Reducing Congregate Care Placements: not so easy, not always good for kids

Most child welfare experts and policymakers at all levels seem to agree that our nation needs to reduce the use of group homes and other non-family placements (often called “congregate care”) for foster youth. Yet signs from around the country suggest that the drive to move foster youth quickly out of congregate care is facing some obstacles–and may be resulting in more damage to foster youth.

The child welfare establishment–including the federal Administration for Children and Families, agency leaders at the state and local level, prominent think-tanks, scholars, and foundations–is in agreement that “every kid needs a family.” These leaders acknowledge that some foster youth need a group placement to address behavioral issues that may prevent success in foster care, but such youth should be moved out of the group setting as soon as these issues are addressed.

In 2015, the California Legislature took the lead in implementing this new focus by enacting the Continuum Care Reform (CCR), which required all foster youth to be placed in families except those requiring intensive supervision and treatment for a temporary period. Such youth must be placed in Short-Term Residential Treatment Programs (SRTP’s), which must be accredited and meet rigorous standards.

Congress followed in 2018 by adopting the Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA, (Title VII of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018), which imposed similar changes on the federal level, with a temporary congregate therapeutic option called Quality Residential Treatment Programs (QRTP’s) instead of SRTP’s. To receive reimbursement for a QRTP placement, a “qualified professional” must determines within 30 days of the placement that the child needs to be placed in such a setting rather than a relative or foster family home. The decision must be approved by a court within 60 days and reviewed at subsequent hearings (usually every three to six months). Moreover, a child cannot remain in a QRTP for more than 12 consecutive months (or 6 months for a child under 13) without written approval from the head of the agency.

California, where CCR took effect in 2017, has been widely viewed as a harbinger of what might happen after FFPSA takes effect next October. But Golden State policymakers have been “shocked shocked” to learn that children have not been moving out of congregate care settings as fast as anticipated. The reform was expected to pay for itself due to savings from moving children from pricier congregate care settings to cheaper family homes. However, this has not happened. The Office of the Legislative Analyst has found higher than projected state spending for one main reason: instead of moving from group homes into family foster homes, children are moving into “STRTPS,” the new congregate option offered by CCR.

Although the Legislative Analyst did not speculate about reasons for the slow transition, one does not have to look far for clues. A report from San Joaquin County indicates that the county is unable to find homes for the teens with the greatest needs, who remain in group homes. Efforts to recruit foster parents willing to take on these challenging youths have so far failed.

Another jurisdiction that started eliminating group homes long before the Family First Act was New York City. The city’s Administration for Children and Families (ACF) is reeling from an alarming report about the intake center where children are taken after being removed from their families. Workers described an atmosphere of chaos, violence, weapons in plain sight, feces-smeared walls, overcrowding and “a dangerous mix of babies and young children with special needs living alongside troubled teens and even adults straight out of jail.” This intake center was was meant as a place for children to wait for a few hours until a placement could be arranged. But staff report young people with behavioral problems or medical needs living in the shelter for months because foster families cannot be found for them. One disabled teenager lived there for a year. The president of the union representing ACF workers blamed these long stays on management decisions made years ago to close group homes, based on the belief that family homes were better for children. Unfortunately, the agency has not been able to find families to take in many children with behavioral problems, mental disabilities, and histories of trauma and abuse.

In Georgia, there are more children in foster care than ever before and not enough homes for them. Wanting to address this problem, long-time foster and adoptive parents John and Kelly DeGarmo started the Never Too Late (NTL) foster home for boys. But when they applied for a license to accept youth from the foster care system, they found it was too late. Due to the Family First Act, Georgia was not going to license any new residential group homes. State administrators instead asked NTL to serve as a Transitional Living Program, (TLP), for youth ages 16-21 as the boys transition from foster care to independent living. These programs are also needed, but one can’t help but wonder about Georgia’s plan for meeting the needs of the many children who cannot find foster homes and could have thrived in atmosphere of loving care at Never Too Late.

