Scott claim of fewer child abuse deaths questioned

By BRENDAN FARRINGTON, Associated Press; KELLI KENNEDY, Associated Press

MIAMI — Republican Gov. Rick Scott repeatedly tells voters that abused and neglected children are safer under his leadership than when his Democratic opponent Charlie Crist was governor, but an Associated Press examination of that claim shows that campaign claim may be an exaggeration.

Scott says deaths among children who have come to the Department of Children and Families' attention have plummeted from 97 in 2009 to 36 last year, but child welfare experts say any drop is attributed to the way DCF responds to abuse reports and changes to what is considered a death caused by neglect or abuse. The result artificially reduces the number of child deaths compared to Crist's 2007-11 term.

 "It's amazing how this works, isn't it? You just change how you do things and you can make it appear ... like things have improved," said Pam Graham, who was on the state's child abuse death review team until December and who is a professor at Florida State University's College of Social Work.
Three times during a debate last Friday, Scott said 97 children with a DCF history died of abuse in 2009. But the state's Child Abuse Death Review Team, which is independent of DCF and often highly critical of the agency, says only 69 children fell into that category that year. Scott's staff said the 97 figure came from a private company hired by DCF and the Scott administration that examined child deaths between 2007 and 2013. The administration says the company's analysis is based on updated data.
After the debate, Scott's campaign issued a release saying child abuse deaths have declined dramatically since he took office in 2011. But the governor and his team omitted a crucial point: Child welfare officials no longer count children who drown or infants and toddlers who die because a sleeping parent rolls onto them, saying there had to be a caregiver's willful act for the death to be considered abuse or neglect. The new standard meant many deaths weren't counted, even when there was evidence that parental drug use contributed.

The result made it appear there were fewer deaths. The change came under Crist but has affected the numbers since Scott took office.
The effect was immediate and the number of verified child abuse and neglect deaths dropped 30 percent under Crist, from 197 to 136 between 2009 and 2010, according to a tally by the state Department of Health. In the three years since Scott took office, the figures dropped to 130, 129 and 112, according to state data. This includes verified abuse and neglect deaths where the family had no history with DCF.
Crist said Scott's use of the death figures to score political points is "unconscionable."
"These children aren't political pawns to be played with," Crist said in a telephone interview. "I don't think anybody would expect anyone in political office to utilize the fate of children under the care of an agency for political gain."
Scott spokeswoman Jackie Schutz said the governor "has laid out a clear plan to protect Florida's children and keep our reforms at DCF moving forward," including additional supervision and risk detection methods. Amid growing scrutiny of DCF this year, Scott and the Republican-led Legislature overhauled the child welfare system, dedicating roughly $18.5 million to hire nearly 200 new investigators.

But it's difficult to say whether children have been safer under the Scott or Crist administration. DCF has had a troubled history for decades.
Graham believes it's misleading to say children are safer under Scott's leadership.
"When you look at the overall number of kids that die, it really hasn't gone down that much," she said.
Graham said DCF is screening out a higher percentage of calls to the state child abuse hotline under Scott, which means both fewer investigations and fewer deaths ultimately categorized as abuse.
Advocates are angry that child abuse deaths are being politicized, especially since several gruesome child deaths made national headlines on Scott's watch including a recent tragedy in Bell, Florida. Don Spirit fatally shot his six grandchildren and his daughter before killing himself. Records show DCF had been called 18 times to investigate the family over several years, both under Scott and Crist.
George Sheldon, who was Crist's DCF secretary, said he and his predecessor decided that more cases should be sent to the child death review team, including drowning and co-sleeping deaths. This year the Legislature mandated that the review team examine all suspicious deaths.
"To not see the broader picture is in essence just hiding the real problem, which is we could do more. If you're going to spend your time saying there were fewer deaths, then you're ignoring the bigger problem. New deaths are occurring," Graham said.

Read more at http://www.wral.com/scott-claim-of-fewer-child-abuse-deaths-questioned/14079721/#V3sRtmEhKDQIkSTv.99

Child massacre the last straw, advocacy group says: State agency can't protect kids

Posted: October 12, 2014 - 11:38am

By Margie Menzel

TALLAHASSEE | An advocacy group is calling for the Florida Department of Children and Families to relinquish its oversight of child-protective services to local law enforcement or other agencies following last month’s mass murder-suicide involving six children in Gilchrist County.

