Startling Find In Jacksonville's DCF Child Death Investigations

I-TEAM examined 227 death investigations from 8-year span

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Nearly half of the 227 cases of child deaths in Duval County investigated by the Florida Department of Children and Families between 2009 and 2016 involved families already known to DCF investigators, an I-TEAM analysis of data found.

Those in charge of local child protection organizations were unaware the number was that high until shown the analysis by News4Jax.  The startling discovery by the I-TEAM has led to questions about staff experience and oversight within Florida’s child welfare system.

I-TEAM: Startling find in Jacksonville's DCF child death investigations

A privatized system

Florida privatized its child welfare system under then-Gov. Jeb Bush. The Department of Children and Families contracts with different lead agencies -- mostly nonprofits -- in different parts of the state, broken down by judicial circuits. The goal of that process is to have smaller organizations handle child welfare, in each individual community.

Family Support Services of North Florida is the lead agency for child welfare in Duval and Nassau Counties.

In Jacksonville, Family Support Services contracts with four other nonprofits to handle case management for children in troubled homes. Those organizations -- Children's Home Society, Daniel, Jewish Family and Community Services and Neighbor to Family -- also do other work beyond case management.

Lee Kaywork has been the CEO of FSS for eight years. The nonprofit annually oversees the cases of about 1,500-2,000 children who are victims of abuse, neglect or abandonment, largely due to domestic violence, substance abuse or mental health issues.  But the I-TEAM learned that Family Support Services doesn’t actually oversee any individual case involving abuse or neglect.

“I think we’re one of the best in the state,” Kaywork said when asked how child welfare in Jacksonville compares with communities across the state.

Kaywork told the I-TEAM he was confident that his case managers here have enough experience to make critical decisions about the children’s future.

“I'm confident once the child is in care, the safety of the child is being taken care of,” Kaywork said.

Taking a closer look at investigations

The harsh reality uncovered by the I-TEAM is that sometimes those families known to DCF and Family Support Services still end up having children die

Statistics on the DCF’s website show that 48 percent of child deaths the agency investigated in Duval County over the last five years were in families known to the agency. That percentage was higher than the percentages in jurisdictions with large cities, including Orlando, Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach.

Child Deaths in Large Florida Counties

County	Total Child Deaths	Percentage of deaths in families known to DCF
Duval	227	48.46%
Orange	222	47.75%
Miami-Dade	278	42.09%
Broward	272	40.44%
Palm Beach	200	35.00%
Hillsborough	279	32.26%

Data compiled from DCF statistics, 2009-2016

“I don’t know that for a fact, but I’ll believe you for the moment,” Kaywork responded when asked about the comparison. “I don't know the detail behind the number.” Kaywork added, “I think that, in most cases, those are going to be investigations that never reached us at Family Support Services.”

The I-TEAM discovered that not to be the case.

In 2015, DCF began deploying a new oversight team -- the Critical Incident Rapid Response Team -- to investigate child fatalities in families that are already known to the state system.  One goal of the team was to figure out how to make improvements. A review of reports from the team’s first year found that Duval County had six CIRRT investigations – more than any other county in the state.

A review of the case of a 6-month-old girl found her death to be sleep-related, but investigators still found issues within the case. One finding cited “high turnover and lack of available staff.”  One child protective investigator also stated he felt he “lacked experience to handle complex cases.” 

The report also found “safety plans were not sufficient” to manage dangers.

In another case investigated by the CIRRT, a 3-month-old girl died after co-sleeping with her mother. The family had been investigated by DCF prior to the girl’s death. 

In this case, the report found “investigations lacked a thorough assessment of the family situation,” and that the “region’s workforce was inexperienced at all staffing levels.” The report went on to say that 57 percent of child protective investigators had less than one year of experience, and 80 percent having less than two years of experience.

In three of the six cases from 2015, Family Support Services was involved. FSS delegated out the case management of the families to some of the nonprofits under them.