In my own jurisdiction, the District of Columbia, the Child and Family Services Agency is proud of the low percentage of foster youth that are in group homes, attributing it to “the agency’s success in supporting children and youth with higher needs in traditional foster homes.” Yet, advocates are declaring a foster care placement crisis. There is a lack of appropriate foster homes for many children, particularly older teens and those with behavioral problems. As a result, according to the Children’s Law Center, foster youth experience multiple placement disruptions, with devastating consequences to their mental health. CLC also blames the placement crisis for delayed removals of children from unsafe homes, youths remaining in poorly matched placement, and youths leaving their official placements for unofficial community settings. Yet, there is no voice advocating for more therapeutic group homes, the most appropriate setting for many such youths.

The state of Washington has about 100 youths in out-of-state facilities due to a lack of in-state beds. A scathing report recently described abusive restraint practices and other problems at an Iowa facility where Washington was sending some of its foster youth. In a letter to the legislature, Ross Hunter, director of the Department of Children Youth and Families, acknowledged that the agency has an insufficient array of therapeutic group homes and residential facilities for children with severe behavioral problems that make it impossible to maintain them in foster homes. Among the consequences of this shortage, Hunter cites the following: (1) children being repeatedly placed in homes that can’t handle them, resulting in damage to the children and loss of foster parents to the system; (2) over 2000 office and hotel stays for children last year; and (3) use of expensive one-night placements “at extraordinary cost and detriment to the child,” in addition to the out-of-state placements. Hunter proposes to bring all of Washington’s children home and eliminate office and hotel stays by expanding the number of therapeutic group home beds, as well as increasing the quality of existing congregate placements.

Oregon is also reeling from reports of abusive out-of-state placements. After being sued for housing foster kids in hotels, it stopped that practice but sent more high-needs children out of state. Reports of a nine-year-old being injected with Benadryl to control her behavior have led to a public outcry that over 80 Oregon foster kids are in out-of-state facilities, many of them troubled for-profits, because the state lacks residential programs to provide the treatment they need.

Washington and Oregon are among the states with the highest proportions of foster children placed in families, according to federal data cited in a recent report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation that drew extensive press coverage. The report provided state-by-state numbers, generating media coverage (but not in Washington and Oregon) that praised those jurisdictions with lower group home percentages and chastising those with higher rates. But nowhere did the authors mention the fact that eliminating too many congregate placements may lead to foster youth staying in offices, hotels, emergency placements, and abusive out-of-state facilities.

We are not taking this opportunity to argue that many group homes (especially those using the house parent model) are more family-like than many foster homes–which we have argued elsewhere. Even if we accept the premise that no young person should be in a group home one minute longer than necessary once ready to function well in a foster home, there are several problems with implementing this premise in the real world.

We don’t have a diagnostic instrument capable of determining in advance who “needs” a congregate placement and who does not. As of now, it is a subjective determination, making it difficult to project a specific decline in congregate care placement. There is concern that the FFA may make it too difficult for children to gain access to the therapeutic placements they need.
Whether a child is “ready” for family life depends upon the families available. Some very gifted, well trained and dedicated foster parents can nurture high-needs youth who would not thrive in the average foster home. But when such a parent is not available, a child might be better off in a high-quality therapeutic group placement.
Often a family simply cannot be found that is willing to accept a teen with troubling behaviors or a history of residential treatment or delinquency. The most ridiculous sentence in FFPSA is this one: “A shortage or lack of foster family homes shall not be an acceptable reason for determining that the needs of the child cannot be met in a foster family home. ” What should be done then with a child that has no place to go?
A year (or six months for a preteen) may not be enough time for a troubled child to become “family-ready.”. Many children and teens in foster care have suffered years of trauma in their homes, and perhaps multiple placements in foster care. The time required is more likely measured in years than in months.
It may be difficult for smaller, high quality group homes to meet the criteria for QRTP’s.

There is no doubt that many congregate care facilities are of poor quality–witness the horrors suffered by Washington and Oregon youths who were shipped out of state. The framers of FFPSA were right in wanting to ensure that these facilities entrusted with our most fragile youth are up to the task, although they adopted a blunt instrument for doing this. Let’s hope that other states follow Washington’s plan and respond to FFPSA by ensuring that therapeutic group homes are adequate in quality and quantity rather than eliminating them.

