Michigan Child Welfare System Needs To Be Put Under Federal Emergency Management

I would like to take this time to memorialize the work of the Lansing State Journal and the reporting of Justin Hinkley on illuminating the Michigan's Child Welfare System.

You can research the history of Michigan on this blog because it all started here.

On a side note, as I wish not to tarnish this report with in the spirit of fuchsia,  but I will say this.

The Michigan Office of Children's Ombudsman has this category called "Valid Not Opened" when it came to requests for investigations.

The intake investigator, being quick on her feet, would make a determination as to the validity of a case, not on anything dealing with the well being of the child, or the original guardians, but on the financial merits of being able to afford the investigation, or if there were political interests, or if there was fraud...

This one particular year, I had decided to skew its reporting statistics.

I went around the state with a friend where we created, printed and distributed fliers at the court houses and child placing agencies with direct information on how to report to the Office of Children's Ombudsman.

I drastically skewed the annual report.

You know you love me, every one of you, including The Madame Maura Corrigan (said in a high British accent).

Oh, and Perkins Coie sucks.

Michigan DHHS needs to be put under federal emergency management.

Let us see how Snyder likes that one.

More Michigan kids die despite 10 years of trying to fix the system meant to protect them

 More Michigan kids are dying from abuse or neglect a decade after a federal lawsuit forced the state to spend millions of dollars on improvements.

LANSING — Shortly after Gov. Rick Snyder's child welfare agency argued to a federal judge it had improved enough to escape court oversight, one of the state’s foster children drowned in a lake near Flint. 

Omarion Humphrey, 9, was autistic. On July 4, 2015, he wandered away from a foster mother who had no specialized training to care for him. 

"We had him for nine years and nothing even close to that happened to him," his sister, 21-year-old Cyrria Mims, said in a recent interview. "They had him for four months and he ended up dead." 

More Michigan kids are dying from abuse or neglect than a decade ago, when the state settled a federal lawsuit and vowed to improve its child welfare system, a Lansing State Journal investigation found.

Deaths increased despite the hundreds of millions Michigan spent on reforms, including doubling its child welfare budget and nearly doubling the child welfare staff. 

 

In 2008, the year Michigan settled the lawsuit, the state reported 59 deaths from abuse or neglect. In 2016, the most recent year data is available, Michigan reported 85 such deaths and became one of the five worst states in the nation.

Also in 2016, the Michigan Office of the Children's Ombudsman opened a record number of investigations into the deaths of foster children or kids whose families had recently received child welfare services. 

The ombudsman says the Michigan Department of Health & Human Services did everything right in 6% of the hundreds of cases it reviewed between February 2016 and March 2018. 

Those reviews included child deaths and other cases involving Children's Protective Services investigations, foster care and adoption. 

Records show state employees and contractors frequently violate the laws and policies meant to protect kids from harm and often fail to intervene when they should. The ombudsman has written more than 500 suggested improvements to the child welfare system over the last decade, including 155 related to child deaths. 

While Michigan has made reforms it should be proud of, "we remain deeply concerned about the ability of the state to keep kids safe when they're in foster care," said Elizabeth Pitman Gretter, an attorney for Children's Rights. That's the New York advocacy group that sued Michigan after several high-profile child deaths, including the 2005 killing of Williamston’s Ricky Holland by his adoptive parents. 

Omarion Humphrey’s death 10 years later illustrates the ongoing flaws. DHHS had removed Humphrey and 10 of his siblings from their parents over living conditions officials said were unsafe. But the state placed Humphrey with a foster mother who had a history of complaints and no training on how to handle autistic children.

Herman McCall needs to go

"I don't think anyone that had him there that day actually was sorry," Mims said. "My son will never have met his uncle, ever. My baby brothers don't even know who he is.

And my younger brothers don't remember who he is."

DHHS can't comment on specific cases, but spokesman Bob Wheaton pointed to state policies requiring the department to place kids in the most appropriate home and minimize "the trauma experienced by the child and family."

The DHHS contractor that placed Humphrey lost its license; Humphrey's siblings were returned to their parents in December 2016.

Herman McCall, executive director of Michigan’s child welfare programs, refused to be interviewed or answer written questions for this article, citing the ongoing federal lawsuit. Instead, he issued a written statement pointing to numerous new programs launched over the last decade.

"Since coming under federal court oversight in 2008," the statement says, "MDHHS has taken numerous measures designed to increase safety and well-being … and deliver effective services to achieve positive outcomes for children and families."

Read McCall's complete statement here.

'Michigan doesn't care' 

Mistakes like what happened to Humphrey will continue to happen, current and former DHHS employees said, because of excessive turnover that leaves kids' lives in the hands of inexperienced caseworkers.

State civil service records suggest only about 18% of child welfare employees have at least 10 years on the job. The average worker has about 7 years' experience. 

That can be a serious shortcoming. Child welfare workers need a deep understanding of state and federal law, the court system, and community resources available to families.

"You just don't get that without time in the trenches," said David Berns, who ran child welfare agencies in several states, including Michigan in the 1990s.

Turnover is a common problem in the high-stress, high-stakes world of child welfare, especially given that the pay is relatively low. DHHS' child welfare workers make between $19.41 and $33.32 an hour.

But current and former DHHS employees who spoke with the State Journal said the problem is exacerbated in Michigan. Employees often quit out of frustration with supervisors who they believe are more concerned about escaping court oversight than giving kids what they really need. 

Supervisors often tolerate — or even subtly encourage — shortcuts while harassing workers who take too long to close cases, workers said. 

"The State of Michigan doesn't care," said Adre Brown, a former CPS investigator in Ingham County. "As long as you get your cases done in 30 days, you're a rock star."

There's evidence to support those claims. Last year, DHHS reassigned a regional supervisor in the Upper Peninsula amid allegations that supervisors bullied employees.

The federal court, state lawmakers and the Michigan Auditor General are investigating allegations — first uncovered by the State Journal last year — that supervisors frequently assign cases to employees who are on leave for medical or other reasons. That makes the state appear to be in compliance with court-ordered caseload limits but may delay crucial interventions in kids' lives.

DHHS knows it has a turnover problem.

The department commissioned a study of its foster care programs in 2015.

Researchers found turnover among foster care workers was more than 16%, compared to less than 10% across all state government jobs. DHHS spends $1.5 million a year hiring and training new foster care caseworkers, researchers from the National Council on Crime & Delinquency said in that report.
 

