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State Child Services Badly Need Repair, Report Finds

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By SHERRI ACKERMAN, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 11, 2007

TAMPA - More state oversight of private contractors of foster care and common-sense safety measures are among recommendations released this week by a task force created to protect children in state care.

'We live in a state in which crisis is the norm and Band-Aid solutions to complex problems a common approach,' wrote a 13-member panel in a preliminary report created to help fix Florida's much-maligned social services system.

'Florida can no longer react to individual incidents,' the panel wrote. 'Instead, we must assure a system of protection and care that is adequately funded, staffed and professionally competent ... .'

Florida Department of Children & Families Secretary Bob Butterworth created the panel in July after a case hindered by multiple mistakes allowed a toddler to go missing for nine months.

Wisconsin authorities found 2 1/2 -year-old Courtney Clark in June living with her mother, who had absconded with the child. An unrelated child in the home had been tortured and his mother strangled to death and buried in the back yard.

Courtney became yet another poster child for all that remained wrong within DCF, an agency dogged for more than three decades by high-profile disasters that have resulted in numerous attempts to overhaul the system.

The latest effort is ongoing. Task force members, which include a state attorney, judge, law enforcement officials, child welfare workers and former foster children, plan to continue meeting for the next year.

'The group has really been listening to people in the community, workers, experts,' said Alan Abramowitz, a task force member and DCF administrator.

Reports By Phone, Updated Files

Among recommendations called for in the report:

•Identify procedures previously recommended, but not implemented, by DCF and its private contractors since then-Gov. Jeb Bush created a panel in 2002 in the aftermath of a missing Miami child. Five-year-old Rilya Wilson has never been found.

Current photographs and fingerprints of every child, along with a DNA samples, need to be kept on file, the latest task force wrote.

•Change laws that make background screening of caregivers - whether relatives, nonrelatives or foster parents - uniform.

The group also wants DCF to review its policy of allowing family friends, coaches or teachers to become caregivers without being licensed by the state.

•Train law enforcement agencies to file missing-person reports over the telephone and other common-sense changes that allow agencies statewide to work together to protect children.

Courtney's Case

Courtney came into state care after her mother was arrested in Clearwater in February 2006. The girl was returned to her mother's custody but removed again in July and sent to live with a family friend in Lake County.

When Courtney turned up missing in October 2006, her Pinellas County caseworker notified the Lake County Sheriff's Office. The agency refused to take the report over the telephone, however, causing even longer delays in Courtney's recovery.

The panel and recommendations in no way change Butterworth's view of community-based care, he told a Senate committee Oct. 2.

'Make no mistake ... Community-based care is improving the way we provide services to children in Florida.'

The panel's final report is expected to be released Nov. 2 in Fort Myers, where several child tragedies this year prompted the removal of two top DCF officials.

Reporter Sherri Ackerman can be reached at (813) 259-7144 or sackerman@tampatrib.com.

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