This is a graphic video of a cold-blooded murder of a man, a father, a person who was slaughtered, at point blank range, just because he was poor and trying to survive.
This was Alton Sterling.
I want everyone to watch.
I want everyone to be disgusted.
And for those who will turn around calling this a "justifiable shooting" just because, well, keeping it real, even though you want to call him a "nigger", you will use the politically correct term of "thug", I want you to watch it again, and again, and again, then repeat in your dreams.
As for the poor women, they just snatch the kids, put them in foster care and up for auction, forgive me, I meant to say, adoption, if they find a lucky buyer, oops, foster parent.
I want everyone to be disgusted with this statement, also.
If you rarely, even take the time to read what I present, I strongly encourage everyone to read, share, then open discussions because there is so much more to the cost of children than could ever be imagined.
Washington State has such a high payout of child welfare lawsuits strictly because there are bold attorneys who are not afraid to brandish the facts, in a court of law, of what happens to a child in foster care.
In most states, particularly Michigan, the legal profession has an unspoken code of being "blacklisted" if an attorney goes up against the state in a matter of child welfare. Then there is that pesky matter of one being able to afford an attorney to represent their child, or even themselves as the parent.
The stigma of being involved with Child Protective Services is so deeply embedded in social culture that it makes sense for everyone to remain silent, even the children who are, for whatever reason (i.e. unnecessarily, involuntarily, poverty) so that no political leader will directly touch this "tar baby" a ten-foot pole.
I must give credit to to Congresswoman Karen Bass and her founding of the Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth but it is a dearth, if any, activity in addressing the structural issues of the entire foster care system, mainly the billing and civil rights.
Political candidates of both sides of the aisle only have joined the aforementioned congressional caucus for D.C. political posturing, and not even for their constituents. I can attest, personally, first hand knowledge, that Congressional Chiefs of Staff will ignore and omit anything dealing with the child welfare system from the Offices.
(I would name names, but I believe it will be much more enjoyable to sit back and watch certain Chiefs of Staff to be escorted off the Hill.)
Why? Because they consider this to be a state issue and have never taken the time to even investigate as child welfare is a closed, secretively administered system.
State political leaders will vehemently exclude anything about child welfare from their rhetoric as it comes across as defending bad parents and an hindrance in helping the "poor, abused kids".
Child welfare is the last frontier of civil rights. Stated in this article, reiterated by my previous scribings, children have no civil rights because they do not pay taxes and cannot vote.
Cheryl Schaefer, 28, and three siblings suffered years of abuse in a foster home under DSHS supervision in northeastern Washington. She was angered to learn from a reporter there was no apparent record of discipline for...
Over the past eight years, the state Department of Social and Health Services’ child-welfare division has been hit with scores of lawsuits, paying $141.4 million for failing to protect children under its care.
The state of Washington’s largest department is tasked with caring for the state’s most vulnerable residents — abused children, foster kids, mentally handicapped adults. But time and again, it has failed.
Over the past eight years, the Washington state Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) has been hit with scores of lawsuits, ultimately paying $166.4 million for personal-injury claims. Many of the most severely injured were children who were tortured, starved or raped. Some died.
DSHS employees behind these failures rarely are punished, The Seattle Times has found.
From those scores of lawsuits, the newspaper selected one dozen of the high-cost, child-welfare cases for which records were readily accessible. Many of these cases made headlines and resulted in verdicts or settlements ranging from $750,000 to $11 million, some $75 million in all.
Using court records, public records and interviews, the newspaper identified 48 DSHS staffers involved in the failures in these 12 cases.
None of the 48 was fired or suspended. None was demoted or lost pay.
That is according to DSHS, which ran the 48 names through its human-resources databases at the newspaper’s request. (The database only shows records that affect compensation.)
Whether any of the 48 staffers were given lesser forms of discipline, such as reprimand letters, is unclear. DSHS in May said it would takes several months to provide answers. (Recently, the agency said one staffer had been given a letter of reprimand. It hasn’t completed its research.)
Slightly less than half the 48 still work for DSHS; some have retired.
The review of the 12 cases — as well as several dozen interviews with present and former DSHS employees, state employee-union officials, personal-injury lawyers, children’s advocates and others — turned up some common failings: overlooked complaints of abuse; delayed or inept investigations; placement of children in unsafe homes.
DSHS’ lack of focus on personal accountability is a significant problem, said Tim Tesh, a personal-injury lawyer who has sued DSHS many times. Policymakers can suggest reforms, he said, but “often, it’s that the worker didn’t follow procedures that are already in place. What good does reform do you when the worker just doesn’t follow them?”
DSHS said paying a victim does not mean an employee made a mistake.