The report concluded DHHS should hire enough foster care employees so none were responsible for more than 13 cases, to give employees adequate time for kids. Yet, DHHS has repeatedly missed the 15-cases-per-worker requirement spelled out in the federal lawsuit, including in the most recent monitoring report.

The department also exceeded caseload limits for supervisors and CPS workers. The department was within caseload limits for licensing staff and employees who run the statewide hotline where suspected abuse is reported.

'There's no leadership'  

McCall, the state's child welfare chief, told lawmakers in March that DHHS has used the results of employee surveys to make the department a more attractive place to work.

In his written statement to the State Journal, he said officials have focused on hiring qualified staff, providing quality training, and helping employees deal with the secondary trauma they might experience through the horrors they witness in their work.
 

"Recognizing that a healthy workforce is a significant asset to successful improvement and sustainability of Michigan’s child welfare system, MDHHS continues to develop and implement efforts focused on addressing workforce barriers," McCall said in the statement. 

Five-year-old Addisyn Lantto talks to her uncle, Brendan Bedini, on Wednesday, April 11, 2018 in the White Lake home where they live. Brendan and his wife, Erika, have raised Addisyn, their niece, since the girl was 9 months old.

But it isn't clear that's really happening. Last year's surveys revealed skepticism among employees at the Children's Services Agency, the umbrella organization McCall runs that covers child welfare programs, juvenile justice and more.
 

Just more than a quarter of those employees said they'd seen meaningful change come from engagement survey results. Most said DHHS leadership is untrustworthy and that employees cannot share their opinions without fear of retaliation.

So turnover remains a problem. And families feel the effects.

For about two years, White Lake's Brendan and Erika Bedini have had legal guardianship of their 5-year-old niece, Addisyn Lantto, because the girl's mother struggled with alcoholism. 

The Bedinis say they feared for their niece's safety because DHHS allowed Addisyn to visit her mother even as the mother had relapse after relapse. The Bedinis said they struggled to get Children's Protective Services to respond to their concerns.

Wheaton, the DHHS spokesman, pointed to policies that encourage parental visitation plans that are "in the best interest of the child and … develop or enhance attachment with the child's family."

Brendan Bedini said the state repeatedly made the wrong decision in Addisyn's case. He blamed that, in part, on the fact that they dealt with a dozen different caseworkers over less than three years. 

"I don't know what the problem is" at DHHS, he said, "except there's no leadership. There's no direction. There's no one to go to."

'Driving … in the blind' 

Children's Rights, the New York group that sued Michigan, has sued 13 other state- and county-based child welfare agencies since 1977. Seven of those cases are ongoing, and the group has pending suits against Florida and Arizona.

Each state's problems are unique, but "Michigan did seem to get off to a slower start," said Pitman Gretter, the Children's Rights attorney. "We are frustrated that we aren't further down the road." 

Michigan has changed its system in the decade since then-Gov. Jennifer Granholm signed the first settlement with Children's Rights.

Granholm's administration in 2009 created a specialized unit to investigate allegations of abuse or neglect in foster care.

The timeline below shows the history of child welfare reforms in Michigan. Story continues below.

In 2012, Snyder's administration opened a centralized intake hotline where all allegations of child abuse or neglect are reported and assigned for investigation.

In 2015, the administration launched a massive, $61 million computer system meant to improve data collection and analysis — though that program has been glitch-ridden since it went online.

Those and other efforts have helped the state improve upon some key statistics. The state has sharply reduced the number of kids in foster care. At a hearing in the federal lawsuit last summer, U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds praised the state for more quickly finding kids permanent homes. 

"It is a happy event, and everyone involved should feel proud of what's been accomplished," Edmunds said.

But much remains to be done. 

In their latest report, court-appointed consultants tracking Michigan's progress in the federal lawsuit said DHHS had accomplished less than 25% of the goals laid out for it.

Among the missed targets: Several abuse investigations took longer than allowed by state law. Nearly a third of the allegations of abuse in foster care that should have been assigned for investigation never were. And the department failed to run background checks on some of the relatives with whom children were placed, meaning some kids were placed in homes with unsecured firearms or where drugs were abused.

And monitors still can't measure the state's progress on many metrics. Partly because of the still-glitchy computer system launched in 2015, monitors said in their last report they couldn't gauge the state's progress on 28% of the requirements.

"How does management know, day to day, what decisions to make?" Sara Bartosz, another Children's Rights attorney, told Edmunds at the 2017 hearing. "You're driving a bus in the blind." 

Orlene Hawks

Meanwhile, Children's Ombudsman Orlene Hawks said DHHS continues to show "a very concerning pattern of not following those rules and policies" in investigations.  

As long as there is poverty, substance abuse, domestic violence and other family strife that puts kids at risk, bad things will happen, Pitman Gretter told the State Journal.

But she said kids shouldn't get hurt because the government agency meant to protect them messed up.
 

"You look for a system in place that protects against those human errors," she said. "Child welfare is a messy world, but it is not a standard-less world."

Related coverage

• "LSJ investigation: Child welfare workers say records faked, boss says they aren't"
• "Lawmakers vow to investigate DHHS records manipulation"
• "Here's what DHHS told a federal judge about faked-records allegations (annotated)"
• "Ricky Holland, 10 years later"
• "Parents outgunned in child welfare cases"

Contact Justin A. Hinkley at (517) 377-1195 or jhinkley@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @JustinHinkley. Sign up for his email newsletter, SoM Weekly, at on.lsj.com/somsignup. 

How do Michigan's children die? 

In 2016, the Michigan Department of Health & Human Services reported 263 child deaths — many during or shortly after state intervention — to the Michigan Office of the Children's Ombudsman. Here's how those deaths happened: 

47.5%: Unknown/unspecified 

16%: Unsafe sleep practices 

12%: Natural causes/health issues 

6.5%: Accident 

18%: Miscellaneous, including drowning, suicide and fire. 

Source: Michigan Office of the Children's Ombudsman 

Michigan child welfare: By the numbers 

13,439: Number of Michigan foster children as of Dec. 31, 2017, compared to more than 18,000 in 2008. 

76: The number of Michigan children who were abused or neglected in foster care in 2016, compared to 203 in 2011.  

