Rick Scott Signs Terrible Law Expanding Florida DCF’s Power

Leaping from overreaction overreaction

 

One of the least desirable features of a representative democracy is that often, poorly thought out legislation is rammed through with little thought as a gross overreaction to immediate public outrage. Such is the case with the child welfare law signed into law by Florida Governor Rick Scott today. The gist of this story is that the Florida Department of Children and Families (“DCF”) has come under substantial public criticism for an investigative series of stories first published by the Miami Herald which revealed that 477 children have died child abuse related deaths in the last five years. The report criticized the agency for, among other things, failing to notice obvious signs of abuse in children under their care. Predictably, the response that has been ramroded through the Florida legislature is to, essentially, give lots more money and sweeping new authority to the agency directly responsible for the SNAFU that caused the public uproar in the first place:

TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Rick Scott signed a sweeping bill Monday aimed at overhauling the child-welfare system after hundreds of child abuse-related deaths in the past five years.

The new law calls for a fundamental shift in the way the Department of Children and Families investigates and responds to cases. It clearly states that protecting a child from abuse is paramount and more important than keeping a family together. In the past, DCF has placed a premium on putting fewer children in foster care and, instead, offering family services while the child remains at home.
* * *
The law will fund jobs for 270 additional child protective investigators to reduce caseloads. It also establishes a response team to quickly investigate child abuse deaths when the child had previous incidents with the system and adds a small amount of funding for at-risk families with young children. Child advocates said substance abuse treatment issues are at the heart of many child deaths.

 

The DCF, like the federal TSA, is wildly more popular as an abstract idea than it is as an agency, in particular among anyone who has the misfortune to run afoul of their workings in any sort of personal way. In the abstract, people like the idea that there should be an agency tasked with preventing child abuse and neglect. Where the rubber meets the road, however, nightmares almost invariably happen. Part of it has to do with the nature of the job – any time a stranger is tasked with confronting a parent about the way they are raising their child, ugly personal confrontations are bound to happen. Worse, in many cases, the social workers at DCF have to encounter legitimate, heart-rending abuse and witness children kept in conditions that would rend the heart of all but the most calloused of people. The combined pressures tend wash out the sort of thoughtful, compassionate, qualified social workers and instead self-selects for social workers who are either unqualified or incapable of finding employment elsewhere, or who dispositionally enjoy personal conflict, or who are at least mostly calloused to the suffering of children. In other words, the exact people who should be kept as far away from having the power to remove children from their families as possible.

As a result, state DCFs (or DCS as it may be known in your state) too often become neverending cavalcades of horror stories where hordes of legitimate abuse cases go inadequately or incompetently investigated, all while DCF caseworkers become unwitting foot soldiers in countless divorce vendettas. As just one example of the problems infesting state child welfare agencies, it has long been shown that minority families are disproportionately likely to be reported to DCF for investigation; but moreover, even among the reported population, are disproportionately likely to have their children removed to foster care - which is not the hallmark of an agency that is thoughtfully pursuing their work.
At a glance, many aspects of this legislation, such as improving training and quality of case workers, are admirable and cannot be gainsaid. But the bolded portion above, combined with a clear and sweeping monetary incentive to root out and find more abuse, will be the root of untold measures of evil. One of our most treasured principles as a Republic is the principle that, where possible and in the absence of a compelling contrary interest, children shoudl be raised by their parents. Florida’s DCF now has a clear statutory provision to the contrary along with a huge budget and a mandate to find more abuse will, in the hands of an agency that has engendered well deserved distrust among almost everyone who has come in contact with them, lead to disaster.
Any conservatives who are lauding this decision should ask themselves this fundamental question – do you think this legislation, in the hands of the same DCF, will lead to less abuse? Or more horrors like those suffered by Justina Pelletier and her family?
Perhaps this is a question Rick Scott should have asked before signing this ill-advised legislation.

http://www.redstate.com/2014/06/23/rick-scott-signs-terrible-law-expanding-florida-dcfs-power/

DCF Worker Accused Of Falsifying Well-Being Report

ORLANDO, Fla. —

Posted: 3:12 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2014

Investigators said a 38-year-old woman was supposed to be checking up on some of the most vulnerable victims of child abuse and neglect but instead lied in her paperwork to avoid being fired.

Margaret McCalman

Margaret McCalman told investigators at the Department of Children and Families she was exhausted from her case load and typed up a false home visit in her computer to avoid missing a required visit.
McCalman and others in her position are required to go out and investigate allegations of child abuse and neglect, authorities said.
According to the arrest warrant, McCalman documented a visit in May 2012 to a home with at least two children.
In the report, it was written that the children were seen without abuse and that the house was cluttered but no major hazards were seen.
The catch, according to payroll data, is that McCalman wasn’t working that day.
Channel 9′s Karla Ray went to McCalman’s home on Wednesday to ask why she would put children’s lives at risk by making up information about their well-being, but no one came to the door.
McCalman quit her job at DCF month after her internal investigation started.

