families Matter.”

The program suffered an astonishing drop out rate at the top level. By October 2010, three of the five lead companies had withdrawn, including the agency handling all of central and western Nebraska, the Boys and Girls Home.

Prompted by complaints, Nebraska State Auditors investigated the Families Matter program during the summer, and released their findings Sept. 7.

They found the costs of the program had gone up 27 percent in two years, with millions of dollars improperly accounted. At the same time, the top agencies said they didn’t have enough money to operate.

The audit made headlines all over the state. Democrats pointed blame at Gov. Dave Heineman, who made no comment for several days. But eight days after the audit was released, Reckling announced his resignation and Heineman spoke.

Heineman said the state will continue trying to privatize Nebraska's child welfare system, but must do better.

"I want to help our children and families, but this reform effort has not been easy to implement,” he said in a news conference. “We can and we must do better.”

"I believe in accountability, so I'm not going to make excuses for what has occurred. I expect better results and I expect them soon," he said.

Heineman expressed special disappointment with Boys and Girls Home of Sioux City, Iowa, which failed to pay subcontractors after it dropped out of the program last October.

Boys and Girls Home was in charge of central and western Nebraska, including North Platte.

Heineman said BGH’s failure to pay its bills was "irresponsible and very disappointing."

And he compared the failure to a bad performance on the football field.

"I think we have the right idea, but we've got to execute it better,” Heineman said. “It's like a football team. If you don't execute the play, you don't score a touchdown. Well, we've lost a lot of yards here lately because we're not executing as well as we should have. But I still believe we can make this work."

Scramble

When the BGH pulled out, local providers scrambled to come up with alternatives. The North Platte School District created an educational program for students in grades 6-12 during the school year, hiring a teacher and an aide and setting up a classroom at the high school.

The county sheriff made plans to transport kids across the state to the nearest place, in Columbus.

In June, Family Skill Building Services re-opened one of the Salvation Army homes that had been closed during the reshuffling and now operates the Nebraska Youth Center, a home for about a dozen boys on the north side of town.

Not in these parts

Sen. Tom Hansen of North Platte said privatization shouldn’t be tried again now in central and western Nebraska, and never have been tried throughout the state in the first place.

“It probably should have been done on a smaller level (in southeastern Nebraska). Out here, we don’t have a lot of providers,” Hansen said. “Out here, Boys and Girls Home was the only bidder for lead agency. Looking back, that was a clue that we had a problem.”

Profiteering

It seems logical that the Boys and Girls Home building on 2300 E. Second might reopen for vulnerable children under better management, but the price of the empty building is too high, Hansen said. The Boys and Girls Home, Inc. inherited the building, and is now asking $1 million for it, even though its taxable value is about $400,000.

Among the financial scandals, as private agencies failed to deliver and collapsed, foster parents were not paid or were underpaid, especially those with children with special needs, Hansen said.

Foster parents dropped out in droves. For example, the number of foster homes in Dawson County dwindled from 45 to 11, according to the Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee.

“There are lots of upset foster parents,” Hansen said. “These are wards of the state. The state needs to take responsibility.”

State auditors also found that some subcontractors – smaller companies with workers on the front lines – hired workers with no experience or education and paid them around $10 an hour.

However, the subcontractors turned around and billed the state $47 an hour for the work.

Staggering along

How it is all reformed will “depend on what the governor wants to do,” Hansen said, but he and some other senators think the HHS child and family division should be separated from the overall HHS department, so authorities can keep better watch.

Auditors complained of their struggle to get facts and figures from HHS, even though state law explicitly requires state departments to open their books for a public audit.

Hansen has often experienced the same problems -- it is difficult for legislators to study the HHS operation, even a legislator such as Hansen on the health and human services or appropriations committees, which have the duty to oversee the HHS.

Hansen said breaking up the Health and Human Services department would make it more transparent.

“As legislators, we don’t think we’re being very accountable,” he said.

Local critics

Counselors, clients, parents and foster parents have long expressed dissatisfaction with HHS services.

Ongoing dissatisfaction led them to go to lengths to arrange a meeting in early August with Todd Reckling and other state officials.

Lisa Zlomke of North Platte’s Aurora Counseling and Jenny Olson of Liberty House in North Platte attended. The meeting was arranged by Melanie Williams-Smotherman, the owner of Family Advocacy Movement, headquartered in Lincoln.

The meeting lasted three-and-a-half hours, and “we had the ability to share examples of specific cases to illustrate points and to show three short videos during that time, including two regarding the harmful practice of drugging foster care children - which is becoming quite routine,” Williams-Smotherman said afterwards.