Roy Miller

Roy Miller, spokesman for the Children’s Lobby, said the murders amounted to the last straw in the department’s response to a series of child deaths going back many years.
“Why is DCF continuing to do the direct oversight of child-welfare services when they have a three-decade history of not doing it well?” he asked. “We need a new model.”
Miller’s group was responding to a department report on Don Spirit, the Gilchrist County man who murdered his daughter and six grandchildren before committing suicide on Sept. 18.
Citing media reports, the group said the Department of Children and Families was warned last year that “Spirit, a convicted felon with a history of discharging a gun that resulted in the death of a child, should have no contact with his grandchildren. More damning, some of the grandchildren themselves, as recently as last year, told DCF workers they feared their grandfather. Yet, they were living with him at the time of their horrific deaths and the household composition was known to DCF.”
The department concluded that the rampage could not have been foreseen, calling the tragedy “an extreme outlier” — but Miller strongly disagrees.

“Clearly what we are doing isn’t working,” he said.
According to the department, the family had been involved in 18 child-protective investigations since 2006, with Spirit involved in six of the investigations and alleged to be the perpetrator in three. Investigators confirmed that Spirit had physically abused his then-pregnant daughter, Sarah, who became one of his murder victims and was the mother of the six dead children.
The Children’s Lobby said DCF did not enforce its own safety plans or take action after a verified report that Spirit physically injured one of his granddaughters in 2013.
The murders in the small community of Bell drew national attention and scrutiny about DCF’s prior involvement with the family. Both the department and the Gilchrist County Sheriff’s Office had visited the family’s home as recently as Sept. 2, but the preliminary report said a case note showed that the children were not “in imminent danger of illness or injury from abuse, neglect or abandonment.”
For nearly two years, Children and Families has been under fire for the most recent round of child deaths on its watch. Lawmakers responded with a sweeping reform measure and increased funding during the 2014 legislative session.

Although the department has been putting the reforms into place, the murders in Bell have brought a new hail of condemnation.
The Department of Children and Families released a preliminary report last week, saying it would increase staff training and take up other reforms in the wake of the murders. DCF did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday about Miller’s calls for change.
“While DCF issues one more report stating they will use this tragedy to do better, six murdered children who relied on DCF to protect them don’t get a do-over,” Miller said. “This report is not at all different from any number of previous DCF reports about children the state failed to protect.”
Now, Miller said, the Children’s Lobby will join forces with others critics of Florida’s child-welfare system who believe DCF should transfer the oversight of its protective services to local law enforcement agencies or other community partners, such as local governments, who can do the job better.
Currently, six Florida sheriffs’ offices oversee child-protection services in their counties — Broward, Hillsborough, Manatee, Pasco, Pinellas and Seminole — rather than the Department of Children and Families having the responsibility.
Many children’s advocates believe the sheriffs do a better job.
“DCF cannot and should not perform protective investigations,” said Cindy Lederman, a dependency court judge in Miami-Dade County. “DCF has consistently proven itself incapable of conducting comprehensive investigations. We need trained law enforcement officers to take over.”
But some sheriffs have been wary of the responsibility, if only due to the cost.
http://mayportmirror.jacksonville.com/news/florida/2014-10-12/story/child-massacre-last-straw-advocacy-group-says-state-agency-cant

Editorial:DCF Interim Secretary Mike Carroll No accountability

Published: Wednesday, October 8, 2014 at 6:01 a.m.

Last Modified: Tuesday, October 7, 2014 at 1:50 p.m.

State child-protection investigators can’t be expected to predict the future, but they should be able to protect children when there is a history of abuse and neglect.

On that count, they failed miserably in the case of a Bell man who last month shot to death his daughter and six grandchildren before killing himself.

Yet the Department of Children and Families’ interim chief showed a stunning lack of accountability last week in determining that nothing could have been done to prevent the tragedy.

DCF Interim Secretary Mike Carroll

DCF Interim Secretary Mike Carroll made the claim in a review of 18 cases of domestic violence, drug use, neglect and other mistreatment involving Don Spirit, 51, and his family members. On Sept. 18, Spirit killed his 28-year-old daughter, Sarah, and her six children, ages two months to 11 years old, before turning the gun on himself.

Carroll wrote in an executive summary of the report that there was “no evidence to suggest that anyone, at any time, could have known” that Spirit was capable of the massacre.

While no one might have predicted a massacre, there was clearly enough evidence to raise concerns about escalating violence that could lead to something even more terrible. Since 2006, DCF had been involved in numerous cases in which Don Spirit was alleged to have physically abused family members.