“I don’t think anyone in the field can credibly deny that there’s a scary connection between overburdened workers and risk of harm to kids.” - Ira Lustbader, litigation director of Children’s Rights"
Jennifer Strus since 2013 has been head of the Children’s Administration, the division responsible for payouts of $141.4 million. She would not comment on how her predecessors handled employees who may have made mistakes years earlier.
Any failures must be well-documented before the agency can take action, she noted. DSHS in recent years has improved training and how it tracks complaints of abuse and also reviews the performance of employees implicated in claims against the agency.
Being a social worker is the “toughest job in state government,” Strus said. A combination of large caseloads, employee turnover and budget cuts makes it “pretty hard to do great work,” she said.
Cheryl Schaefer, 28, isn’t comforted by these words. She and three siblings suffered years of abuse in a foster home under DSHS supervision in northeastern Washington. Up until 2001, court records show, they were beaten, forced to overeat, throw up and eat their own vomit, and suffered sexual abuse.
According to court records, Schaefer and her siblings said the caseworker repeatedly ignored their cries for help.
A 2012 lawsuit, filed by Tesh against DSHS, was settled for $5.3 million. To Schaefer, money does not equal justice.
Paying for mistakes
DSHS paid out $166.4 million over eight years for injury claims. The largest cases involved the Children’s Administration, its child-welfare division.
Sources: Washington Department of Social and Health Services; Washington Department of Enterprise Services(Reporting by Will Drabold / The Seattle Times; Graphic by Mark Nowlin / The Seattle Times)
have tagged the agency for years. In 1998, lawyers for 13 foster kids filed a class-action lawsuit against the state, saying foster children were being harmed across the board by inadequate care. The state Supreme Court, in the landmark 2003 Braam decision (named after one of the plaintiffs), upheld a lower court and put Washington’s child-welfare system under judicial oversight.
The Braam case led to several improvements, including sharply cutting back on children bouncing from one foster home to another. The court oversight continues, in part because a key court-ordered mandate remains unfulfilled: foster-child caseloads of 18 or fewer for 90 percent of social workers.
Besides the court, state lawmakers recently required DSHS to be more accountable for mistakes.
DSHS was required to do automatic reviews of botched child-welfare cases only when someone died in state care, a “fatality review.”
As of July 24, under “Aiden’s Law,” DSHS must review worker actions if a child experiences a “near fatality” within one year of a previous incident of abuse.
State Sen. Steve O’Ban, R-University Place, who sponsored the legislation, called it an improvement. That lawmakers had to force DSHS to review such cases “speaks volumes,” he said.
Most of the multimillion-dollar settlements come from the DSHS Children’s Administration division. There more than 1,800 social workers oversee nearly 10,000 children in foster care and last year looked into 90,000 reports of child neglect or abuse. Turnover is high — about one in six staffers leaves each year. Starting pay can be as low as $32,688.
Joyce Murphy, a social worker in Vancouver who’s worked for a decade at the agency, said she has failed to see children once a month, as required by DSHS policy. She blames it on her caseload, which she says over the past four years has averaged about 25 children — well above the national standard of 15 and the DSHS average of 19.
"When we are some 30 percent above a reasonable caseload, that can be like sending the Seahawks to play the Super Bowl with two-thirds of a team, then firing them when they lose.” - Kevin Quigley, DSHS Secretary"
“I can’t do my job,” she said. She worries each night that one of her clients will die on her watch.
No one died in the case of two young Snohomish County boys, ages three and six, who were being starved and beat by their father and his girlfriend in 2006, but it does illuminate the tragic results when workers utterly fail to do their jobs. The case is one of many that reveals the personal consequences for such failures can be slight.
Between May and July 2006, a neighbor filed four complaints with DSHS, saying two young boys were being starved and beaten by their parents. She would later say that no one at DSHS ever followed up with her, court records show.
The father, Danny Abegg, and his girlfriend, Marilea Mitchell, kept a padlock on the refrigerator and withheld food to punish the boys. A social worker, Aubrey Kilgore, in one visit reported that the house “had plenty of food in it.”
He went back a second time after a sheriff’s deputy, shopping at Wal-Mart, saw bruises on the face of the 3-year-old, and alerted DSHS. This time, Kilgore required the parents to see a family therapist, documents show.
The child-welfare case was transferred that fall to another social worker, Deanna Neff. Among her failures, she gave Abegg eight-days notice she would be visiting the home, giving him time to hide evidence of abuse. Nor did she speak to the more severely abused younger brother, Shayne, records show.
A few months later, Ada Sharp, who had no experience or training investigating child abuse, was given the case, court records show. Other warning signs surfaced, records show, but Cherokee Screechowl, the area supervisor, ended the investigation in February 2007.
A month later, someone alerted authorities that a little boy was being “starved.” Paramedics rushed Shayne, now 4, to the hospital where he was found in urine-soaked clothes, emaciated, with a body temperature of 87 degrees. After being given food at the hospital, the boy told doctors not to let his parents know that he had eaten. A veteran paramedic later said he had not seen “a worse case of neglect or malnourishment.”