“That’s an alarming number. I’m not going to make short sight of it,” Kaywork said when pressed. “That is an alarming number.”

The I-TEAM asked Kaywork how often Family Support Services examines its actions to see if a mistake was made in a child’s case.

“I don’t go to sleep at night without thinking of the children we are serving,” Kaywork said. “That’s our job.”

Kaywork acknowledged the system is not perfect.

“It’s a child welfare system. We are at the tail end of a lot of woes of our society,” Kaywork said.

In recent years another societal issue -- opioid addiction -- has had an effect on the child welfare system. 

Kaywork said the bulk of child removals from custody now are tied to opiate use, accounting for the case of 75 to 80 percent of the children taken from their homes. That’s up from 40 percent in the past.

Family Support Services, a fully accredited organization, has been the local lead agency for foster care, adoption, and family services since 2001. Kaywork explained their state-mandated goal is to reunify families, but the I-TEAM found that happens in less than half of their cases.

In 2013 and 2014, more children were adopted out than reunified. In 2015 and 2016 there were fewer adoptions, but still only 35 percent of families were reunified.

Kaywork said it’s a delicate and difficult balance.

“There is nothing more traumatic to a child than being removed from their parent,” Kaywork explained.  “Nothing. They will never recover from it.”

Thursday afternoon DCF responded to the I-TEAM analysis with a statement:

Child safety is the first priority of the Florida Department of Children and Families and our staff and partners are entrusted with a sacred mission to protect the vulnerable and aide family recovery and resiliency. Every case of suspected abuse or neglect called into the Florida Abuse Hotline is carefully evaluated based on statutory criteria to be accepted for investigation. Every child death, regardless of family situation or the community, is a devastating tragedy. DCF takes every child fatality very seriously and is absolutely committed to reducing preventable child deaths."

http://www.news4jax.com/news/investigations/48-of-duval-countys-child-deaths-investigated-by-dcf-from-known-cases 

Family Fights To Get Children Back From DCF

JACKSONVILLE, Fla -- The main purpose of the Department of Children and Families is to protect our children. But a Jacksonville family said DCF is ripping them apart and it has put a damper on their holidays
"There's absolutely no physical harm being done to those boys," said Travis Murray.
The Christmas tree is ready but the house is quiet; void of children. Four days ago DCF removed three children from their home after allegations of physical child abuse. Sarah Crews and her live in boyfriend Travis Murray are raising their three children.

"I'm the one accused of hitting," said Murray. "They arrested me for child abuse, a third degree felony."
Crews and Murray say the child has ADHD and his injuries were caused by another child, not them.
"They get in fights constantly," said Crews. "I have to pull them apart."
DCF spokesperson John Harrell says the agency follows protocol.
"We feel confident regarding our investigation," said Harrell.
Harrell said the child protective team removes a child whenever there is evidence that a child is in danger.
"A judge reviews the decision so it is not just us." said Harrell. "Ultimately custody decisions are made by judges."
Harrell said the family now has to complete a case plan before there is reunification.
"I shouldn't have to disrupt my family," said Crews. "They want her away from me," added Murray.
Murray said he is ready to move out if it means the children can come home. In the meantime, they plan to fight DCF.

"It is not right what DCF is doing," said Crews.
But because of the process their children may not be home for Christmas.

http://www.firstcoastnews.com/story/news/local/consumer/on-your-side/2014/12/09/dcf-abuse-family-fighting-children/20158075/

Action News Investigates Changes At DCF

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Florida is one of the few states that puts the majority of its federal dollars toward providing services to keep Florida families together instead of spending the money on fostering children and removing the children from the home permanently.

The Department of Children and Family Services calls it the family redesign program.



According to DCF, in Duval, Clay, and Nassau counties the redesign program is working. They say just 10 percent of families reunited lead to new charges of abuse or neglect.

However we found the program does not always work.

It has been more than two months since 2-year-old Tariji Gordon was found dead in a suitcase in Putnam County.

