Document the DCF Atrocities

Near Kris Wernowsky's lede in today's Pensacola News Journal, May 12, 2008:

One-year-old Ali Jean Paterson died in November 2006 from severe burns she suffered when her father left her unattended in the bath, authorities said. The father, Christopher Paterson, 28, of Molino, was arrested in May 2007 near Gainesville several months after a grand jury indicted him on a manslaughter charge.

Buried deep in the article:

In May 2006, the Florida Department of Children and Families looked into another incident involving Paterson and his child.

The DCF investigated Paterson and the child's mother, Brittany Knapp, after Ali was taken to a local hospital with a broken leg. The parents said they believed Ali tangled her leg in a slot in her crib, said Janice Thomas, circuit administrator for the DCF.

"Based on the information we gathered, we didn't think there was abuse and neglect at that time," Thomas said.

Another great job by Escambia County's Department of Children & Family Scoundrels.

Document the Atrocities

Dept. of Children and Family Services: Atrocity No. 54, 348:

John Joseph Edwards Jr. is also suing the Department of Children and Families' private arm, claiming the agency's caseworker failed to recognize the signs of neglect.

On Thursday, Edwards' attorney, Gary Gossett, likened the conditions suffered by his client to a Nazi death camp. The lawsuit says Edwards underwent "physical and mental torture," to include starvation, beatings, head shaving and "unlawful confinement."
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As the Allains' case wound its way through the judicial system, the spotlight also turned to DCF. Investigations were opened to determine how the abuse could have continued for so long if case workers were supposedly making monthly visits.

As we have said, "the worst agency in the state of Florida, if not the universe."

Will the Light Shine on Florida's Department of Children and Families?

Today's PNJ reports legislation is pending in Tallahassee that, for the first time, would open the records of the Florida Department of Children and Families to "children and others who have been through DCF's child care system... ."

Because their records so often deal with children and cases of sexual abuse, DCF has many records that are closed — including barring access for people to see their own records.

"That was a driving force behind the bill," [state senator Paula] Dockery said. "When I found out people could not even get their own records from DCF, I couldn't believe it."
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Under existing law, the only way to get those records is to petition the courts.

This could turn out to be an expensive idea. After all, DCF is rightly regarded as the worst agency in the state of Florida, if not the universe. "There is no place in the country where it is worse to be a foster child than Florida," one national expert told Time Magazine six years ago.

Riddled with incompetent caseworkers and rife with ignorant and biased supervisors, the agency wasn't even "shocked" when a recent inspector general's report found the agency's hiring practices to be a muddled mess from top to bottom. DCF ignores judicial orders seeking to compel its employees to do their jobs properly.

It hires sexual perverts who abuse children to be top spokesmen. Six-figure jobs at the local county level are manufactured out of thin air for tired politicians with no particular skills to recommend them.

Unable even to keep track of children that are supposed to be in "the system" -- much less protect them -- the Florida Department of Children and Families presently must be hiding in their private archives evidence of thousands, if not tens of thousands, of tragic blunders, negligent mistakes, intentional villany, and other atrocities.

Once the public gets its hands on the proof, the victims of this abominable agency might actually sue for gross negligence, as did 9 year old Marissa Amora. That could bankrupt the state, don'cha know, if there is any justice in Florida.

But there is a ray of hope for worried taxpayers. Florida's Department of Children and Families is so utterly beyond redemption that, as shown by the case of an unnamed four-year old girl embroiled in an "important international custody battle," the agency is quite capable of "losing" more records than it can find. Moreover, sporadic investigations have revealed that "some caseworkers... falsified records... and knowingly placed children in abusive foster homes."

The "Sunshine Act" can't train the light on DCF's malfeasance if all the evidence gets 'lost.'