After Abegg and Mitchell were charged with first-degree criminal mistreatment, the case, with its sickening details and claims of DSHS failures, exploded in the news. Gov. Chris Gregoire asked for a special review, and DSHS said its employees failed to protect the two boys.
At the time, a DSHS spokesman said two employees linked to the case had resigned. DSHS recently said one of the four did receive a letter of reprimand.
Kilgore and Sharp still work at DSHS. Neff resigned from the agency. Screechowl resigned in 2007, came back in 2011 and then re-retired.
Screechowl could not be located; the other did not return calls for comment.
Shayne Abegg received $5 million from the state in 2009 after a judge compared him to a concentration-camp survivor. His older brother received $2.85 million two years later.
Danny Abegg sits after being arrested for criminal mistreatment of son Shayne, 4, who weighed 22 pounds. Shayne got $5 million from the state after judge compared him to a concentration-camp survivor. (Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office)
“It is a war zone”
If the high-profile Snohomish stavation case didn't result in someone being punished, what sort of case would?
“This story has been going on for 30 years,” said Dennis Braddock, DSHS secretary from 2000 to 2005. He oncedescribed DSHS’ culture as “bunkerlike” and said he tried to hold staffers to account but faced an uphill battle.
“Republicans don’t like administration,” he recently said. “Democrats all side with the union. So management gets the short end of the stick in [employee] disputes.”
It’s a proven formula: To effectively serve children and families, social workers need a reasonable number of cases to manage, a finding backed by decades of state and national studies.
Currently, the average caseload for child-protective-services (CPS) workers — Children’s Administration employees who investigate reports of child neglect — is 16, well above the national standard of no more than 12. Also, it takes on average two years for a CPS investigator “to become proficient,” DSHS said.
Since 2008, the Children’s Administration has lost 300 employees. This year, for the first time since, the division received an additional $7.2 million for 43 employees and other resources, an attempt to lower caseloads and improve investigations.
Greg Devereux, executive director of the Washington Federation of State Employees, which represents unionized DSHS staff, describes social-worker caseloads, burnout and turnover in dire terms: “It is a war zone.”
Some former DSHS officials and child advocates point to his union when noting that individual discipline doesn’t always occur. DSHS is required to have substantial documentation to punish negligent employees, they assert, and the arbitration process can be time-consuming.
“That’s ridiculous,” Devereux said. The union makes sure DSHS “fairly holds people accountable.”
In the past eight years, the union went to arbitration on only two cases of Children’s Administration social workers who were terminated, he said. One firing was upheld; the other employee was reinstated.
“I don’t think anyone in the field can credibly deny that there’s a scary connection between overburdened workers and risk of harm to kids,” said Ira Lustbader, litigation director of Children’s Rights, a national organization that advocates and files lawsuits to bring accountability to child-welfare systems.
Lustbader’s organization has filed lawsuits in other states arguing high caseloads are a civil-rights violation for children because it puts them in harm’s way.
“They’re poor. They’re disproportionately of color. They’re not a legislative priority.”
“These kids don’t vote. They’re poor. They’re disproportionately of color. They’re not a legislative priority,” he said.
Not held accountable
Even so, heavy caseloads cannot always explain away mistakes or why they go unpunished. According to interviews with 10 plaintiff attorneys who have brought personal-injury cases against DSHS, none of them has heard of a social worker being disciplined for failing to protect someone.
David Moody is a Seattle lawyer who has brought lawsuits against DSHS that resulted in $86 million in verdicts or settlements since 2000. “There’s a constellation of warnings and a corresponding constellation of failures by DSHS to heed those warnings,” said Moody, lawyer for the Abegg children. “No one is held accountable.”
DSHS Secretary Kevin Quigley declined to be interviewed. In an email, he wrote that the agency has an improved performance-evaluation system and is more aggressive about dismissing subpar workers during their probation period.
“I understand the solution for some is to blame the caseworker every time a mistake is made but when we are some 30 percent above a reasonable caseload that can be like sending the Seahawks to play the Super Bowl with 2/3 of a team then firing them when they lose,” Quigley wrote.
Some officials note that the state does have another tool to hold DSHS accountable: The Office of Family and Children’s Ombuds. Director Patrick Dowd says the office plays a neutral role when it intervenes in cases in which DSHS failed to act or was unreasonable.
However, he said, his office’s “focus is on the actions of the agency and not the specific caseworker.”
Since the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services refuses to keep track of the numbers of deaths and the means of death of children in foster care, Legally Kidnapped and I have decided to do it for them.
This death was paid via your taxpayer dollars.
The secret investigation into this death will be paid, report redacted, and findings censored, also, with taxpayer dollars.