Her mother, Rachel Fryer is charged with aggravated child neglect.  The toddler had been in foster care 3 months earlier after her brother was killed in an apparent "co-sleeping" accident.
Gordon was reunited with her mother through DCF’s redesign program.

It is a program DCF’s John Harrell says has helped keep thousands of families together since its’ implementation back in 2007.

"The percentage of children who are re-abused within six months of those services provided is only about 6 percent,” said DCF Communications Director John Harrell.

"I am actually thankful for them stepping in the way they did,” said Stephanie Beams.

After an anonymous tip was put into DCF, Stephanie Beams almost lost Kelsey and her four other children last year.

"I wanted to find a job and everything but I could not really do so because I was sitting here with three kids all day,” said Stephanie Beams.

"They did have electric or water for a month with five kids in the summer time.  On top of that the youngest child has disabilities and the middle two were not in school,” said Family and Support Services caseworker Allyson Kidd.

DCF stepped in and a judge decided rather than rip five kids from their mother who was struggling financially, they enrolled Beams and her children in the redesign program.

"I have the youngest one with medical disabilities in a medical daycare.  I  made sure that the mom is in mental health services, the father is getting treatment, the family really needed budgeting services,” said Kidd.

But what about that small percentage of kids like Tariji Gordon who are re-abused?

"Would you consider that a failure of the redesign,” asked Action News Reporter Jessie McDonough.

"A judge may decide on reunification.  It does not guarantee that there might be further issues down the line,” said Harrell.

According to DCF, they have no evidence to suggest any child deaths for kids they oversee in Clay or Nassau County last year.
There were six child deaths in Duval County. Four were homicides. Two were determined to be neglect.

None of those children had previously been in foster care.

DCF says the Casey Family Programs has provided funding and technical assistance with the redesign project.

http://www.fox30jax.com/content/topstories/story/Action-News-Investigates-changes-at-DCF/ID9CTny-uUuSucmxj1fonQ.cspx

Florida Department Of Children And Families 2 More Outstanding Employees

2 DCF employees and third woman charged with stealing $20,000 from Palm Beach dementia patient

Alexis White

PALM BEACH — Two women employed by the state to protect a vulnerable elderly woman instead preyed on her, stealing about $20,000 from her bank accounts while she was hospitalized for dementia, police said Wednesday.
Both women were adult protective investigators with the Florida Department of Children and Families. One went so far as to wait in 85-year-old Jane Janssen's Cocoanut Row apartment and pose as Janssen if the banks called to verify transactions, according to arrest affidavits made public Wednesday.
After investigating, Palm Beach Police Detective Nicholas Caristo arrested Mindi Marie Berry, 33, her DCF supervisor, Greta Laverne Lambert, 41, and a third woman, an employee of an escort service who told police she was hired to cash stolen checks.
Police on Wednesday were getting a warrant to arrest a fourth woman in the alleged scheme, which came to light after Janssen's son, Christopher Janssen, complained last month. That woman wasn't affiliated with DCF, police said. Berry and Lambert were fired in November after DCF learned of the police investigation, an agency spokesman said.
Adult protective investigators are responsible for looking out for some of Palm Beach County's most vulnerable residents, grown men and women who, for reasons of illness or developmental disability, couldn't take care of themselves. Investigators typically handle complaints of abuse or neglect but also often probe claims of financial exploitation.
"That's exactly what we would be called out to investigate," DCF spokesman Mark Riordan said of the allegations against Berry and Lambert. "It makes the crimes that they've been accused of particularly heinous."
DCF officials last month began reviewing each case Berry and Lambert worked on, a process that nearly is complete, Riordan said.
Berry had been working for DCF for less than a year when she was assigned to Janssen, Riordan said. Police said Berry noticed checks and bank letters scattered around Janssen's apartment and stole them at Lambert's and others' urging.
Described in police records as the scheme's "mastermind," Lambert worked for DCF for several years and had risen to the rank of supervisor.
Berry was taken into custody in November, soon after Christopher Janssen's complaint. After a month-long investigation, Caristo arrested Lambert and Alexis White, 19.
The women face charges of organizing a scheme to defraud, grand theft from an elderly person, credit card fraud and identity theft. Their attorneys couldn't be reached for comment.
A fourth woman remained on the loose Wednesday, police said.