Placing children with the parent that abused them: The problematic theory of parental alienation

MayaTsimhoni — Maya Tsimhoni: *Detroit Free Press*

An unproven–and mostly discredited–theory is encouraging family court judges to award custody–against children’s wishes–to the parent that has been accused of harming them. Moreover, this theory of “parental alienation” has “spawned a cottage industry of so-called family reunification camps that are making big profits from broken families.” That’s the message of a stunning report by the Center for Investigative Journalism aired on public radio’s Reveal program.

The Reveal broadcast focused on two custody cases in which the judge ordered children placed against their will with the parent that they claimed was abusive. In one case, the judge sent a teenage boy to juvenile detention because he was not making sufficient efforts to get along with his mother. He and his sister were then sent to live with their father and allowed no contact with their mother for a period of three years. In the other case, a fourteen-year old girl who said her mother was emotionally abuse and wanted to live with her father was sent to a “reunification camp” for ten months at her parents’ expense. Her mother was given full custody and the teen was separated from her father father for four years. The judges in both cases based their decisions on a theory called “parental alienation.”

“Parental alienation,” originally “Parental alienation syndrome (PAS),” was the brainchild of Richard Gardner, a child psychiatrist who developed it to help fathers fight abuse claims in custody disputes. In its current iteration, parental alienation describes a parent’s attempt to turn the children against another parent in a custody dispute. A charge of parental alienation is often deployed by a parent who has been accused of abuse, allowing that parent to turn the tables and accuses the other parent of brainwashing the children. The theory encourages judges to remove children from the parent with whom they are bonded because that parent is believed to have alienated them against the other parent.

According to Joan Meier, a leading researcher in the field of domestic violence and custody cases, there is little evidence to support the idea that “parental alienation” due to manipulation by one parent is a common occurrence. However, invoking parental alienation allows an abusive parent to portray a protective parent as a vengeful liar who is manipulating the children by implanting false memories of abuse. The theory creates a “paradoxically disastrous dynamic“: if an abuser can convince a court that the children’s attitudes reflect parental alienation, he can actually benefit from his abuse.

The Reveal story was misleading in one respect. While acknowledging that the charge of alienation is overwhelmingly used by fathers against mothers, the story focused on two families in which the mothers used the charge to take custody from the fathers. Much more common are stories like the following:

In August 2018, six-year-old twin boys were ordered removed from the sole custody of their mother (with whom they had lived for five years) and placed with their father, who was alleged to have physically and sexually abused them for years. The father, an Air Force colonel with a traumatic brain injury, had acknowledged problems with controlling his anger and sexual impulses. Yet a family court judge in Montgomery County, Maryland gave sole custody to the father, voicing the belief that the boys’ mother had manipulated them into making five allegations of abuse–even though such fabricated abuse allegations from young children are rare.
The divorce case of Omer Tsimhoni and his ex-wife, Maya Eibschitz-Tsimhoni of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, drew international attention in 2015 when the judged locked up their three children, ages 9, 11, and 14, because they refused to have lunch with their father. The children spent more than two weeks in juvenile detention before the judge released them after public outcry. The mother had claimed the children were estranged from their father because he physically and verbally abused them, and the father accused her of alienating the children. Later, the father was given temporary custody and the children did not see their mother for almost nine months. The mother was finally given primary custody by a new judge in June 2016.

How do judges make these decisions, which often seem cruel and contrary to common sense? According to Meier, many lack understanding of domestic violence and child abuse. Moreover, they often rely on neutral evaluators who also also lack “meaningful knowledge or expertise in domestic violence and abuse. Adding to this ignorance is the emphasis in family courts and mental health training on the importance of children retaining relationships with noncustodial parents after divorce and a consequent emphasis on “co-parenting,” which often reinforces the parental alienation hypothesis.

Unfortunately, there is no data to indicate how often parental alienation plays a part in child custody decisions. But according to Joan Meier, “parental alienation remains a dominant issue in many, if not most, custody cases in which a mother has alleged that a father was abusive.”