The heartbroken mother and grandparents of a 2-year-old girl who died in foster care in an Auburn home where another toddler was hospitalized in critical condition are demanding a full-scale investigation of the Department of Children and Families by Gov. Charlie Baker — a call echoed by child welfare advocates and watchdogs yesterday.
Washington, D.C. – Today, House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr. (MI-13) released the following statement in response to the tragic killing of nine innocent African-Americans at the historical Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina:
Dean of the U.S. House
of Representatives
John Conyers, Jr.
“The brutal killing of nine innocent African-Americans at the historically black Emmanuel AME Church in South Carolina, including pastor and State Senator Clementa Pinckney, is an unspeakable and horrific tragedy by any measure. These individuals simply gathered to worship and study the Bible in a sanctuary and place of refuge as they did every week, but were senselessly killed. My most heartfelt condolences go out to all of the families and friends of the victims as well as the entire community.
“It is my hope that all levels of state, local and federal law enforcement work together to capture this brutal killer before any more senseless violence occurs. I commend the Department of Justice for their swift determination to open a federal hate crimes investigation.”
Why is it Michigan's Legislature has done nothing to get rid of the Administration that has been covering up fraudulent practices and false claims resulting in billions of federal funding being held back from the state?
It is because the elected officials come and go but the administrations remain the same.
"It's just wrong for them to put my kids in a home to where one of them ends up dead," she said at the time.
Ricky, just 7 years old, was murdered in 2005 by his adoptive parents. Caswell's rights had been terminated by the state.
Now, her lawyer, William Campbell, says she is fighting for parental rights over her 3-month-old son.
"Casey and her husband Matt at this point in time are awaiting adjudication on a petition to terminate their parental rights," Campbell told News 10 on Thursday.
Campbell says Caswell, who has lost custody of five children in the last several years, is fighting the issue in court. He admits she and her husband are homeless, but argues that -- with some help from the Department of Human Services -- they could provide for the child.
"They are doting parents to this baby, and they want to do the right thing," Campbell said.
Caswell, 19 years old at the time, turned Ricky into the state when he was 3 years old. A judge subsequently revoked her rights to him.
He went missing in July of 2005, touching off a national media storm and massive community search effort for the boy.
We later learned Ricky was killed by his adoptive parents, Tim and Lisa Holland. Mr. Holland is serving a 30-60-year prison term. Mrs. Holland is behind bars for life.
Campbell argues Caswell had no say over where Ricky was placed, and says she now has no trust in the state's foster care system.
DHS officials wouldn't talk specifically about Caswell's case, but argue a woman who's had her parental rights revoked has to prove she's fit to raise a new child.
"We cannot ignore severe situations that led to a prior termination when we look at the new instance," said Steve Yager, director of Children's Services at DHS.
He also points out the agency has made several changes to the system since Ricky's case, noting they've lowered caseloads for each CPS worker and established more comprehensive reviews of foster homes.
This July, they'll begin conducting random visits of foster homes, including random visits of children in those homes to make sure they're getting the services they need.
Caswell appears before a judge at the end of July.
Stay with News 10 and WILX.com for updates on this story.
Child abuse propaganda month is intentionally designed to distract all attention from the system itself. Yes, there is more child abuse in foster care than you would want to even conceive. The abuse in foster care is so bad that it took a group called Children's Rights to go state to state and sue to clean up child welfare.
Unfortunately, Children's Rights missed opportunity to actually stop the abuse because it only went after getting the kids out the system faster.
You have never seen one Attorney General stand up and admit to anything being wrong with foster care but you will see them use child protection to further a political agenda that has nothing to do with children.
What makes this Catholic Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People so interesting is the fact that it is the manifesto for Catholic Child Placing Agencies.
That is right, you will find, everyday, reports on the horrors perpetrated on children in foster care but you will never hear one single word on who was responsible for the care, the person being paid, the state contracted agency. Most of the time it is a faith- based organization which believes you can pray the fraud away.
In this instance, it is the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and it does not mention, not one time, that it has Catholic Charities that allow the same victimization to go on. The only difference is it is not a priest.
There is not one word on fraud but then again, a state attorney general can just pray it away because any corporation in the name of God does no wrong, right?
This is the tale of Robin's family and child welfare fraud. These are the stories no one wants to talk about because they happen every day, every hour, every minute in foster care.
Your tax dollars at work.
left the state of Kentucky when I was 18. I had been the victim of a holocust. The state of Kentucky destrooyed my family. The state took my 3 retarded sister and brothers (to give them better care) CAPTA 1974. My parents iimmediatley separated their lives broken by the stress of all those years with no services to help them. my sister Alice was dead within the first year.
