[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 131 (Tuesday, October 8, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1778-E1779]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           CHILD MALTREATMENT

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. GEORGE MILLER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Monday, October 7, 2002

  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, we have all read the 
on-going stories about the chaos engulfing the Florida foster care 
system. The story below describes the horrifying findings of a study 
commissioned, then subsequently suppressed, by the Florida Department 
of Children and Families (DCF).
  The Florida report, released September 19th, uncovered a 13-year-old 
boy living in a foster home--his 19th placement in under a year. In 
another case, auditors found a 10-year-old boy had been moved 12 times 
in two years and although a therapist thought he could not read, DCF 
had done nothing to ensure supportive educational services. Florida 
auditors blame the failed child welfare system on poor communication, 
ill-trained workers and insufficient resources.
  The situation described in the Florida audit is not unique to 
Florida. In August, an audit of Maryland's child welfare system 
revealed that the state had lost track of some foster care children for 
months, failed to ensure proper health care and, in at least one case, 
entrusted a foster child to a sexual offender.
  In July, Los Angeles County's foster care system was sued by child 
advocates, charging that foster children were routinely denied 
medically necessary mental health, behavioral support, and case 
management services, as required by federal law. District of Columbia 
officials acknowledged that several boys were sexually abused at 
various group home facilities, including a group home for mentally 
retarded foster children.
  The circumstances described in the following report, comparable to 
reports in Maryland, California, and the District of Columbia, clearly 
indicates that the child welfare system today is a national disgrace. 
States fail to meet federal child welfare law requirements of safety, 
permanency, and child and family well-being. In fact, child protection 
agencies make victims of the very children and families they are 
supposed to benefit.
  The history of Federal child welfare review efforts goes back to the 
law I authored in 1980 (P.L. 96-272). That law requires States to 
comply with a number of core requirements intended to protect children 
placed in foster care as a condition of receiving Federal foster care 
funds. Over the past 20 years, Congress has thrice charged the 
Department of Health and Human Services with developing new systems to 
review States compliance with federal child welfare protections. Yet 
the extent to which the Federal Government actually holds States 
accountable continues to be an issue of ongoing concern.
  The States have repeatedly failed to comply with federal foster care 
core procedural requirements. If those requirements cannot be enforced 
in a manner that adequately protects children, then Congress cannot 
delay longer in developing new standards to protect the well being of 
foster children.
  The article follows:


           [From South Florida Sun Sentinel, Sept. 20, 2002]

                   Grim Tales Arise From Foster Care

                   (By Megan O'Matz and Sally Kestin)

       Three Broward County boys were taken from their mother in 
     1996 and put into foster care. Five years later, the state 
     decided it had no grounds to keep the children and reunited 
     the family.
       By then, one boy had been whipped in foster care, and 
     another had gone so long without seeing his siblings ``he 
     forgot they were his brothers and thought they were just 
     friends,'' according to a state review of the children's case 
     files.
       ``The boys have been harmed by the system that set out to 
     help them,'' the reviewers wrote.
       The case study was part of an exhaustive review by an 
     Alabama consultant of more than 80 children under the care of 
     the Department of Children & Families statewide.
       The summaries, released by the department this week, 
     include disturbing descriptions of children wrongly kept from 
     parents, lingering in the system for years and lagging behind 
     in school, unprepared to live on their own.
       Evaluators blame the problems on poor communication, ill-
     trained workers and insufficient resources.
       Carolyn Salisbury, associate director of the University of 
     Miami's Children and Youth Law Clinic, said the grim 
     experiences described in the reports are not surprising. ``I 
     have worse cases than that,'' she said. ``We all should be 
     shocked, but those of us who work in child welfare are not.''
       The analysis, conducted by the Child Welfare Policy and 
     Practice Group from February to April, looked at cases in 
     seven DCF districts, including Broward and Palm Beach 
     counties.
       The lead consultant, Paul Vincent, delivered data to DCF in 
     May, but agency officials who were under attack for losing 
     track of children withheld it from the public and two panels 
     charged with investigating DCF until this week. The agency 
     released nearly nine pounds of documents in response to 
     public records requests from DCF critics and the media.
       ``Now that the document is public, we can see why DCF spent 
     so much time and effort to hide it,'' Salisbury said.