85: The number of child deaths from abuse or neglect reported in 2016, compared to 59 in 2008. 

144: The number of child death investigations opened by the Michigan Office of the Children's Ombudsman in 2016, compared to 74 in 2009. 

$1.2 billion: Michigan Children's Services Agency budget for the 2018 fiscal year, including $25 million on legal fees and monitoring costs in the federal lawsuit. 

Sources: Michigan Department of Health & Human Services, Michigan Office of the Children's Ombudsman, U.S. Administration for Children & Families 

Child welfare federal oversight: A timeline 

Aug. 8, 2006: Children's Rights, a New York advocacy group, sues Michigan following highly publicized government errors in several child deaths, including the 2005 killing of Williamston's Ricky Holland by his adoptive parents. 

Oct. 24, 2008: Michigan settles with Children's Rights. The state agrees to several reforms, promising to reduce caseloads, hire more qualified employees, and do more to protect children in foster care. 

July 18, 2011: Gov. Rick Snyder signs a new settlement with Children's Rights about seven months after taking office. 

Dec. 2, 2014: 28 days after Snyder wins reelection, his administration files a motion to dismiss the federal lawsuit, starting a third round of negotiations with Children's Rights. 

Feb. 2, 2016: The Snyder administration signs a new agreement with Children's Rights. Under the new Exit & Sustainability Plan, requirements end when the administration proves it can accomplish them. 

What's next 

The Michigan Department of Health & Human Services and Children's Rights will appear in U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds' courtroom at 10 a.m. Thursday. Officials from Public Catalyst, the New Jersey firm appointed by Edmunds to monitor DHHS' progress in the federal lawsuit, are expected to present their latest report. 

The Theodore Levin U.S. Courthouse is at 231 W. Lafayette Boulevard, Detroit.

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Michigan To Pretend To Let The Public Know Why Kids Die In Michigan Foster Care - Drugging, Rapes, Tortures, Suicides & Child Trafficking Still A Legislative Tautology

Here we go 'round Michigan Drugging Kids,

Rapes and Death,

Rapes and Death, 

Here we get 'round getting indicted

In another legislative tautology. 

FUN FACT! A DEATH IN THE MICHIGAN CHILD WELFARE SYSTEM IS CALLED A STATISTICAL "ERROR".

Ricky Holland never got a chance to sing this song because he was murdered in Michigan's Child Welfare System.

The other little boy was too doped up being used as a lab rat, to understand what it is like to sing.

Here is a perfect method to stop deaths in Michigan's Child Welfare System.

Shut it down.

Federal receivership.

https://beverlytran.blogspot.com/search?q=ricky+holland
Ricky Holland's death saved the lives of two little boys.

Dismantle the Office of Children's Ombudsman and let local peace officers make referrals for
assistance, like calling one of the relatives or someone who cares to step in and help the family.

Stop stealin' the children, the land and the votes.

Stop making people poor.

If there is a crime, put it through law enforcement channels of due process.

Take a big red marker and rescind the entire Child Welfare Law in Michigan, but you will have to start with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, first.

Prosecute everyone at the Michigan Children's Institute in a federal jurisdiction, where I can come up with lots of antitrust law violations to start, and I would not dismiss the idea of war crimes.

Revoke the licenses, dissolve contracts, prosecute and recover every single last penny from these foreign corporate, privately contracted Child Placing Agencies, where you can start with the Michigan Catholic Conference.

Every "Elected One" who has taken political campaign funding from child welfare NGOs should be defrocked of office.

Commence federal asset forfeiture for every pharmaceutical which has engaged in drugging of Michigan's drugging of children, including every use of Foster Children as lab rats.

I understand that these concepts of trafficking tiny humans for revenue maximization of foreign corporations in Michigan are going to be difficult to understand, but that is why we have a justice system and hand held devices to watch as it goes down, in real time.

What about the Foster Children who are raped, denied education, beaten, tortured or will these continue to be omitted from the public discourse as "Valid-Not-Opened" category of investigations of the Children's Ombudsman Office?

Anyway, this is not the first time the concept of fixin' to do somethin' has come up in legislative initiatives because this has been going on since the Emancipation Proclamation because it all started here, in Michigan.

I believe the public should be able to see the billions upon billions profited off children of "The Poors" (always said with clinched teeth) and the faces of those "Elected Ones" who did absolutely nothing but take another fashion show selfie.

Will Nancy Edmunds do anything besides let Michigan drop another $100 million to the people who already got $200 million for a antiquated SACWIS that needs to be sent back to the 20th century from whence it came?

Probably not, but I bet more children will be beaten, drugged, raped, tortured, attempt suicide and successfully execute suicide to escape from Foster Care, while Nancy Edmunds allows the case to linger another decade in her courtroom.

This may be a tall order but it is always best to understand that not everyone can eat an entire bowl of rice at one time, and, in this instance we shall start with two grains of rice, the first being Ricky Holland, who died, brutally, and another little boy, who used to die, then come back, and die, and be drugged more, raped, beaten, tortured, die, then come back to survive a life of hell in Michigan's Foster Care System.

No one cares, so have a great day!

Panel: Public should see findings on child deaths in Michigan welfare system

Lansing – A legislative oversight panel says the public should see the results of state investigations into the deaths of children who are involved with Michigan’s child welfare system.

The recommendation was included in a report adopted unanimously Thursday by the House Oversight Committee. It stems from lawmakers’ review of an audit released in April that found that the state Department of Health and Human Services did not notify the Office of Children’s Ombudsman of 206, or 20%, of child deaths from 2014 through 2017 because workers did not check a box in a cumbersome software system.

The office independently investigates complaints involving children who are under state oversight for reasons of abuse or neglect, and checks to see if public or private agencies followed laws and policies.

Current law only lets people who can file complaints with the ombudsman’s office – including parents, guardians, their attorneys, mandated reporters or legislators – get the written findings, recommendations and DHHS response to the ombudsman’s investigation. The House panel recommended that the ombudsman be required or allowed to publicly release the information.

A similar recommendation was made by the children’s ombudsman in her most recent annual report.

“This is an issue of transparency. It’s an issue of accountability,” said Rep. Matt Hall, a Marshall Republican who chairs the committee.

Another recommendation would give the ombudsman discretion to do preliminary investigations – not full reviews – in child death cases, freeing the agency to focus on complaints involving living children who remain in the system.