Robin's brothers and sister
She was in the day room at Hazelwood in Louisville, KY. While no one was in there to watch her. She slid down and the the restraint she was in strangled her to death. My parents broght her home to be buried in 1976. The state gave no aid. As a result of her deat " Posey Restraints have now been outlawed in the state of Kentucky. By November of 1983 my father had dropped dead at age 53 of a massive heart attack. ( I am sure he died from a broken heart).
Mother, went back to school and became a nurse and took care of demetia /altzheimers patients for over 25 years at St. Charles Care Faciltiy, in Ft. Wright,KY. She dedicated her live to caring.
They then sent my brother Jeff to Oakwood in Sommerset, KY.
He was in restraints 16 of 24 hours a day . for his own protection? so no one would hurt him cause he was a little guy. He got lucky and got out of there. back home to Foster Care in Northen Kentucky where he was sexually abused by his first foster caregiver, David Moss. He was not prosecuttted. He finally got a great foster famiy who gave him very good care and truely loved him.
Jeffrey never met a stranger. He was the happiest kid you would ever want to know. He went into Children's Hosptial for knee surgery In 1985. He got staph infection from the hospital and had to be readmitted. He died there in a body restraint after being awakened at 4 am for a tube feeding, which had been discontinued, and he choked to death on his vomit from being so upset over the restraint and tube feeding. it ws pure negligence, but because he had no worth to society , there was to be no lawsuit for negligence and wrongful death.
michael Kevin rider :). baby brother, went staright into foster care and got to stay with the same family. While watching the news , we saw his foster father Bill Daniels being arrested for sexual abusing his other foster children. He too diMed in an odd fashion. he was woken up from sleep to be given miedicane and then he also choked to death.
how stange is that. The foster moter had alife ins. policy on him but she wanted to burn his body.
My mother paid to bury all three of these children, that were in the states care and who died of neglignece. If these incidents would have happened in our home while on our watch we would have been charged with a crime.
Robin Rider-Osborne
Thank you for your testimony. We need more Robins in the world.
The parents of an infant who suffocated in an Indianapolis foster home in which she was placed by the Indiana Department of Child Services recently collected a $210,000 settlement from the state.
The money was paid to Michael Carter Love and Randi Linden of Indianapolis a little more than a month ago, according to a settlement agreement obtained this week by The Indianapolis Star through a public records request.
The agreement resolved a lawsuit filed in connection with the 2008 death of Destiny Linden. The suit alleged negligence in the child's care by DCS, including Destiny's placement in a foster home that had been the subject of ongoing complaints from a child advocate.
A clause in the agreement notes the settlement is not an admission of liability or wrongdoing "and is solely for the purpose of avoiding the expense and time involved in defending (a) lawsuit." It also bars all parties from speaking about the settlement.
Hush money.
Destiny died just days after she was removed from her mother following an alleged domestic incident involving Linden and Love, who were not in a relationship at the time. The state issued separate checks for $105,000 each to attorneys for Love and Linden.
For more information, including settlement documents, see: blogs.indystar.com/starwatch.
The best part of parody is I expect people to actually distribute this. Idiots. It all boils down to being poor. Pay taxes with taxes with the flesh of your flesh.
Gov. Steve Beshear speaks about the opening of records in child fatality cases during a news conference at the Capitol in Fankfort, Ky.
Lawmakers urge Steve Beshear to investigate Kentucky's child welfare lapses
The brutal death of Amy Dye: Kentucky social workers ignored months of abuse, records show
FRANKFORT, KY. — Gov. Steve Beshear announced Tuesday that he has ordered state officials to “immediately begin opening records” of child protection cases involving deaths or serious injuries from abuse, ostensibly ending his administration’s long-running legal battle to keep them secret.
“Transparency will be the new rule,” he said at a news conference.
But just after Beshear spoke, lawyers with the Cabinet for Health and Family Services filed a lengthy motion in Franklin Circuit Court arguing for further delay.
It also asks Judge Phillip Shepherd to sharply limit the information the cabinet must release and allow it to remove a significant amount of detail — restrictions that seem to contradict the governor’s pledge of openness.
Shepherd, who has ruled three times in the past 18 months that such records must be released under state law, has scheduled a hearing Wednesday on a request by The Courier-Journal and the Lexington Herald-Leader to compel the cabinet to release the material.
“I am astonished at what the governor has done,” said Jon Fleischaker, a lawyer who represents The Courier-Journal. “It’s a sham, in my judgment.”
Beshear spokeswoman Kerri Richardson released a brief statement late Tuesday saying that the cabinet’s motion seeks only to limit specific information that the governor also mentioned at his news conference — such as Social Security numbers and any other information protected by law.
“The cabinet will begin immediately to carry out the governor’s instructions for records release,” Richardson said.
Beshear said at the news conference that cabinet lawyers would detail plans for releasing the records at Wednesday’s court hearing. Meanwhile, he said, his administration will propose legislation in the 2012 General Assembly seeking to clarify what records must be released in cases of child deaths or serious injuries.