“We absolutely do not tolerate the falsification of child protective records,” said a DCF spokeswoman. “We have a zero tolerance for it.”
If convicted, McCalman could face prison time.
http://www.wftv.com/news/news/local/dcf-worker-accused-falsifying-well-being-report/ndhJx/

Local Lawmakers Grapple With Changing The Culture At DCF

TALLAHASSEE (CBSMiami/NSF) – Both chambers of the Legislature took up child-welfare reform Tuesday, hearing from a wide range of experts with research about staff turnover and caseloads.

But one number stood out: 432, the number of Florida children who died of abuse and neglect in 2012, according to Pam Graham, a social work professor at Florida State University.
Graham, who spoke to the House Healthy Families Subcommittee, served on the State Child Abuse Death Review Committee. Of the 432 children who died in 2012, she said, 40 percent were already involved with the Department of Children and Families.
“It pains me that if the right people had been helping those families, a lot of the deaths could have been prevented,” Graham said.
The number of child deaths usually mentioned in legislative committees is 40, the number that the Casey Family Programs, a policy group, reviewed after a series of child deaths last year.
And that’s how many it took to prompt legislative leaders to vow to overhaul the child-welfare system.
“The public is crying out to us to have revolutionary reform,” said Sen. Eleanor Sobel, a Hollywood Democrat and chairwoman of the Senate Children, Families and Elder Affairs Committee. “We don’t want to keep reading about children’s deaths. …However, we’re going to do it in a pragmatic way, step by step.”
Sobel’s panel and the House Healthy Families Subcommittee examined such steps as requiring all new child-protective investigators to have social-work degrees and helping the current investigators get such degrees.
Not everyone who spoke to the lawmakers agreed on how to fix the workplace culture at DCF, but virtually all said it had to be done.
“The thing that we keep coming back to is a lack of fraternity,” Mike Watkins, chief executive officer of Big Bend Community Based Care, told the Senate panel.
To the House panel, Mary Alice Nye, of the Legislature’s Office of Program Policy and Government Accountability, said child-protective investigators report feeling pressured to close cases within a 30-day window and to get all of their work done without filing for overtime pay.
The investigators “felt that they were less and less able to use their knowledge and expertise in decision-making,” Nye said.
They also reported spending 50 to 80 percent amount of their time on administrative tasks and expressed concern about going into homes where there had been violence, difficulty in getting law enforcement officers to meet them there and using their own cars for work, which could identify them in small communities.
“They generally indicated they felt support from their immediate (supervisor) but not from DCF or the lead (community-based care) agencies,” Nye said.
DCF Interim Secretary Esther Jacobo said a program to pair child-protective investigators was being piloted in cases where a child is 3 years old or younger, has a prior DCF history and other family risk factors such as domestic violence, mental illness or substance abuse.
Jacobo said the pilot has been so successful that it will go statewide. Gov. Rick Scott has recommended hiring 400 additional child protective investigators, bringing their caseloads down to 10 apiece.
Sobel said it’s important for state agencies to be more consistent.
“Stop the turnover and create a workforce that likes where they’re working and enjoys what they do and accomplishes a lot,” she said. “For the sake of the kids, we have to do this.”
According to OPPAGA, the turnover for child-protective investigators in Florida is 20 percent. For the case managers who provide services at the local level, it’s 30 percent.
“The News Service of Florida’s Margie Menzel contributed to this report.”

http://miami.cbslocal.com/2014/02/11/lawmakers-grapple-with-changing-the-culture-at-dcf/

Child-Protection Worker Accused Of Falsifying Reports

October 10, 2013|By Erika Pesantes, Sun Sentinel, By Erika Pesantes, Sun Sentinel

A Broward sheriff’s employee entrusted to help shield kids from harm didn’t even bother to meet five children she needed to watch over, possibly compromising their safety, authorities say.

Sandra Marti

Sheriff’s child investigative specialist Sandra Marti has been arrested, accused of falsifying reports that stated she had met with the children, according to a sheriff’s report. Instead, Marti simply arranged for parents to send her cellphone photos of the children, the report said.