Children’s Ombudsman Lisa McCormick, who was appointed to the post by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in January, told lawmakers in June that there is value in looking at every child death but her office should have leeway, particularly because some deaths are accidental and not the result of violence.

“When you have the discretion to make those decisions on which cases you fully investigate, you can focus your attention on the real issues in child welfare and address those,” she said.

Rep. David LaGrand, a Grand Rapids Democrat, said there are instances where “death happens for some tragic reason that had nothing to do with good parenting. To put those parents through a complete investigation when early on you are confident that this was not anything the parents could have or should have done differently is to put traumatized people through a really crummy experience.”

The panel also said whatever software replaces the failed MiSACWIS system should provide a more efficient way for child deaths to be reported to the ombudsman.

The state is pulling the plug on the network that was rolled out in 2014 and which has cost more than $200 million to build and service.

In March, U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds told state officials to come up with a solution after an expert reported an “unmanageable backlog of defects, incidents, and data fixes” that might never end.

https://beverlytran.blogspot.com/search?q=jezowski

Statement of Stephanie Jezo... by Beverly Tran on Scribd

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Do Not Blame CPS, Blame Michigan

To begin, I do not believe these Child Protective Services workers should be blamed for the child's death for the following reasons, so let us start with the "Right To Lie" federal case which sets forth the question:

Wayne County CPS Workers Elaine Brown and Kelly Williams
blamed for the death of Aaron Minor

"Do social workers have the right to lie, generate false evidence, and submit into the public record for removing a child from the home."

In this report, it is unknown if these workers lied which is really not at issue here.

What is at issue are roles and responsibilities of the players in child welfare.

Let us take a bottom up look at statutory authority in the food chain of child welfare.

CPS operates as the intake under the powers of the State, not local, which means the role of prosecution does not fall upon Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy, but instead, upon the State Attorney General.

Wayne County is the only county of the State where the State Attorney General prosecutes child welfare cases.

Next, upon review of the statements of the anonymous child welfare worker, who, obviously does not possess a legal background, fails to even realize that the one main, and constitutional, reason why the Detroit Police Department will not just bust into a home, based on what CPS calls "exigent circumstances", is because police are supposed to possess a signed warrant, not rubber stamped.

But, as I have always said, there are no civil rights in child welfare.

Continuing on up the CPS food chain, Wayne County Child Protective Services follow the policies set by the State of Michigan, under the leadership of the Department of Health and Human Services, where the latest Director Nick Lyon, who is too busy preparing for his legal defense, with the taxpayers dimes, is a tad bit too busy to address the egregious fraudulent billing, including civil and human rights violations of human trafficking in child welfare.

In child welfare, each state-county section of the state system has quota in the number of removals, and/or cases opened under child welfare, in order to maintain levels of operations and its federal funding.

If one ever took the time to do a time series of expenditures...what a minute, I constructed that model over a decade ago... one will observe, with crystal clarity, that it should appear as odd that each year there is not volatility in caseloads.

Same number of cases opened; same number of cases sustained; same number of foster care placements; same number of termination of parental rights.

This is what is called benchmarks and if the state does not meet its previous year's benchmarks, then, they lose federal dollars, of which I have alleged for over a decade, that the State uses a portion of federal funds (FFP) as its state participation rate obligations.

That is a major "no-no", but of course, state officials are too busy in the criminal investigation of the players in the Flint Water Crisis, oh, and I forgot to mention, still under federal oversight of its child welfare system.

But of course, for those who are loyal fans very well know, there were substantial errors in that particular case because HHS lied to the federal court.

Without going into my ad nauseum on that federal oversight case with Children's Rights, there was not a peep on the filing of false cost reimbursements or that magical and secretively omnipotent organization called Michigan Children's Institute, which has never been audited.

This takes us to the upper echelon of Michigan's child welfare administration where many of its leadership, civil servants and contractual arms, are playing the immunity game.

What I mean by the immunity game is that the state slammed through a bunch of laws, washing its hands of responsibility with its child welfare contracts, meaning, the Bureau of Child and Adult Licensing does not possess the authority to accept grievances, let alone conduct and refer suspected violations of law and policy to the Attorney General.

Heck, the Office of Children's Ombudsman (OCO) does not even refer suspected violations of law and policy to the Attorney General, because they still operate on that deflective policy of "valid-not-opened".

If, in the even the OCO actually does find violations, it is sequestered from the public due to those lovely privacy laws in child welfare, because, as we all know, well, at least the state administrators do, the Attorney General exists in that particular conundrum of contemporaneously "advising and advocating".

How can the State Attorney General prosecute these CPS workers when it is obligated to defend its actors while it prosecutes child abuse and neglect in Wayne County?

I cannot fail to mention that the State Automatic Child Welfare Information System (SACWIS) sucks, badly.

Data reporting is not just incomplete by its users, but it is redundant and technologically arcane, intentionally designed to omit "certain" reporting variables.

Ok, in this particular case, CPS had a referral from a mandatory reporter to check on a mental health patient, who, more than likely, according to the report, was in a situation of "food scarcity".

Food scarcity is the fancy new term which means the state has significantly cut, or even, severed, SNAP food benefits.

Now, let us examine this particular component of the story.

The mother was poor, with mental health needs she was obviously addressing, which means to mean she was receiving Social Supplemental Income, federal welfare, as the national trend is to dissolve the social safety net without any replacement.

If she was receiving $733 a month, that means her SNAP benefits were cut to $18 a month, which includes a child in the home.

This means if she needed food, as the shift is to send the poor to the food pantries, praytell, my gentle readers, how is a mother, with disabilities and an infant, supposed to: (1) get to the food pantry without transportation as some set distribution in vehicle food lines; and, (2) get to and from the food pantry having to pay bus fare from her monthly allotment of $733, and pay her bills?

Let us not even waste our precious time to contemplate if the mentally ill have the ability to even execute this aforementioned food gathering task.

Drive through food line distribution of the week for a
family of 4. (Industrial case of mustard, 2 cabbage, 4 butternut squash,
pre-rotten tomatoes, 2 bags of rice, out-dated milk,
and frozen-thawed-frozen-thawing chicken quarters.)

But wait, it gets better.  The food pantries are running out of food.