                                                                                                                                                           

Staff writer Eliot Kleinberg contributed to this story.                                                      
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/crime/22-dcf-employees-and-third-woman-charged-with-155647.html?cxntcid=breaking_news 

 

                                                                                        

                                                                                                                                                              

This may sound like a crazy case of fiction, but I am afraid that this is happening to families all over the United States.
This occurred in PALM BEACH Florida  but if you look at other city's such as Jacksonville, Florida or Chattanooga ,Tennessee or even your home town you will find horror stories everywhere and not just one or two but hundreds. It is time to stand up to our state governments and tell them our children are not a commodity, parents have rights, and we as Americans have Constitutional Rights. Ignorance is no excuse.

Are The Children Only Worth $5,000,000 After They Are Murdered By DCF

March 20, 2011 

This article is not right on so many many levels. First are our children only worth 5,000,000 dollars? Is this the 30 pieces of silver conscienous money because DCF always fails the children? And why is Our Kids Inc not held to the same accountablity as DCF. They after all are the outsource agent for killing children. They are the ones who received, 100,000,000 dollars to steal children from the state and federal government. Yes, your tax dollars at work. If this bill passes more children will die, and be abused and once again no one is held responsible. Time to say enough!
By MARGIE MENZEL
THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA
Published: Thursday, March 17, 2011 at 11:40 p.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, March 17, 2011 at 11:40 p.m.
( page all of 3 )
TALLAHASSEE | A measure that would cap damages for pain and suffering by children in Florida’s child welfare system was approved by a House committee Wednesday after impassioned testimony from both supporters and critics.

Related Links:Two Children Reunited With Mother After Found Living in Squalor
Tampa Police Find 7-Year-Old Living in Filth
Baby Daughter Stuffed in Gym Bag in Jacksonville Woman’s Car
1-Year-Old Miramar Girl Left in Car Dies
Rep. Scott Plakon, R-­Longwood, the House sponsor, told the Health and Human Services Access subcommittee that HB 1019 would reduce “frivolous” lawsuits against agencies with state contracts to provide foster care and adoption services.

That in turn would allow the contractors to put more money toward serving children and less toward liability insurance or lawyers’ fees, said Shawn Salamida, the CEO of Partnership for Strong Families, the lead community-based care organization for 13 Northeast Florida counties.
“I’d rather take that money and hire two new caseworkers,” said Salamida.
Mike Watkins, CEO of another contractor, Big Bend Community Based Care, Inc., said his agency’s liability insurance had just been cancelled. The carrier, Watkins said, had told him to expect a 100 percent increase in premiums – and that that was low compared to hikes faced by other CBCs.
“This is probably the greatest threat to community-based care,” said Watkins.
“This is a crisis,” said Plakon, adding that the Children’s Home Society of Florida had recently received notice that its liability insurance would not be renewed.
But opponents said the measure would hurt child victims still more. They invoked the recent tragedy of Nubia and Victor Barahona, the ten-year-old twins who were victims of one of the worst-ever child abuse cases in state history. Nubia Barahona’s decomposing body was found in the back of her adoptive father’s truck on Feb. 14, even as her brother Victor convulsed from toxic chemicals in the passenger seat. He is recovering from severe burns in therapeutic foster care.

“This is really an attempt, truly, to provide legal protection for those who harm children to an extraordinary degree,” said Christina Spudeas, director of the advocacy group Florida’s Children First.
“There are kids in (foster) care that are beaten, that are raped, that are beaten and raped again, that are burned over half their bodies, that are unsupervised and left to fall in and almost drown in a pool — that require long-term, lifetime care … extensive surgeries … and mental-health help to recover,” she said.
The report of an independent panel last week charged Florida’s child welfare system with “fatal ineptitude” in the Barahona case.