Rep. Tom Burch, D-Louisville, one of several lawmakers critical of the cabinet and Beshear over the secrecy surrounding child abuse deaths, said Tuesday he hoped the governor is sincere about disclosing information.
“I hope what he’s proposing is real transparency and not just putting something out there to cool things down for a while,” said Burch, the chairman of the House Health and Welfare Committee.
Beshear, in announcing his support for the release of the records, cited recent news reports about the death of Amy Dye, a 9-year-old Western Kentucky girl slain by her brother in the Todd County adoptive home where she was placed by the cabinet.
“Our children, especially our vulnerable children, deserve our protection,” Beshear said. “When our system fails to offer that protection, as it did in the case of Amy Dye’s tragic death, we must review our strategies to improve them.”
But the motion cabinet lawyers filed Tuesday would shield much of the information about Amy’s troubled life from public scrutiny. It asks that the cabinet be allowed to withhold information such as details of adoption, the names of siblings, foster care, the termination of parents’ rights and juvenile court records — all of which were elements of Amy’s case.
Records that Shepherd ordered released Nov. 7 in that case showed state social service officials ignored or dismissed as unfounded repeated reports by school officials of Amy’s suspected abuse. The cabinet had initially denied it had any records, then refused to disclose them, citing confidentiality, Shepherd’s order said.
As part of his order in the Dye case, he ordered her entire file placed in the court record, incuding her adoption records, reports of suspected abuse and the cabinet’s investigation after her Feb. 4 death.
The records show that after her mother’s rights were terminated in Washington state in 2004, Amy was placed with relatives and was in several foster homes before a great-aunt in Kentucky, Kimberly Dye, offered to adopt her. After the cabinet approved the adoption, Kimberly Dye took Amy into her home in 2006 as a foster child.
The adoption became final in 2007, qualifying Kimberly Dye for a $551-a-month adoption subsidy, the records show. Reports from school officials of Amy’s suspected abuse began within a month of her adoption, the records show.
The records also showed that Garrett Dye, 18, who admitted killing Amy by beating her with a jack handle, got in trouble as a juvenile for taking a gun to school and spent time in a state juvenile center for a drug violation.
And they showed that Kimberly Dye’s ex-husband, Christopher Dye, moved back into the home after the adoption and took a role in disciplining Amy, as well as Garrett and an older boy, even though the cabinet had found he abused Garrett in 2003 by beating him with a belt.
Beshear said Tuesday that he will order the cabinet to disclose most information — with some exceptions, such as Social Security numbers, victims’ names and the identities of people who report abuse. But the motion cabinet lawyers filed the same day appears far broader, arguing that the information should be limited to much less than what the newspapers are seeking.
“Such a wholesale release would run counter to long-established practice and would not further the court’s stated objective of protecting children and increasing scrutiny on the cabinet’s action,” the motion said.
It also said release of such records wouldn’t necessary show the public how well the cabinet carries out the job of protecting children from neglect and abuse.
“Without some knowledge of specific policies and practices of the child welfare system, other cabinet records regarding a child or a child’s family would not necessarily be instructive,” the motion said.
The newspapers first filed suit in 2009, seeking records in the case of a Wayne County toddler who died after drinking drain cleaner at an alleged methamphetamine lab in the home of his teenage parents. After Shepherd ruled in the newspapers’ favor, the cabinet released records of that case but has refused to release records of additional cases involving child deaths.
Shepherd ordered the records in the Dye case released this month after the Todd County Standard filed a separate lawsuit seeking them.
Beshear said he will propose legislation in 2012 to clarify what information the cabinet must release.
Under current law, child protection records are confidential with one exception. Kentucky law — in conformance with federal law — says the state may release such records in cases in which a child dies or is seriously injured from abuse and in which the cabinet had previous involvement with the family.
Fleischaker said that, under the state open records law, when agencies are allowed to release records they must do so, which was the basis for Shepherd’s three previous rulings.
Beshear said Kentucky law merely permits the release of records and that he would support legislation making it mandatory and spelling out which records must be released.
Fleischaker said that’s not necessary.
“Kentucky’s law in mandatory now,” he said.
Burch said he would support a new law only if it allowed “full disclosure” of the records. He said he expected any such bill likely would be assigned to his Health and Welfare Committee for a hearing.
Beshear also said Tuesday that he would support a law in 2012 creating an outside panel to review child deaths. Burch sponsored such a law in this year’s General Assembly, but it failed after several unfriendly amendments were attached.
Tuesday’s developments come amid growing criticism of the cabinet and the Beshear administration by outside officials, including lawmakers, advocates and, most recently, the Western Kentucky judge who sentenced Garrett Dye to 50 years in prison for Amy’s murder.