I do not know about the rest of you, but to me, the unraveling of the social safety net for the most vulnerable, or rather, "The Poors", is a scheme to hustle more federal dollars through privatization, because someone has to make a profit and these poorly trained CPS workers. lacking of resources for proper referrals to prevent situations such as this tragedy, should not be held liable for the unintended death of the child.

The same poor quality of services can be seen in mental health.

They, the CPS workers, were, including the mother and the child she just lost, are part of the food chain in the perverse child welfare system which is only a foreshadowing of its final stage of privatization.

It is my belief that the workers possesses legal claims against the State of Michigan and should be approached by the legal community.

Call me, I will consult.

This is a principal-agent issue where the State should be blamed and federal court oversight should continue.

What say thee, Attorney General Bill Schuette?

CPS worker says colleagues not to blame for child's death CPS worker says colleagues not to blame for child's death

 

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No One Cares: Another Corporate Parental Commodity Is Destroyed In Michigan Child Welfare

Cornelius Fredericks
A typical Medicaid cost reimbursement
situation in foster care

No one cares about what goes on behind the iron curtain of child welfare, particularly Michigan, because it all started here.

Cornelius got lucky because he no longer has to scream.

Ricky Holland got lucky, too.

This is what Black Lives Matter is covering up, the children, because slavery was never abolished.

Gretchen knows well of the horrors of the Michigan Child Welfare System.

She got desensitized by the screams because the screams of children is an industry.

Someone needs to go ask her about her history with the Michigan Catholic Conference and the Archdiocese of Detroit, because Cornelius died by Medicaid Fraud in Child Welfare.

I am quite sure the facilities carry indemnification insurance coverage....and a life insurance policy on Cornelius....

#maytheheavensfall

Michigan teen died after screaming 'I can't breathe' while being restrained by staff member, lawsuit claims

WEST BLOOMFIELD, Mich. (AP) - A civil lawsuit filed Monday following the death of a 16-year-old in a Michigan youth facility says he screamed "I can't breathe" as at least one staff member placed their weight on the Black teen's chest for nearly 10 minutes.

The lawsuit filed in Kalamazoo County Circuit Court names Lakeside Academy in Kalamazoo and Sequel Youth and Family Services as defendants.

Cornelius Fredericks died May 1 after going into cardiac arrest April 29. At the time, authorities said he was being restrained by staff after throwing a sandwich.

His death came nearly a month before George Floyd died May 25 in Minneapolis with a white police officer's knee pressing his neck to the ground.

Floyd's dying words, "I can't breathe," have become a rallying call for people protesting police violence against Black people and racial injustice during demonstrations across the U.S.

"The excessive use of restraints and the lack of concern for Cornelius's life draw an eerily similar comparison to that of George Floyd's death," according to the lawsuit, which alleges negligence and says Lakeside staff improperly and wrongfully used restraints on Fredericks.

Authorities have not provided details of the race of the staff member or members involved.

"Video from Lakeside Academy even shows a staff member placing his/her weight directly on Cornelius's chest for nearly ten minutes as Cornelius lost consciousness," the lawsuit states. "Cornelius's scream of `I can't breathe' was not enough to get the staff members to stop the excessive restraint."

Detroit attorney Jon Marko, who filed the civil rights lawsuit, said he has yet to view the video, but that he spoke with the mother of another child in the facility.

That child "claims to have heard Cornelius scream `I can't breathe,"' Marko said, adding that a state Health and Human Services Department report confirmed that account.

The lawsuit seeks damages allowed under the Michigan Wrongful Death Act. No financial amount was specified.

The Associated Press left a message Monday seeking comment from Lakeside Academy.

Sequel Youth and Family Services told The AP in an email that it cannot comment on pending legal matters, but that it has terminated all staff involved and removed the former executive director of Lakeside.

"We have been in regular contact with law enforcement and state officials to help ensure justice is served and have accelerated the work that was already underway across our organization to move to a restraint-free model of care," the company said. "We take our obligation to meet the significant behavioral health needs of all our students incredibly seriously and remain focused on our mission of providing the absolute best care and treatment possible."

The foster care system or parents placed youths in Lakeside Academy, a residential treatment facility about 140 miles west of Detroit, to receive behavioral health services after being abused or neglected.

Fredericks was a ward of the state, Marko told reporters Monday.

His aunt, Tenia Goshay, is named in the lawsuit as the representative of Fredericks' estate. The teen's mother is dead. His father and rest of the family were not in a position to care for him, Marko said.

Fredericks had been at Lakeside Academy about two years, Goshay told reporters.

"I want to know what happened to my nephew," she said.

The state last week terminated its contracts with Lakeside for youth in Michigan's foster care and juvenile justice systems and said all 125 youth at Lakeside were placed in other "settings based on their individual needs."

The facility also had its license to operate suspended.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has told the department to cut ties with Sequel Youth and Family Services, which provided staffing to Lakeside Academy.

After Fredericks' death, Lakeside Academy officials said what happened didn't reflect the institution's mission to "serve and care for our clients with excellence."

But Michigan's Health and Human Services department has conducted more than 30 investigations since 2016 on maintenance, staff qualifications, discipline, behavior management, resident restraint and staff sufficiency at Lakeside Academy, the lawsuit said.

Six months prior to Fredericks' death there were six separate violations pertaining to improper use by staff of deescalation techniques, including improper restraints, according to the lawsuit, and at least eight employees had been fired since 2016 due to improper use of restraints, failure to use proper deescalation techniques or improperly supervising youth.

Michigan Health and Human Services officials have said an investigation of the for-profit academy found 10 licensing violations, including a failure to follow rules related to resident restraint and discipline.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Foster care teen's death prompts state to pull Michigan group home's contract, license

LANSING, Mich. — Prompted by the death of a teen who was wrongly restrained by staff, a Michigan facility for teenagers with behavioral problems on Thursday lost its contract with the state to care for youth in the state’s foster care and juvenile justice systems and its license to operate.

The termination of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services’ contract with Lakeside Academy in Kalamazoo came in the wake of the death last month of Cornelius Frederick. The 16-year-old went into cardiac arrest while being restrained on April 29 by Lakeside Academy staff. He died May 1. At the time, authorities said the teen was being restrained by staff after he threw a sandwich.

In announcing the termination of its contract and suspension of the operating license, Health and Human Services said an investigation of the for-profit Lakeside Academy found 10 licensing violations, including a failure to follow rules related to resident restraint and discipline. The agency contends the revocation of the license of a child caring institution is rare and occurs when there are serious licensing violations that make closure necessary to protect children.