At the meeting, Williams-Smotherman said the number of Nebraska children taken from parents and put into the foster care and group home system is too high.

Most of those cases do not involve abuse, she said, but rather alleged neglect, she said.

Richard Wexler of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform in Alexandria, Va. also says that too many children are taken from too many homes in the state.

According to the organization’s numbers, Nebraska removed 3,373 children from their natural homes last year. That’s nearly 7.5 of every 1,000 children, based on 2009 population numbers.

The national average is 3.4 per 1,000.

The only state that rates higher than Nebraska, according to Wexler, is West Virginia with a rate of 7.7.

Zlomke and Olson also said that HHS officials in the North Platte region do not contract services with private companies such as theirs.

Zlomke and Olson allege that Region II officials keep welfare recipients – particularly those with mental and behavioral disabilities -- in a tight circle of select caregivers who really don’t have any competition, don’t do a good job, but are well paid.

Source http://www.northplattebulletin.com/index.asp?show=news&action=readStory&storyID=21588&pageID=3

Texas Child Wins Protection From State Child Welfare Agency

Texas court is sending an urgent message to child protective services agencies across the country: Stop harming children in the name of "protecting" them, according to a national child advocacy organization.

The National Coalition for Child Protection Reform responded Thursday to a decision by a court in Texas ordering the Texas Child Protective Services agency to stay away from a 14-year-old girl.

Such "orders of protection" are common in domestic violence cases. "But we've never heard of such an order protecting a child from a child welfare agency – until now," said NCCPR Executive Director Richard Wexler.

In the Texas case, according to KHOU-TV, a 14-year-old was taken after allegations of neglect, apparently as a result of a misunderstanding. After 18 months during which she was repeatedly abused in a group home, she couldn't take it anymore and ran away. According to the family's lawyer, the caseworker then said something that speaks volumes about whether the child ever needed to be taken:

"The case worker called [her] mom and said she ran away, but you find her, you can keep her," attorney Julie Ketterman told KHOU.

The mother did find her daughter. Then Ketterman went to court and won the family that order of protection. The court ruled that "[CPS] engaged in conduct constituting family violence and good cause exists for issuance of a protective order...in the best interest of the child."

"Sadly the only thing unusual about this case is the outcome," said Wexler. "Tens of thousands of times every year, all across America, children are needlessly taken from everyone they know and love. The emotional trauma is, in itself, devastating. But several studies have found abuse in one-quarter to one-third of foster homes and the record of group homes and institutions is even worse.

"All those cases of children wrongfully removed overload CPS agencies, so workers have less time to find children in real danger who really do need to be taken from their parents.

"We congratulate this family for its courage and we congratulate their lawyer, Ms. Ketterman, for finding an innovative way to protect her client – and send a message across the country," Wexler said.

SOURCE National Coalition for Child Protection Reform

Reseda family reunited after year of foster care

Blog author note:
It's interesting to note that this article comments that reunification of children with their family is a "recent" policy. Then why does CPS state that they always try to reunify and they have said that for years? Also, this article makes note that CPS knows that they are ripping families apart. Why would they do that? There are other ways to handle situations rather than add other issues to families by ripping them apart. And what is missing from this story is how false allegations and other strange situations can cause this ripping apart of families. They don't bother to note that many families have done nothing wrong, yet their children are removed. Futhermore, why isn't the number of children abused, neglected and killed in foster care noted? Such dirty secrets....
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Pablo Nino smiled proudly while posing for pictures with his family on a patch of grass in downtown Los Angeles.

All but one of the Reseda construction worker's six children had spent about a year in foster care, and he was deeply grateful to have them back.

"I'm so happy," the father said in halting English.

Nino is a beneficiary of the county Department of Children and Family Services' relatively recent drive to reunite children with biological parents and relatives who have consistently shown desire and ability to once again safely care for them.

"I think it's important for families to be together," said Phillip Browning, who took over as interim director of the DCFS three weeks ago.

"So often, we've taken families and pulled them apart," he said. "Now, I think there's a renewed emphasis to make sure that we can provide the support that is needed to keep a family together."

Nino was among several parents and social workers honored by the county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday for being "Family Reunification Heroes."

During the fiscal year that ended in June, DCFS reunited 9,730 children with their families, though 977 of them were in foster care again as of Tuesday.

DCFS had more than 35,000 open cases as of Aug. 31, including about 9,100 who are receiving family reunification services.