Todd Circuit Judge Tyler Gill castigated child welfare officials for failing to protect the girl despite repeated allegations of abuse in the home.
“It’s left us wondering how our own state government could have contributed to this by failing to protect Amy,’’ Gill said at the Nov. 23 hearing.
Terry Brooks, executive director of Kentucky Youth Advocates, called Beshear’s announcement an “important step” but said far more work is needed, including ways to better fund a social service system that has endured repeated rounds of budget cuts.
“No more children should die while Kentucky dances around this issue,” he said.
Arizona's child-welfare system has come under a microscope in recent months, with most of the attention focused on several high-profile deaths and how the state's Child Protective Services might have prevented them.
Any death of a child should be considered an anomaly because it is not the norm to kill a child.
State officials said at least six children, who had been the subject of one or more CPS reports, have died so far this year. Of the 70 children whose deaths officials attributed to maltreatment in 2010, 18 had prior CPS involvement.
Based upon the data of the state, CPS has stretched its resources so thinly that it cannot execute its primary mission to protect children. This is due to the imperialistic morality parade of public intervention for the smallest transgression of a conservative social norm and the fact that poverty is codified as the crime of abuse and neglect.
As a gubernatorial task force on child safety works on recommendations, which will likely become legislation in the coming session, misconceptions and myths abound about the responsibilities and rules governing CPS and its workers.
The task force will blatantly omit from the discussions anything related to the subject of fraud, waste and abuse in child welfare. Due to the levels of false claims, there are not enough resources to provide preventive services.
"The myth is that there's a simple solution to this problem," said Karin Kline, who spent 26 years in a variety of CPS positions.
It is not a myth; it is a conflict of interest. How is it the Attorney General can prosecute these privately contracted child placing agencies when the Attorney General is defending the practices of the privately contracted child placing agencies? Hmmm...
Another is that there are obvious red flags to show CPS workers which children should be removed, she said.
Poverty is a red flag.
"That the kids who are killed have prior physical injuries and a prior report that a CPS worker somehow overlooked," she said. "Often, it's a kid sent to school dirty or hungry, or mom's got drug problems."
Why? Because society has stripped resources from those who are in need. Society created the problem, oops, I mean goods. Children are chattel for the state to profit by. Usury.
The Republic asked experts to help identify common myths surrounding child abuse and neglect. Among them:
The Republic did not ask me so here are my findings of common myths surrounding child abuse and neglect:
CPS can force parents or caregivers into drug or mental-health treatment or to accept other services, such as parenting classes and child care.
In fact, state law limits the authority of CPS to require anything of parents or caregivers accused of abusing or neglecting their children. And the law requires the caseworker to inform the family of this right at the beginning of an investigation.
Once caseworkers remove children and place them in state custody, a judge can require the family to meet certain conditions in order for the state to return the children. Parents might be able to keep their children under an "in-home dependency," which also involves a court order and requirements parents must meet to prevent the child's placement into foster care.
But short of a court order, the law states that a CPS worker "has no legal authority to compel the family to cooperate with the investigation or to receive protective services offered."
CPS will offer services to families accused or at risk of abuse or neglect, but participation is voluntary. Officials said families who agree to participate voluntarily are more likely to benefit than those forced to accept treatment or services as a condition for getting their children back.
Budget cuts over the past several years, however, have reduced the extent and the timeliness of voluntary services.
Confidentiality laws prevent CPS from talking publicly about cases.
Confidentiality laws prevent CPS from talking publicly about fraud, waste and abuse in cases.
In fact, Arizona has one of the least restrictive confidentiality laws in the country. State law allows the department to "confirm, clarify or correct" information about a case of child abuse or neglect that already has been made public.
In fact, no state in the union will report the number of children who have died in foster care. These unreported data include murders, suicides, medical neglect, and unnecessary psychotropic drug overdoses.
That might include a situation where police investigating a missing or neglected child-release information about prior CPS involvement in the case. CPS could speak publicly about the case to correct misinformation or explain what caseworkers may have done to try to help the family.
This also includes situations where CPS speaks publicly to cover up the dirty deeds of the state privately contracted child placing agencies.
The department rarely takes that opportunity, however, and some say that can make it appear that it's got something to hide.
"They can talk until they're blue in the face if they so choose," said Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform. "If they don't talk, they're stonewalling."
Kline sees it differently.
"The myth here is that CPS is not talking to cover for themselves," said Kline, now with Arizona State University's Center for Applied Behavioral Health Policy.
The agency does release basic information about child fatalities and near fatalities. One of the concerns about providing more information, however, is that it could endanger federal funding under a child-welfare law that has its own confidentiality requirements.
Hello! We have a winner. Basic information about child fatalities and near fatalities (I prefer to refer to as murder and attempted murder as the child was at the time under the auspice of the state) are never reported because it is murder. A federal compliance mandate for grant funding is to demonstrate the system is functioning the way the state proposed to the feds for the money. Murder was not one of the state objectives for its child welfare system.