The report failed to mention several of those cases, including allegations of Spirit threatening to kill himself and his ex-wife. In 2013, Spirit was reported to have firearms in his home despite his status as a convicted felon.

The report did acknowledge that a DCF agent ignored a 2013 recommendation from a University of Florida Child Protection Team that Spirit have no unsupervised contact with his grandchildren. Carroll wrote that DCF agents might have gotten complacent after investigating eight years of similar cases.

Given DCF’s history, the excuse is particularly galling. The Miami Herald’s “Innocents Lost” series this year told the stories of hundreds of children that DCF was also charged with protecting but who ended up dead. They include the case of 4-year-old Kristina Hepp, who was beaten to death by her father in Gilchrist County in 2009.

Carroll has outlined a five-part plan to prevent future tragedies. It includes statewide training for child-abuse investigators and hiring more staff to complete case reviews that could spot future trouble.

DCF’s history means local officials and advocates for children must monitor the agency to ensure these and other reforms are implemented. They must also ensure that the lines of communication are open between agencies and law enforcement to ensure warning signs aren’t missed.

And while the DCF report on the Bell massacre didn’t attribute problems to the caseload of workers, the number of case workers and state funding for the agency deserves continued scrutiny.

DCF’s default position after a tragedy can’t be excuses and a lack of accountability. The agency will never be able to prevent every tragedy, but it must do a better job than it has been doing.

http://www.gainesville.com/article/20141008/OPINION01/141009708

Editorial: Nightmare Of A DCF

It has become like a nightmare. Imagine it: You lay flat, cheek pressed against the dusty edge of a cliff. Your outstretched hand grips that of a tiny child. Fingers clench hard and white. Then slip. The child falls. Sweat-drenched, you wake before the body shatters against the stone below.
Horrifying ends like this have become far more than dreams under the Florida Department of Children and Families. Losing hold of our most vulnerable has become a regularity. A failure to protect them is systemic. And the results are unthinkable.

Last week, we were forced to think about it. On Sept. 18, in Bell, Florida, a man named Don Charles Spirit shot his daughter and six grandchildren. The tiny Floridians ranged in age from 2 months to 11 years. Spirit turned the gun on himself as deputies arrived — the final act of a depraved and evil man.
But for the state, our greatest shame is that these children could have — and should have — been saved.
According to the Miami Herald, just two weeks prior to the massacre, the DCF “received a report ... that the children of Sarah Spirit, 28, were living with drug abusers... Spirit told the agency she had just been released from jail after violating probation .... At the time, she was living with her father, a 51-year-old man with a record of violence who had once gone to prison for fatally shooting his son in a hunting accident.”
In the records obtained from the DCF, the Herald found all the ingredients for this nightmare. This was not the first encounter the agency had with the monster. Don Spirit’s history with the DCF spanned years with “allegations that he physically abused both his children and grandchildren, as well as at least one report of domestic violence between him and his daughter.”
Furthermore, the records showed that Spirit had been arrested on a slew of charges including “battery, drug possession and depriving a child of food and shelter.” And in 2001 the man had accidentally shot and killed his 8-year-old son on a hunting trip, according to the Herald’s findings. In addition, the story noted that the mother’s history “included arrests for larceny, shoplifting and drug possession” and that the “two fathers of her six children both are incarcerated.”

The state knew all of this — had long known this. Yet these six children were still in the custody of monsters. That has not been an isolated failure with the DCF.
Last year, the Herald chronicled this sad pattern in a series called “Innocents Lost.” The newspaper demonstrated how, for years, our state has continually allowed children to remain in dangerous situations, even after the danger has been well-documented. Too often, it resulted in fatal consequences for the most vulnerable and innocent members of our society.
And now this. The Herald says the killings are “believed to be the largest loss of life in a single family with a child welfare history ever in Florida.” So the nightmare continues. The agency that exists to save is incapable of pulling these children up from the cliff.
Forget the election-year promises that, in Florida, “it’s working.” Gov. Scott must make fixing the DCF his first priority. Because if government’s foremost obligation to protect children’s right to life isn’t working, then nothing in Florida is.

http://www.pnj.com/story/opinion/2014/09/25/editorial-nightmare-dcf/16227011/

Nubia Barahona's adoptive sister files lawsuit against Florida's Department of Children and Families

Suit claims child suffered years of abuse

Katie LaGrone

12:08 PM, Sep 17, 2014

 

It was a Valentine's Day discovery that unearthed one of the worst cases of child abuse and neglect in recent Florida history.