Another 15,500 are in out-of-home placement, such as foster homes and group homes. Five years ago, that number was around 50,000.

Sometimes returning children to families that harmed or neglected them in the past can lead again to tragic outcomes, acknowledged Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform.

Still, he contends that returning them is less risky than keeping them in prolonged foster care, citing research from 2007 and 2008 that involved more than 15,000 children.

The studies found that children who were left in their own homes fared better in later life than comparably maltreated children placed in foster care.

"When you think about how traumatic it is to be completely uprooted from everyone you know, and bounced from one home to another, and then another, the findings should not surprise anyone," Wexler said.

"Some children really do have to be taken away, but foster care is an extremely toxic intervention that has to be used sparingly and in small doses," he added.

The DCFS was unable to provide statistics on the number of children who died from abuse or neglect after being returned to their families.

Wexler said when such tragedies do occur, they can be blamed on lack of sufficient staffing at the DCFS.

About 34,000 children entered its system during the last fiscal year.

"By and large, when you have the cases that go wrong, it's because workers don't have time to investigate carefully enough because they're so overloaded, they can't make that extra phone call or check with that extra source, or review the child's history carefully enough," Wexler said.

Browning said he intends to have more employees handle casework.

"We're looking at all the positions within the department that can be moved to do frontline work, move them from administrative role back to a case-carrying situation," he said.

He also intends to provide them with better technology so they can have as much data as possible to make an informed decision about cases.

In Nino's case, DCFS intervened to take custody over his children after his only daughter, then age 6, came to school with a bloody gash at the top of her head.

Nino had hit her with a belt buckle for telling a lie.

DCFS placed the five children in two separate foster homes. Nino's sixth child had not been born at the time.

"I felt bad, I was so sad," Nino said Tuesday while recalling the incident.

He spent about a year trying to win his children back, including attending parenting and anger management classes.

Finally, last November, DCFS deemed it safe to reunite the family.

Judge Michael Nash, presiding judge of the Los Angeles Juvenile Court, said parents should be given a chance to redeem themselves.

"A family that is unfit at a particular point in time may not be unfit forever," he said. "Families are the cornerstone, the foundation of our community in this country, and we should do everything possible to maintain families when we can safely do so."

Source http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_18941445

Safety of group homes hard to check

Why wasn't CPS called in on this situation? Why are these "homes" allowed to take children if they are abusing them? Why aren't they more closely monitored (even for the adults) when many of these patients can not defend themselves? Why....? Why..? Why???
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By JULIE MURPHY, Staff writer
August 28, 2011 12:30 AM

GLENWOOD -- Chris Nicoles sits and draws at the kitchen table while Louise Harwin watches television in the family room.

It's a familiar scenario in homes everywhere, except that Nicoles and Harwin live in a group home for adults with disabilities.

"These houses are supposed to look like any other house in the neighborhood," said Ed DeBardeleben, area administrator for the state Agency for Persons with Disabilities. "These (group homes) are their homes."

Outside of making frequent personal visits, there's little parents or guardians can do to ensure the safety and well-being of loved ones who live in such group homes. Most are left to trust that the system and its safeguards are working.

But are they?

Reviews and violations found on a state website for 57 licensed group homes in Volusia and Flagler counties, as well as for other group homes statewide, are often outdated, with the most recent reports in many cases being more than 3 years old. State inspection reports are often vague, providing few, if any, details about a particular home's overall condition or employees' qualifications.

A recent case of criminal abuse of a disabled Palm Coast teen living in a Palatka group home run by O'Carroll Homes illustrates that sometimes problems slip through cracks.

O'Carroll Homes, which runs several facilities in Palatka and one in Hastings, had its Medicaid waiver agreements pulled by the state after four workers and a former employee accused of burning the 17-year-old girl with a clothes iron were arrested and charged in January.

One of the workers was sentenced to four years in prison earlier this month for his role in the abuse case. Four others have September court dates, according to the State Attorney's Office.

NO EASY FIXES

Many group home providers are paid through Medicaid waiver agreements, according to Agency for Persons with Disabilities spokeswoman Melanie Etters. The waivers pay for care and supplies for adults diagnosed with certain disabilities before the age of 18.

While pulling Medicaid waivers doesn't technically close a home, its residents or their families would have to pay for their care privately. Costs vary widely based on behavioral issues, daily living and medical needs, but can run between $35,000 and $150,000 per year, Etters said.

