Document the DCF Atrocities - # 32,107

St. Pete Times:

George Sheldon, Secretary of the Florida Department of Children and Families, said nobody displayed a sense of urgency in Diella's case. Indeed. Rules were in place, but weren't followed. Cases weren't transferred properly between agencies. Piecemeal case management meant imperative information wasn't distributed, or worse, was ignored by those needing to know.
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Sheldon deserves credit for providing a thorough public accounting of yet another breakdown in Florida's child welfare system. But the candor is overshadowed by the horrible outcome and the appalling systematic failures preceding the infant's death:

• Case workers — checking a separate case involving the twins' sibling — had at least two months before the babies' birth to determine the suitability of granting custody to Ludwig.
• Youth and Family Alternatives of Pasco, a subcontractor providing services for DCF, failed to follow numerous guidelines, including a home visit and safety assessment to determine "the potential effect the addition of the new child may have on the family's current ability to handle stress'' and whether the newborns needed to be in foster care.
• Nobody conducted an assessment of the potential home environment, did a face-to-face interview with Ludwig or evaluated his criminal and abuse history as required by state law when newborns are released to the nonincarcerated parent.
• Marion County child protection staffers said they wanted an out-of-town inquiry of Ludwig, but failed to transfer the case to the Pasco Sheriff's Office.

Diella Ludwig is not a victim who fell through the cracks of Florida's child protection system. She died because the system failed her time and time and time again. Every leader of each agency involved must accept responsibility for that failure and move swiftly to prevent it from happening again. Sheldon and his boss, Gov. Charlie Crist, need to ensure that work gets done.

Document the DCF Atrocities

June 6, 'no one could have predicted' a Delray Beach child the Florida Department of Children and Families was protecting would die. June 14, DCF 'could not have foreseen' a Riviera Beach child it was protecting would die. Luckily, the agency had the foresight to order rubber stamps for this sort of thing.

Document the DCF Atrocities

No one could have predicted those two separate instances of death by neglect. So, Florida's Department of Children and Families "has agreed to formalize" her custody of however many of her other children may still be alive.

Document the DCF Atrocities

July 7, 2006: Dean McGregor, age 7, is found "lying in bed, unresponsive, his dead eyes fixed in space." He died from "blunt force head injuries."

Who could have guessed? Not the Florida Department of Children and Families:

• Feb. 16, 2005: "DCF's abuse hotline received a report that Desmond McGregor's girlfriend had used a belt to discipline Dean's twin brother... ." A caseworker from [DCF contractor] ChildNet dismissed the allegation as a "form of revenge" by a family member to try to gain custody of the three boys... . No action was taken, the suit says."
• April 2005: "[A DCF] caseworker on a supervised visit was told by the three brothers that one boy had been injured on his back. 'The monitor observed 'a long abrasion' on [the boy's] back... ." The boy 'reported to the monitor that `Desmond hit me' with a belt." The boy also accused the teenage son of his dad's girlfriend of biting him in the head... ."
  
• April 13, 2005: Dean McGregor reported to DCF Child Protection Investigators "that his father hits him with a belt... . He also told the team that his dad's girlfriend and her son also hit him.
  
• November 2005: The non-custodial mother "said in an abuse report that Desmond McGregor had attacked her, and she 'fears for her life and the kids' safety."
• March, 2006: After DCF received another abuse report, a state Child Protection Team found "medically confirmed abuse, failure to provide a safe environment and failure to protect... ."
  
• June 2007: Dean McGregor is "pulled out of the bottom of a pool after a brief submersion episode," hospital records show.
  

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.'