More: Foster care teen's death draws scrutiny to group home outbreaks: Who is looking out for these children?

Lakeside Academy officials did not immediately return calls for comment.

“MDHHS continues to mourn the loss of this young man’s life, which came needlessly to an end at the hands of those meant to care for him” said JooYeun Chang, executive director of the MDHHS Children’s Services Agency, in a prepared statement. “We are committed to protecting children and will not accept the completely unnecessary death of a youth who is deprived of the opportunity to grow up, complete his education, begin a career, and start a family.”

Kalamazoo County Prosecuting Attorney Jeff Getting said Thursday his office is reviewing completed investigations to determine if criminal charges are authorized in Frederick’s death.

"If charges are brought, my office will be prosecuting the cases,’’ Getting said.

At the time of Frederick’s death, Lakeside Academy officials said in a statement the incident didn’t reflect the institution’s mission to ``serve and care for our clients with excellence.”

However, Assistant Chief David Boysen of the Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety has said in the weeks leading up to Frederick’s death there were numerous calls for false fire alarms, runaway students and assaults. In addition, three chaotic days followed the boy’s death, as students fought and fled the facility.

Just before Health and Human Services announced its moves, the Legal Rights Center in Minneapolis called for Hennepin County, Minnesota, to stop placing children in Lakeside Academy for juvenile delinquency matters.

The county removed all Minnesota children from the facility after Frederick's death. However, center officials said that was is enough. They contend it is time to end the practice of removing children from local communities and confining them in correction facilities "under the pretense of providing therapeutic treatment."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lakeside Academy was ‘out of control’ prior to student death, police say

In the weeks leading up to the incident, Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety received an increase of calls for false fire alarms, runaway students and assaults, Assistant Chief David Boysen said.

No one ever listens to the silent screams.

Slavery was never abolished.

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WAR CRIMES: Michigan Office Of Children's Ombudsman - Why Trafficking Of Tiny Humans Calculates A Foster Care Death As A Statistical Error - Happy National Foster Parents Month

FUN FACT! DEATH IN FOSTER CARE IS CALLED A STATISTICAL ERROR!

The Office of Children's Ombudsman is a poorly constructed cover up operation that is powerless, to the point that their reports are not allowed to be entered into a court of record, they do not refer anything for suspected, alleged, violations of law or policy, and absolutely will not refer to the State Attorney General for Medicaid fraud in child welfare.

These people allowed the murderers of Ricky Holland to adopt his siblings, during a murder investigation, and not a damn thing has been done.

Look at Calysta Springer.

I know these kids.

"The Elected Ones" did nothing.

The State Attorney General did nothing.

The Governor did nothing.

DOJ did nothing.

FBI did nothing.

HHS OIG did nothing.

There are many children who were not fortunate enough to die.

There were two who survived.

Well, there was one who died, and lived, then died again, then lived, then died again, then lived...

So, I embarked on my mission.

The Office of Children's Ombudsman used to have a category called "Valid-Not-Open" meaning, a complain of a child being tortured and trafficked in foster care is valid, but due to budget constraints and personal self-interests, there will be no investigation.

If there were investigations, there would be found billions upon billions in Medicaid fraud in child welfare, and as we all know, the system is too big to fail, for it is nothing but the residuals of the peculiar institution, maximizing revenue for foreign corporations, in the name of the tax exempt god.

These people make you pray as your child is being drugged as a lab rat and being raped, nightly.

Where is Maura Corrigan?

'Huge concern': 206 child deaths not reported to watchdog

LANSING, Mich. (WOOD) — Eighteen months after Target 8 exposed a gap

 in Michigan’s child death reporting system, a state audit is demanding a fix.

A report released Tuesday by Michigan’s Auditor General found Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services failed to notify a watchdog promptly of 206 child deaths from 2014 through 2017.

That watchdog, the Office of Children’s Ombudsman, is an independent agency mandated by state law to review the deaths of children who have had recent contact with Michigan’s foster care, child welfare or child protection system. The goal is to identify if Children's Protective Services caseworkers failed to follow policy or could have done things differently to better protect the child. 

But the ombudsman can’t conduct those reviews if MDHHS fails to notify the watchdog of qualifying deaths.

"It’s certainly a huge concern that these child death alerts were missed because it’s important that we’re the oversight for (CPS within MDHHS)," said Lisa McCormick, the recently appointed head off the Office of Children’s Ombudsman.

McCormick stressed the OCO ultimately did receive and review all of the unreported death cases.

"There were 206 cases that we went back and reviewed, but the important thing to note is that we did review them, and that MDHHS came to the table and they worked with us to make sure we were getting all the cases," she said.

In recent years, on average, the ombudsman received 267 child death alerts annually.

The 206 missed alerts comprised 20% of the total death cases reported over a four-year period.

The audit also urged the ombudsman to find ways to independently identify child deaths that require OCO reviews.

"The auditors made a valid point, which is why we have auditors to improve our procedures, to tell us this is a deficit, this is a hole that’s missing, let’s address it and move forward," McCormick said.

Michigan Auditor General Hild Death Notification Report April 2019 by Beverly Tran on Scribd

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Lalanea Little-Tobeler Carries On Maryanne Godboldo's Fight To End Trafficking Tiny Humans With Allison Folmar As Her Attorney - Happy Black History Month

In order to properly celebrate Black History Month, someone has to pick up and carry the torch to end the residuals of the peculiar institution because no one wants to talk about, except for Lala.

Michigan Child Protective Services stole her, used her as a lab rat, then stole her children and sold them.

It used to be called slavery, but now it is called Foster Care and Adoption and Lala wants her children back.

Now, Lala has an attorney and a lawsuit.

Meet Allison Folmar.

"In memory of Maryanne Goldboldo. The prosecution took her life."