"In general, APD typically closes about two group homes a month statewide," Etters said. "Generally, there are two main reasons why this occurs. First would be some major incident occurs at the group home endangering the health and safety of one or more individuals. Second would be when a home is continually cited for issues during monthly monitoring and has not corrected any of the issues within a reasonable amount of time, and the agency is concerned for the health and safety of the people living in the home."

After her daughter was burned in January, Jeanette Roscoe moved her to another group home in North Florida and thought she had found an ideal site -- just as she had when she took her daughter to the O'Carroll Homes facility in Palatka 11 years ago.

"The first time I did research, (O'Carroll Homes) were long-standing and had all the credentials," Roscoe said. "I looked at the cleanliness, that she'd have her own room and the ratio of staff to patients."

Roscoe also closely inspected the North Florida facility where she decided to move her daughter, who she said has the mind of a 2- or 3-year-old. Again, Roscoe studied employee folders and resumes, scrutinizing who administered medications and where they were kept.

But again, her daughter suffered serious injuries. This time, she jumped through a window at 5:30 a.m. Aug. 10 and wound up needing more than 100 stitches and staples to close her wounds, Roscoe said.

"It was a 5- to 6-foot drop out the window," Roscoe wrote in an email to The News-Journal that included images of her daughter's injuries. "I thought she had one-on-one supervision, but she didn't. At least she didn't then."

LONG WAIT FOR CARE

The group homes overseen by DeBardeleben's office, which covers Volusia and Flagler counties, include small family-run operations as well as homes owned by large businesses such as Duvall Home, LifeShare, Sunrise Community and National Mentor.

Group home workers are expected to undergo criminal background checks through the FBI, Florida Department of Law Enforcement and local agencies. They must also sign an affidavit that they are of good moral character, DeBardeleben said. "Zero tolerance" training is also required and employees are instructed to treat residents with dignity and respect, as well as to look for signs of abuse or neglect and to report it to law enforcement.

But researching group homes is complicated, said Jim King, executive director for The Arc of Volusia, which provides programs to increase independence and quality of life for adults with developmental disabilities.

"It's not an easy situation," King said. "There (is) a waiting list of people not getting any services. Funding has always been limited and it keeps getting cut. These are all independent businesses -- some big, some small."

DeBardeleben said more than 20,000 people are on the waiting list for Medicaid waivers statewide.

Martin Favis, president of the Duvall Home -- among the largest care providers for the developmentally disabled in the country -- said the challenge is to provide a homey setting for its 160 residents who live in 10 group homes and one larger congregate-living facility. Some pay privately while others have Medicaid waivers.

"Not every individual has a vested parent or guardian," Favis said as he walked through the home where Nicoles and Harwin live. "We want to have compatible homes where people have things in common. This is their home and it should feel that way."

Favis admits things weren't picture-perfect at Duvall before his arrival three years ago.

"We've come a long way in three years," he said. "APD (Agency for Persons with Disabilities) wasn't happy with us. There were funding cuts and financial problems. We had to really mend our relationship."

Group homes are monitored monthly, typically by a two-person team from the Agency for Persons with Disabilities. The exception is "respite homes," those that only take people who need temporary care -- for instance, if a family goes on vacation. They are not inspected if they have no residents during a given month.

"Group homes have their own niche," DeBardeleben said. "We want clients to have a choice so they integrate into the community, and different clients have different needs."

FINDING A NICHE

Some homes have nurses on staff. Others are "intensive behavioral residential habitation group homes," which handle patients who may be a danger to themselves or others.

One Duvall Home niche is that it is an adult-only facility.

"I'm hoping to get (my daughter) placed in Duvall," Roscoe said. "She turns 18 on Sept. 9 and hopefully we'll be able to transfer her that day."

Roscoe, her daughter, her daughter's case manager -- officially referred to as a waiver support coordinator -- and other officials from the Agency for Persons with Disabilities, as well as Favis, are working together to help Roscoe's daughter make the transition.

"I'm waiting for this to all settle down," Roscoe said before breaking into tears.

Roscoe believes her daughter should have been reassessed in January after she was burned. A reassessment is usually done once every three years, with exceptions made for crises.

"That was a crisis," Roscoe said. "I think she was in shock immediately afterward, but I can only guess that because of her limited verbal communication. She wets the bed now and has been self-mutilating. It's post-traumatic stress. And I'm tired. I'm trying to protect her. I'm trying to protect her from other people. I'm trying to protect other people."

Source

http://www.news-journalonline.com/news/local/flagler/2011/08/28/safety-of-group-homes-hard-to-check.html