Three years after the young body of 10-year-old Nubia Barahona was found stuffed in a garbage bag of her adoptive father's pickup truck, Nubia's adoptive sister is suing Florida's Department of Children and Families.  The sister is accusing the state agency of failing to protect her too.
“It’s about a systemic failure of DCF and its agencies to protect children that they're supposed to be protecting,” said attorney Todd Falzone, who’s representing the young girl.
In the lengthy 20-page lawsuit, Nubia's adoptive sister, identified as J.B., now 11-years-old, claims for years she also suffered from the abuse of living with Carmen and Jorge Barahona, the children's adoptive parents.
“Unfortunately there is unspeakable acts of abuse embarked on this child,” said Falzone.
The lawsuit claims Carmen and Jorge Barahona physically, sexually and emotionally abused J.B.  It also cites multiple times that DCF allegedly missed signs of abuse in the house where J.B. lived with Nubia and her twin brother, Victor.
“You name it.  It’s a horrible, disgusting set of facts,” said Falzone.
Between December 2004 and February 2011, when Nubia was killed and her twin brother, Victor, nearly lost his life, Falzone cites at least 12 times DCF failed to properly discover abuse and investigate reports of it.
The lawsuit claims DCF and three case workers are responsible for the damages, injury, pain and mental distress that J.B. continues to live with.

“The light needs to be shined on what goes on with these kids at this agency.  This is an agency that time and time again has failed the children of this state,” said Falzone.
This is the second lawsuit filed against the state in this case.  The other was filed on behalf of Nubia and her twin brother Victor.
Carmen and Jorge Barahona have pleaded not guilty to the charges they face.  If convicted, both could face the death penalty.  Both remain in jail awaiting trial.

http://www.wptv.com/news/state/nubia-barahonas-adoptive-sister-files-lawsuit-against-floridas-department-of-children-and-families

 

Florida Child Welfare Worker, 3 Others Charged In Girl’s Starvation Death

By Carol Marbin Miller

cmarbin@MiamiHerald.com

A Broward County grand jury has charged four women — one of them a child welfare caseworker — with ignoring the suffering of a severely disabled Lauderhill pre-teen who withered away and died while under the protection of the state.

Tamiyah Audain suffered from a devastating disease, as well as autism and an intellectual disability. After her mother died from the same disease, tuberous sclerosis, Tamiyah was sent by the state to live with a young cousin, though a more capable caregiver in Kentucky was eager to take custody. On Sept. 25, 2013, Tamiyah’s emaciated, bedsore-pocked body was found in her caregiver’s home. An autopsy concluded Tamiyah was ravaged by infection, and starved to death.
The 12-year-old’s cousin, Latoya Patterson, was charged in an indictment with felony murder, meaning the child died as a result of another felony, aggravated child abuse, said Ron Ishoy, a spokesman for Broward State Attorney Mike Satz. Patterson was arrested Tuesday, and booked into the Broward jail. The charge is punishable by a maximum of life in prison.
A caseworker who was responsible for ensuring Tamiyah’s welfare, Jabeth Moye, was indicted on charges of child neglect causing great bodily harm, a second-degree felony. Moye worked for a foster care agency under the umbrella of Broward’s privately run child welfare agency, ChildNet, which has a contract with the Department of Children & Families. Her charge carries a maximum sentence of 15 years imprisonment.
Also indicted Friday were two psychologists who were involved in Tamiyah’s care, Juliana Gerena and Helen Richardson, Ishoy said. The two women were charged with failing to report suspected child abuse or neglect to DCF’s abuse hotline, which is required under Florida law. The charge is a third-degree felony, punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment, Ishoy added.
Failing to report child abuse has been a crime in Florida since at least 1999, when the well-publicized death of 6-year-old Kayla McKean of Central Florida prompted lawmakers to crack down on professionals who fail to act when confronted with obvious signs of abuse. But it is exceedingly rare for professionals or lay people to be charged with the offense, both in Florida and elsewhere.
“It is very, very unusual,” said Richard Gelles, the former dean of the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy and Practice, and a child welfare professor. “The indictment of professionals for failure to report almost never occurs. I may have heard of it once before in 40 years.”
The charges, Gelles said, suggest that grand jurors were particularly moved, or angered, by the circumstances of Tamiyah’s death. “To say they were probably pretty damn fed up would be mild,” Gelles said. “I think they were disgusted.”
Moye’s indictment was handed up Friday, the same day that a Seminole County caseworker, Jonathan, Irizarry,