Marti was jailed Wednesday on multiple counts of falsifying reports, records show.
“The falsification of official records, and the potential risks that any kind of falsification could pose for children, will not be tolerated,” said Dennis Miles, the regional managing director for the state’s Department of Children and Families’ Southeast Region.
Marti submitted the falsified records involving the five children between Dec. 1, 2011, and June 30 this year, the Sheriff’s Office said. Detectives found that those children are doing well, sheriff’s spokeswoman Keyla Concepcion said.
“We have gone back and made sure that all of those kids were safe, and the original allegations had been addressed,” she said.
An investigation into Marti’s actions began in June when a child’s mother phoned the Broward Sheriff’s Office. The mother said she planned to send Marti a photo of her son, but couldn’t because she had lost Marti’s phone number, an arrest report said.
That was a red flag for Marti’s supervisor, Concepcion said.
Detectives from the Broward Sheriff’s Public Corruption Unit reached out to several parents who each similarly detailed Marti’s instructions to send her photos of their children. They all said their sons and daughters did not meet with her on instances when she indicated they had, according to an arrest report.
Marti, a civilian employee, is currently suspended without pay, Concepcion said. Marti, 57, of Coral Springs, has been employed with the Sheriff’s Office for nine years.
She previously worked in pre-trial services and community control supervision of offenders, and later began working as a child investigative specialist.
Detectives have reviewed all of Marti’s cases since July 2010 — when she began working in the Child Protective Investigations Section — and only found five cases “in which she acted inappropriately,” Concepcion said.
Marti, who was freed from jail on a $5,000 bond, could not be reached for comment Thursday despite several attempts to contact her via a relative.
As part of their role, child protective investigators take a look at allegations of abuse, neglect or abandonment that come into the DCF hotline. Those cases range from neglecting to offer a child medical attention, to leaving minors who cannot care for themselves home alone, to sexual abuse, DCF spokeswoman Paige Patterson-Hughes said.
However, it was not known Thursday what circumstances led Marti to each of the cases for which she allegedly falsified reports.
“It’s important for there to be the appropriate contact with the potential victim and other people involved,” Patterson-Hughes said. “Not following through clearly is a problem.”
In the case that helped start the investigation, Marti filed a report indicating she met a child on June 13 this year, authorities said. But in a sworn statement, the boy’s mother said Marti did not meet her son and instead asked the mother for a cellphone photo.
According to the arrest report, investigators found that Marti filed a report in January 2012 stating that she had met with another child. But that boy’s mother also gave a sworn statement that said Marti didn’t see her son.
The scenario repeated itself in December 2012, when Marti said in a report she visited a 7-year-old girl at Croissant Park Elementary School in Fort Lauderdale, an arrest report said. But the school’s assistant vice principal said she had no record of an investigator visiting the child at the time, the report said.
Marti allegedly also asked that girl’s mother to send a cellphone snapshot of her other child, a 2-year-old girl. The mother, in a sworn statement, said she did as instructed.
In April 2013, Marti gave a 16-year-old boy’s mother her business card and asked that his photo be emailed to her, the report said. The boy told investigators that he never met Marti, but did take a photo of himself on his cellphone and emailed it to Marti.
Patterson-Hughes said meeting people is essential: It offers investigators clues to anything else that should be taken into account during their investigation.
“Clearly, when you’re talking to a person, you’re oftentimes taking in more than the words. You’re looking at other aspects, the behavior, the demeanor and the circumstances that brought you to the person in the first place,” Patterson-Hughes said.
Marti also is accused of falsifying a report that said she had met with a parent, authorities said.
In May this year, Marti allegedly filed a report stating she had met with the father of a child who had an open case, authorities said. The father told detectives that he had a telephone conversation with a child protective investigator, but did not meet the investigator in person, the arrest report said.
Miles called the allegations against Marti a “serious matter” and commended the Sheriff’s Office for investigating. In an emailed statement Thursday, he said that DCF “will work with [sheriff's] investigators to ensure the integrity of other cases which involved this investigator.”
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2013-10-10/news/fl-child-protection-arrest-bso-20131010_1_broward-sheriff-five-children-falsifying-reports

Carl Littlefield Gets Newly Created DCF Gig After Resigning

            MARCH 31, 2011 

Gov. Rick Scott's office has found a soft landing for Carl Littlefield, their former head of the Agency of Persons with Disabilities. Littlefield abruptly resigned before he could testify in front of a Senate panel about a Tampa-area group home that allowed residents to have sex.
Sen. Ronda Storms raised questions about Littlefield's appointment, making it clear that Scott would have to battle to get him confirmed in the Senate. Instead, Littlefield resigned his $140,000 job at APD and received a $78,000-per-year gig at the Tampa office of the Department of Children and Families.
It's a newly created job for Littlefield in a year when lawmakers expect to slash thousands of state jobs from the payroll and cut benefits for the workers who remain. As director of community affairs, Littlefield will work on special projects and report to DCF Secretary David Wilkins. (Story here.)
Littlefield sent several emails to Scott's chief of staff and deputy chief of staff after he left APD. The first came six days after he resigned.

Littlefield said he couldn't remember whether he heard back from the governor's office and wouldn't elaborate how he got the DCF job. "I filled out an application," he said.
Here's his e-mails to Mike Prendergast and Jenn Ungru:
Feb. 28: Just want to check for any progress on a new assignment. My wife is a little concerned about a lapse in health insurance coverage.  After a week off I have determined that I am not quite ready for retirement. Please advise at your earliest convenience.  Thanks for your help.
March 7: I know things are about to get super busy as the legislative session beings so I felt like I should check back in to see if any progress is being made on my employment. As you know, tomorrow begins week three and I am more than ready to get ack to work. I am not confident that my new Blackberry is working correctly so please confirm that you received this message. Thanks


http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/content/carl-littlefield-gets-newly-created-dcf-gig-after-resigning