Lalanea Little-Tobeler Has An Issue With The Michigan Child Welfare System

Maryanne Goldboldo foughtto her death 10-10-2017

Lalanea Little-Tobeler Officially Notifies Michigan That She Is Not Happy With Elected Officials Condoning Fraud In Child Welfare

Michigan accused of faking child welfare records? Ask Lalanea Little-Tobeler

The following is from Lala:

As a survivor of CAPTA, as well as the ASFA....I suffered literal torture for the past 31 out of all 33 years of my life. In 1990 CPS stole me as a 5 yr old Child from my mother bc i was considered a "child prodigy" after they did 2 years worth of "evaluations" (including psyche) on me (evals that i have copies of til this day) and locked me away in long term kids mental institutions where i was forced to take psychotropic drugs, was physically, mentally, emotionally, verbally and sexually abused. I also was locked away in literal prison style solitary confinement. This was a 6x6 room, brick wall, hard tile floor, a metal door with a huge deadbolt on the outside, a slit in the door to slide food through & a plexiglass window for workers to look through....no sink, no toilet, no bed, no nothing....just locked in this room for hrs, days & sometimes even weeks. My longest stay in this room dubbed "the quiet room" was 3 weeks....proven later to be ultimately for something i didnt even do!!! 

I also was forced to receive shock treatments at the age of 19 bc i had a legal guardian at the time who consented to them, i couldnt refuse them & i died via cardiac arrest from the psychotropic drug risperdol at the age of 12 that i was forced to take bc i was a minor i couldnt refuse it...or any of the other psychotropic drugs...bc if i did...i either got locked in the quiet room, or they put me in 6 point restraints and injected me with ativan, haldol, thorazine or a cocktail of two of them to knock me out....so if i refused the pills...i got forced injections anyways. 

HEART OF A LION - JAILED & THREATENED, LALA LITTLE FIGHTS TO GET HER CHILDREN BACK, CPS EXPOSED - VIDEO

 We had this lock box to fill out recipient rights complaints to report abuse....well we wrote them....but very rarely received help bc recipient rights works out of the DHS offices and DHS was burying the abuse complaints so they could further use us as paychecks & guinea pigs for psychotropics. This eventually was proven to be exactly what happened to me amd countless of other children across the country in 1997 when MICHIGAN drafted the ASFA & then president bill clinton passed it..so yes...i am literally one of the child survivors that caused the ASFA to be made by at the time michigan 4th district congressional representative dave camp and it was commissioned by the ways and means committee when submitted to the house. 

Bill clinton passed it and thus adding the ASFA as a extension off of CAPTA. Shortly after the ASFA was passed. Dave Camp was made chairman of the ways and means committee (the very committee who comissioned the ASFA) & thus he was able to literally baby sit and protect this "evil act" all the way until last year when he retired, coincidentally he retired after i publicly posted this information about the ASFA 😅 

 The ASFA was created to put children in more homely settings (foster homes) instead of locking them away in places worse than prison (mental facilities) so they would not have to suffer everything we had already suffered...the ASFA did make more fosterhomes...but thats ALL IT DID!! other than that....most of the same abuse that happened to me is now happening to children in fosterhomes & mental facilities...all the ASFA did really was expand the battle field from just mental facilities to adding fosterhomes fosterhomes....the madness truly never quit....not even for me.....CPS has terrorized me for my entire life to the point i am currently in the middle of a federal lawsuit right now to get my children back CPS stole from me with intentionally created fraud court papers. Beverly Tran has a pdf copy of my filed claim if anyone would like to read it. 

Carnell Alexander & LalaCharles H Wright Children's and Families JusticeAnnual Event - 2017

 All the while i grew up in these facilities from the age of 5 in 1990 til the age of 21 in 2007 my adopted parents who adopted me at 7 yrs old and hardly ever took me home were collecting money monthly from the federal govt for adopting me & at the same time the state was collecting my disability checks to "pay for my stay" & other things for the facilities...disability the federal govt awarded me as a result of surviving their own abuse upon me!!! In 2003 The state allowed my adopted mom to get legal guardianship of me at 18 and she collected even more federal money monthly off my back a til i was 27 when i finally won my own guardianship from her, macomb county & the state of michigan on december 20, 2012.....6 weeks later.... CPS began attacking me....which is why i am in the middle of a federal lawsuit now....CPS stole my kids from me with a intentionally created fraud petition on November, 26, 2013 that til this very day (January, 26,2019) HAS NOT been signed by a judge & HAS NOT been filed with the court!!! Yet my parental rights were taken on November, 13, 2015 & my children were adopted out August 2016 despite the fact there was never a CPS case opened on me in the first place because the petition was never signed or filed!!! 

 So for the past 31 out of all 33 yrs of my life, i have literally been a child cash cow whos back was being double dipped off of by my adopted parents and the state & now a mother whos had my children stolen from me with fraud court papers to make more money off their backs as well ...and CAPTA made this 100% possible to do to me & countless of other children & parents!!! #Kids4Cash CAPTA was specifically created to steal children for profit and use them as paychecks & psychotropic guinea pigs til they age out, appoint them guardians, make more money off them, steal their kids when they have them & drug them up & Make even more money off them too and rinse and repeat. Which is why multi-generations of families across the country like my own have been stolen by CPS!!! 

 CAPTA is the Birth mother of this #Kids4Cash Madness!!

Lalanea Little-Tobeler Is Exhausting Her Administrative Remedies Reporting Child Welfare Fraud In Michigan

Lalanea Little-Tobeler Is Documenting Her Investigation Why Michigan Allows Medicaid Fraud In Child Welfare

Lalanea Little-Tobeler Pressed 4 For FBI Public Corruption & Civil Rights Violations In Michigan Child Welfare

Lalanea Little-Tobeler Called CPS & Was Threatened By Police

Lalanea Little-Tobeler Was Arrested For Exposing Fraud In Michigan Child Welfare On Social Media

The Tale Of Lala & The Residuals Of The Peculiar Institution - Michigan Child Welfare Fraud

It is time to stop stealin' children, land and the votes.

Lalanea Little Star and her... by on Scribd

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Michigan's Dark Ages in Child Welfare

Michigan has a long and illustrious history of fraud in child welfare.

During the dark ages of Michigan Child Welfare, (1996 c, - present) Medicaid fraud grew to become the destructive monster lurking in the shadows of a regulatory environment which is non-existent. .

In Wayne County, in the early years of Michigan's dark ages, there was an Assistant Attorney General by the name of Jennifer Granholm who would prosecute child abuse cases over at Lincoln Hall of Justice.

One day, Prosecutor Granholm successfully advocated for the termination of parental rights for a young lady by the name of Starletta Banks

Starletta Banks had her parental rights terminated because, according to Assistant Attorney General Granholm, she had caused her child to have broken bones.