The confidentiality argument is whitewash to cover up the dirty laundry of the state. Just ask the state auditor general and inspector general. They are not even allowed open access to the contracts and expenditures. This is why there is so much improper and questionable billing.
But Wexler said that's just an excuse. Federal officials have never taken a nickel away from a state for a confidentiality breach, he said, and the move in recent years has been toward more openness, not less.
Most children are killed by their mother's boyfriend.
In fact, mothers were the perpetrators in 34 out of 70 child maltreatment deaths in 2010, according to the Arizona Child Fatality Review Program, and fathers were responsible for 18 child deaths.
A mother's partner was the culprit in six child deaths last year.
"It's true that a boyfriend presents a risk factor to a young child," Kline said. "But it is not true that they're more likely to harm a child."
The statistics reflect the fact that mothers are the primary caregivers. Sixteen of the child-abuse and neglect deaths in 2010 were because of prematurity or other medical causes, such as a mother failing to seek medical care for a child or a baby born prematurely because of prenatal drug exposure.
There are no statistics to show how many children were murdered, tortured and raped in foster care.
Child abuse and neglect is spread equally across all socio-economic levels.
A child is ten times more likely to be abused in foster care than in the home.
In fact, the most recent federal study shows that children in families earning below $15,000 a year are more than five times as likely to be considered maltreated compared with other children.
This is because poverty is codified as abuse and neglect.
Researchers aren't clear whether that's because of the stress of poverty, or if greater scrutiny by state agencies results in more abuse and neglect reports. Most of these families receive some kind of public benefit, such as food stamps or subsidized housing.
Researchers do not want their funding cut off and will not discuss the fact that poverty is the ground for immediate removal as "failure to provide for the necessary needs of the child".
"The more challenges that a family experiences and the more stress a family experiences, the more likely children's needs aren't going to be met, and they're gonna be abused" or neglected, Kline said, adding that the vast majority of low-income families don't abuse or neglect their children.
Other factors that can put children at risk include lack of child care and health care, and the lack of support from extended family. Some argue that case managers sometimes confuse poverty with neglect, and they remove children instead of offering help that would keep families together.
"The biggest connection between poverty and neglect is the confusion of poverty with neglect," Wexler said. "Either way, your best solution is to target the poverty."
There is no confusion. It is codified and taught at university level in federally funded social work programming.
Child Safety meeting
What: Arizona Child Safety Task Force
When: 9 a.m. Tuesday
Where: State Capitol, Executive Tower, second-floor conference room, 1700 W. Washington St., Phoenix.
For more information: Call the Governor's Office of Children, Youth and Families, 602-542-4043; or e-mail comments to the Maricopa County Attorneys' Office at childsafety@mcao.maricopa.gov.
I just emailed them.
I encourage everyone to do the same and tell them I sent you.
Greetings,
My name is Beverly Tran and I am a subject matter expert in the field of child policy. I contact you to provide my recommendations to be placed on the public agenda for the state to improve its child welfare system.
The first issue to be addressed would be to establish a grievance policy for clients and workers. The purpose of the grievance is to empower the people to perform the regulatory function for the improvement in quality and delivery of services. This may be better recognized as a whistleblower provision of the False Claims Act.
In light of the fact that Arizona has no mandatory referral component under its FCA to report Medicaid fraud, whereby Targeted Case Management is one of the largest funding streams in foster care, it should be strongly encouraged for all child welfare workers to take the online Deficit Reduction Training: http://www.azahcccs.gov/DRA/DRAtraining/default.html
I also encourage legislative engagement to create law mandating referral of suspected violations regarding Child Medicaid (Pediatric) and Child Targeted Case Management (Foster Care Services) to the Attorney General Medicaid Fraud Control Unit to establish and implement parallel protections for children as are in existence for seniors. http://www.azag.gov/seniors/mfcu.html. Please include in this legislative initiative a component to report the number and origin of referrals in an annual report from the Attorney General Office to the Legislature as this is a mandatory requirement of the federal funding for the fraud unit.
Another issue for the agenda would be to improve data collection, maintenance and disclosure in child welfare. I have identified the foster care data variables as: (1) suicide; (2) murder; (3) rape; (4) medical neglect (i.e. psychotropic drug related deaths and drug overdose); and (4) children of undocumented immigrants. The purpose of securing this information is to allow for public scrutiny in the form of cost-benefit analysis of programming and policy.
My last recommendation is to establish policy for contractual debarment, license revocation, sanction, and recovery of child welfare fraud. Beyond Medicaid fraud recovery, there can also be recovery in the state financial participation in the funding of Title IV-E programming.
If you are in need of any consultation, I offer my expertise in this subject matter.