Jonathan, Irizarry

was charged by state police with falsifying records about visits to another child under the state’s care, 2-year-old Tariji Gordon. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement said Irizarry’s failure to monitor Tariji’s health and welfare might have led to her Feb. 6, 2014, death. Police say Tariji’s mother, Rachel Fryer, beat her to death.
Moye was fired by ChildNet on July 11, according to records obtained by the Miami Herald. A termination letter said only that “even with the support and coaching” of her supervisors, Moye’s work had not “improved enough to timely comply with the duties and responsibilities assigned in [her] job description.” Moye, the letter said, had failed to “adhere to our standards of excellence.”
A website operated by Gerena says that her practice, Gerena and Associates, offers mental health counseling and assessments under contract with several state agencies and their providers, including DCF, the Agency for Persons with Disabilities and ChildNet.
The stories of both Tamiyah and Tariji were featured in a Miami Herald series, Innocents Lost, that detailed the stories of 477 children from throughout Florida who died after DCF had made prior contact with the children’s families. The deaths — overwhelmingly involving infants, toddlers and other very young children — spiked around 2008 after DCF administrators embraced a rigid “family preservation” model while simultaneously reducing the supervision of troubled, drug-addicted and sometimes violent parents.
In particular danger, the newspaper reported, were children with complex medical needs and physical or intellectual disabilities. Children with physical impairments, a report said, are 17 times more likely to die from abuse or neglect in Florida than their typically developing peers. Among the Herald’s sample of 477 children, 85, or close to 20 percent, had suffered from some type of medical, physical or cognitive disability. Many, including Tamiyah, endured multiple impairments.
Ishoy said Tamiyah weighed only 56 pounds when Patterson, her caregiver, finally sought help. The girl’s body was marred by “extensive bed sores and bone-deep wounds” at death.
But even as Tamiyah shriveled away, records show, her ChildNet caseworker was recording regular visits to Patterson’s home, and reporting that Tamiyah was safe.
Patterson admitted to investigators that she had locked Tamiyah in her bedroom for hours, allowing the girl to emerge only at mealtime. Tamiyah also was being sedated with three separate tranquilizers to subdue her behavior — medication that left her so drowsy that, Moye wrote, the girl would slumber during the agency’s monthly visits.
During the state’s last visit with Tamiyah, a report said, the 12-year-old was “moaning” as she sat on the lap of her caregiver, and covered head-to-toe in clothing, possibly to cover the bedsores.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/08/26/4311195/florida-child-welfare-worker-3.html#storylink=cpy

FDLE: Child welfare worker falsified home visit records for Rachel Fryer's children

ALTAMONTE SPRINGS, Fla —A child welfare worker who was responsible for checking on Rachel Fryer's children lied in his home visit reports, Florida Department of Law Enforcement officials said Friday.

Fryer is accused of killing her 2-year-old daughter, Tariji Gordon, and burying her in a shallow grave on Feb. 11.

Jonathan Irizarry, 27, of Altamonte Springs, was a case manager for the Children's Home Society of Central Florida, and was assigned to supervise Fryer's three children.
FDLE officials said Irizarry wrote that the children were free from bruises, but investigators said they found a photo on Fryer's phone that showed Tariji with a bruised and swollen eye and one arm in a sling.
Video: New video from Rachel Fryer hearing shows DCF's role in case
A postmortem examination on Tariji also showed multiple healing injuries including cuts, bruises, cigarette burns and bite marks, officials said.
"These charges should serve to remind those responsible for protecting our children of how important that duty is," said State Attorney Phil Archer, who will prosecute the case.
Irizarry was charged with two counts of falsifying an official record that contributes to the great bodily harm or death of an individual in the care and custody of a state agency.
Because great bodily harm resulted from the alleged falsification of home visit records, Irizarry could face 15 years in prison on each of two counts charged.
The Florida Department of Children and Families is the agency responsible for checking on children's welfare. DCF contracted Children's Home Society of Central Florida, who contracted Irizarry.

 http://www.wesh.com/news/fdle-dcf-contractor-falsified-home-visit-records-for-rachel-fryers-children/27683922#ixzz3BAnzHyFT