X-Rays were presented to support the charges.

Starletta Banks strongly denied the claims that she hurt her child.  She was so dedicated to prove she did not harm her child she realized the x-ray was that of a child much older than her child.  She began to investigate.

Starletta Banks began to make daily visits to the clerk's office in the basement of the Lincoln Hall of Justice to pull case files of parents who had filed appeals to their own termination of parental rights.

What she found was stunning.

Every case contained the exact same evidence to support the termination of parental rights.  It was the exact same x-ray used to terminate her parental rights and put her children up for adoption.

I saw the files, too, but I took my investigation a step further and discovered Michigan's horrific practice of Medicaid fraud in child welfare.

Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Granholm eventually became Governor and gloriously ruled over the apex of the dark ages in Michigan's child welfare where many children were repeatedly raped, tortured, attempted suicide multiple times, experienced numerous heart attacks and starved.

She knew about it.  She did nothing about it.

Special Report: Shadow of Doubt

CALHOUN COUNTY, Mich. (NEWSCHANNEL 3) - An I-Team investigation uncovers the child abuse convictions of dozens of people in Michigan are now being called into question.

And the tragic death of a three-year-old little girl has opened up new conversations about whether innocent people are sitting in prisons for crimes they did not commit.

The calls to 9-1-1 her family made July 28, 2011 give a glimpse into the last hours of 3-year-old Baylee Stenman's life.

"And what happened," the operator asks. "She bumped her head," says the caller.

Now, four years later Leo Ackley is in prison for her murder. But there are new questions about his guilt.

"Just being here is embarrassing, the crime itself, obviously nobody wants to be labeled as that," Ackley told us by phone from jail.

Ackley, who was dating Baylee's mother at the time, is now serving a life sentence without parole. But his family says what he's accused of never made sense.

"Him being innocent, I never believed you could convict an innocent person and they have found a way to do so and apparently more than just my child," says Ackley's mother Linda Byrd.

Ackley's case is now in front of the Michigan Supreme Court which is deciding if he should get a new trial.

"Leo's case is almost a 100% classic shaken baby, abusive head trauma type case. No witnesses witnessed any abuse, all the evidence is established by medical testimony," says Ackley's attorney Andrew Rodenhouse.

Calhoun County Medical Examiner Joyce deJong testified at trial that Baylee died from severe head trauma and ruled she was murdered.

But Ackley's family and Rodenhouse have cast doubts on that determination, and asked another doctor to review the medical records who says the injuries most likely happened from an accidental fall.

Rodenhouse says this case is shining a spotlight in Michigan on shaken baby cases, also now called abusive head trauma cases.

Since the 1970's if a medical examiner saw a child had three injuries, swelling of the brain, bleeding on the surface of the brain and bleeding in the eyes, they automatically ruled the child was murdered.

"What we've learned is actually there are a lot of causes for those symptoms, both accidental and diseases. There's just a lot of questions now about how accurately we can diagnose shaken baby syndrome or abusive head trauma," says Caitlin Plummer with the Michigan Innocence Clinic.

The highly regarded Innocence Clinic in Ann Arbor has been advocating for Ackley and is now looking into a dozen other child abuse cases in Michigan including two more in Calhoun County.

But despite the uncertainty behind it, prosecutors and medical examiners are still using the shaken baby diagnosis to put people behind bars.

"Even if you didn't have any criminal record, or any history of abuse, if you were the last one with this baby, the baby collapses and the baby has these three symptoms, there's a very good chance you're going to be accused of abusing the baby," says Plummer.

"The only evidence they had, basically to me, was that I was the last one with him, and I took him to the hospital," says Sean Brown who was convicted of killing his own son in 2010.

The I-Team has confirmed Brown's conviction in Calhoun County is one the Innocence Clinic is looking into. Prosecutors claimed Brown shook his child causing severe head injuries.

"I would just hope that in my case, the truth comes out, that I'm an innocent person and I find out what happened to my son," says Brown.

Sources tell us the Innocence Clinic is also looking into the Calhoun County case of Tonia Miller, who was convicted in 2001 of killing her eleven-week-old daughter.

Calhoun County Prosecutor David Gilbert declined to interview with us on this issue because he said he had some of these types of cases currently being appealed.

But Kalamazoo prosecutor Jeff Getting says attitudes are changing.

"I suspect there's going to be a lot of litigation over this and rightfully so. The law evolved, medicine evolves, this isn't 1985 and we shouldn't ignore what we've learned since then," says Getting.

Dr. deJong is also the medical examiner for several other counties, including Kalamazoo.

Just last year in a case similar to Ackley's in Wexford County, deJong ruled 19- month old Kalla Fisher's head injuries showed she was murdered, her father David Ferris was arrested.

But the case was thrown out after other doctors reviewed the case. One of them was the Oakland County Chief Medical Examiner Dr. L.J. Dragovic, who wrote, "the leap to such a conclusion is a result of an incomplete and inadequate assessment… in this case."

"When you have a forensic pathologist that is just so stuck on their side and is unwilling to consider there is an alternate causation to these types of injuries it's really hard to hold them as being a true expert," says attorney Andrew Rodenhouse.

"If this is what had to happen for prosecutors to stop doing this, then he'll accept it that he was the reason, that this all gets squashed. Nobody else can get accused or convicted or sent to prison," says Leo Ackley's mother Linda Byrd.

Dr. deJong, Calhoun County Medical Examiner sent this statement Tuesday: "I am not aware of "many" cases and convictions unraveling. Our approach to the investigation of the sudden and unexpected death of anyone, including children, is methodical and based upon national standards. I have never thought that abusive head trauma could be determined solely on what you describe as "the traditional three indicators of swelling of the brain, bleeding on the surface of the brain and bleeding in the eyes". These findings may exist in children with injuries inflicted by another, but they may also be found in accidental trauma. Differentiating accidental injuries and natural disease processes from inflicted injuries is significantly more complicated and involved than simple recognition of brain swelling, hemorrhage and retinal hemorrhage. Our practice has always been to complete thorough investigations in to the circumstances of the death, evaluate for natural diseases and injuries, consult experts in forensic neuropathology, and after evaluating all information available, determine the cause and manner of death. Efforts by reputable organizations to ascertain convictions are appropriate are valuable to our society."

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