“The medical bills that Victor has incurred to date are well in excess of several hundred thousand dollars already,” said Gary Farmer of the Florida Justice Association, which represents the trial bar and opposes Plakon’s bill.

“And we haven’t even talked about the emotional distress that little boy will live with all his life,” Farmer said. “Under this bill, there would be insufficient insurance to cover those lawsuits.”
Plakon’s bill would cap awards for pain and suffering at between $200,000 and $1 million and lower the amount of liability insurance the agencies must carry from $1 million to $500,000.
Economic damages would be capped at $2 million. The measure would also protect the Florida Department of Children and Families, which has sovereign immunity, from lawsuits against its subcontractors, which don’t.

“There’s been an issue of late of multiple parties being listed in these lawsuits trying to sort of drag DCF back into the equation,” Plakon said, “when all they did was, in good faith, appoint that contract to that community-based care agency.”

Salamida said his agency had had no lawsuits during its first four years, but in the last two years has had three, with a possible fourth lawsuit “on deck.”

“Sometimes it’s confusing who does what within our system,” Salamida said. “So what we’re seeing is that when something tragic or bad happens to a child, everyone that’s attached to the case gets named. And the process of going through and sorting out who did what is very time-consuming and costly.”
Farmer also pointed to a supporter of the bill, Our Kids, Inc., the community-based care organization in Miami-Dade and Monroe counties that handled Nubia and Victor Barahona’s adoptions. Farmer said Our Kids had gross revenues of $101 million in 2008, while its CEO, Frances Allegra, earns more than $200,000 with bonuses. Half a dozen other members of the agency’s executive team have salaries hovering around $100,000, Farmer said.

Allegra responded with a statement.
“We are a private, non-profit tasked with running one of the largest, most complex systems in Florida. Our board of community business leaders demand high performance and expect excellence,” she said. “Our responsibilities were previously performed by a state employee with a benefits package offering significantly more paid time off, better health benefits and a pension. In addition, we execute our duties, that were previously a state function, using significantly less staff. In return, we expect high performance.”
Our Kids would be protected under Plakon’s bill, which cleared the committee on an 11-4 vote.

http://www.theledger.com/article/20110317/NEWS/103175066/1374?p=all&tc=pgall

Prosecutor Richard Komando Why is Quakeita Leisha Anderson, DCF Worker Not Jailed?

The State Attorney Didn’t Ask For Jail Time! Why Not?

March 29, 2011

When I read this article I had to read it twice, she falisfied records, this is done all the time- both to steal children and to keep from doing the job. Children are abused and killed by being stolen and by not doing the job. What if these children had been hurt or worse murdered because she falsified the records? This is what happened to Nubia. Our tax dollars pay for her to lie on the paperwork. It is time no past time to revamp or shut this system down all together. The enitre system is built on lies.

By David Hunt
A former state Department of Children and Families investigator in Jacksonville has avoided trial by pleading guilty to falsifying a child abuse record.
Quakeita Leisha Anderson, 28, resigned from the agency last year amid an investigation into the bogus report. She closed a child abuse case without making a standard follow-up visit, even though she justified it by reporting she made the visit.
The same family became subject to another child abuse investigation based on a hotline tip a month later.
Anderson pleaded guilty to official misconduct last week. She had been scheduled to go to trial this week.
She is scheduled to be back in court for sentencing April 25. Prosecutor Richard Komando said he was mostly concerned with holding Anderson accountable and does not plan to ask for jail time.
http://jacksonville.com/news/crime/2011-03-28/story/dcf-worker-pleads-guilty-fibbing-report
Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/crime/2011-03-28/story/dcf-worker-pleads-guilty-fibbing-report#ixzz1HzL84SRM

http://protectingourchildrenfrombeingsold.wordpress.com/2011/03/29/the-state-attorney-didnt-ask-for-jail-time-why-not/