                            Below standards

       DCF officials were not available to comment on the case 
     summaries; however, newly appointed DCF Secretary Jerry 
     Regier expressed concern in a public appearance Thursday that 
     recommendations in a 2001 study of Broward County by 
     Vincent's team were never acted upon.
       ``That bothers me very much,'' he said.
       The subsequent review discovered problems statewide. 
     Evaluators said three out of four cases failed to meet 
     acceptable standards.
       Some common themes emerged.
       DCF caseworkers and supervisors often did not work 
     collaboratively with therapists, teachers, foster families 
     and parents. The system made few efforts to help parents 
     overcome problems related to poverty and cut off contact with 
     children, making reunification harder. And the agency 
     regularly had difficulty finding suitable foster homes.
       The reviewers found a 13-year-old Palm Beach County boy 
     living in a foster home--his 19th placement in under a year.
       The boy, who had a history of attacking teachers and 
     students, shared a room with a 5-year-old whom he threatened 
     to strangle.
       When the teen reported headaches and ``auditory 
     hallucinations,'' DCF waited a year to complete the doctor-
     recommended brain scans.
       In another case, an Orlando teenager, abandoned at 15 by 
     her adoptive parents, bounced among foster homes. ``These 
     constant moves have placed her at least two years behind 
     educationally,'' the report states.
       A frequent runaway known to climb into cars with strangers, 
     the girl claimed to have been raped more than once.
       Reviewers found she ``is not safe, stable or moving toward 
     permanence and independence. Her emotional status may be at a 
     historical low point ... The child's progress is unacceptable 
     and worsening.'' In Marion County, the consultants concluded 
     that DCF should not have taken a 3-year-old girl from her 
     mother. The agency received a report that the girl and her 
     siblings were flea-bitten and dirty and that the house had no 
     food.
       Shortly after arriving in foster care, the girl began 
     pulling her hair out and banging her head. She smeared feces 
     on walls and had trouble sleeping, awakening from dreams of 
     ``monsters.'' Foster care ``should be a last resort, not a 
     first step,'' Vincent's team wrote.


                           Sleeping in office

       Lacking funds, DCF, meanwhile, could not find a bed for a 
     disturbed 13-year-old in the Tallahassee area.
       Suspended from school and kicked out of a foster home for 
     killing a litter of newborn puppies, the boy spent his days 
     ``in and

[[Page E1779]]

     around'' a DCF office. At night he slept on the floor, next 
     to his caseworker.
       The child flunked sixth grade twice and had been 
     hospitalized numerous times for threatening to hurt himself 
     and others.
       ``This is a case of the system failing the child for a 
     multitude of reasons,'' the report states.
       The team faulted DCF in the case of another 13-year-old, 
     whose adoptive parents abandoned her. The state could have 
     prevented the failed adoption, the consultants found, but 
     investigators did not act quickly after receiving reports of 
     problems in the home, including harsh discipline and sexual 
     activity between children.
       Later, the girl kicked a teacher and hit a Department of 
     Juvenile Justice worker, sending her to a St. Petersburg 
     delinquency program two hours from her hometown of Ocala.
       No relatives visit her, ``nor do any of the people in the 
     system,'' the reviewers wrote. ``She seems to be a child who 
     is 'out of sight, out of mind.'''


                          Lawyer sees problems

       Richard Komando, a Fort Lauderdale lawyer who represents 
     about 90 children in DCF care, said he routinely encounters 
     problems the consultants identified, including poor 
     communication, too few foster homes and decisions driven by 
     money.
       ``It's rare when I see a kid where everything's going 
     right,'' he said.
       Indeed, the experts found little going right for a 10-year-
     old Brevard County boy. In his first two years in care, DCF 
     moved him 12 times.
       His father, a convicted sex offender, committed suicide. 
     The department, despite warnings, planned to return the boy 
     to his mentally ill mother. ``The mother is presently living 
     with a friend or in her car. No one is certain,'' the report 
     states.
       The boy should have been in fifth grade but was functioning 
     on a first-grade level. A therapist thought he could not 
     read, yet DCF ``had no contact with the school regarding his 
     progress,'' the report states.
       ``The child's remaining in one home since May 2000 after a 
     history of instability is the only mark of progress,'' the 
     consultants wrote. ``There is inadequate knowledge of this 
     case, its history and its future by DCF.''

     

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