Claiming parental alienation has proven quite successful for abusers. In the first study of its kind, Meier and Sean Dickson reviewed 238 published opinions from around the country. The results were startling. When courts believed a father’s claim of alienation, fathers won almost every time, regardless of whether or not the mother reported abuse. Mostly stunningly, even when the court believed that abuse occurred, the alienation claim trumped the abuse claim. In the seven cases where the court believed the abuse claims (five involving domestic violence, one physical abuse, and one both), the father won custody in every case.

According to Meier, the increasing use of parental alienation theory is part of a broader “trend toward reversal of custody from protective mothers to allegedly abusive fathers…” Moreover, studies have identified “a trend toward favoring fathers, in contrast to widespread assumptions that mothers are favored in custody litigation.”

Thankfully, it appears that due to media coverage and the work of scholars and activists, awareness about the use of parental alienation theory is growing among the public, child advocates, and policymakers. After eight years of advocacy, the House passed a Concurrent Resolution last fall that states that “child safety is the first priority of custody and parenting adjudications, and courts should resolve safety risks and claims of family violence before assessing other best interest factors.” The resolution also calls for higher standards for evidence and for the “experts” who testify in court and calls on Congress to schedule hearings on family court practices with regard to children’s safety and civil rights. According to Joan Meier, this resolution is “the perfect springboard” for local activists to take to their legislators and ask for similar changes at the local level, where the family courts actually operate.

DV LEAP, an advocacy organization founded by Joan Meier, and other organizations are also fighting for the rights of protective parents and abused children in court. On March 22, DV LEAP and many other organizations filed a groundbreaking brief with the New York State Court of Appeals that is the first documented collaboration between domestic violence and child maltreatment professionals on parental alienation theory. According to Meier, this brief has the potential to be a catalyst for national change.

This post is a departure for Child Welfare Monitor. We have not touched on many issues outside the arena of public child welfare. But parental alienation theory is yet another example of powerful adults ignoring the best interests and expressed wishes of children, and putting them at risk due to ignorance or mistaken beliefs. Those of us who care about abused and neglected children need to expand our awareness and activity to include all children whom our institutions fail to protect from maltreatment.

Inspector General: Child safety and well-being no longer priorities for Illinois Department of Child and Family Services

DCFS has lost focus on ensuring the safety and well-being of children as a priority. This is evidenced by several recent cases and the clear lack of attention to assuring children and families receive adequate, thorough, and timely responses and needed services. Investigators, caseworkers and supervisors are unmanaged, and unsupported. Children are dying, children are being left lingering in care, children are being left in in psychiatric hospitals beyond medical necessity causing them to lose hope. This is not just unacceptable it is HARMFUL

That startling statement was made by the Acting Inspector General (IG) for Illinois Department of Children and Families to News Channel 20 about its most recent annual report. During FY 2018, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) reviewed 97 deaths and one serious injury of children whose families were involved in the child welfare system within the preceding 12 months. Of the 98 families involved, at least 52 were the subject of of a completed child abuse or neglect investigation during the previous 12 months; fully 37 of these investigations failed to find any abuse or neglect and were closed without any action to protect the child. Twelve of the 98 families were the subject of an open investigation when the child died, eight were involved in an open family service case, and three had had a family case closed within a year of the death. (See the full count of deaths by case status at the bottom of this article.)

Not all of the deaths or serious injuries can be attributed to DCFS failure to protect a child. Twenty-seven deaths were ruled natural; most of the children involved had serious medical issues. Some of the deaths (including most the 16 youths in foster care)¹ were sadly due to violence, car accidents, drug abuse by older youths and other circumstances not under the Department’s control. Heartbreakingly, two older teens in foster care died of abuse that was inflicted on them as infants and left them medically compromised.

However, many of the case reviews suggest DCFS missed danger signs and opportunities to save vulnerable children. Thirteen children were killed by a parent, step parent, parent’s paramour, another relative or unknown perpetrator within a year of an open investigation or service case. These children were beaten, starved, stabbed, and shot to death. The cause of 23 deaths of children in families that recently interacted with DCFS is still undetermined; many are currently being investigated. Most of these children were infants; many of the deaths appeared to be linked to unsafe sleep practices and at least four raised concerns of abuse. The deaths of 24 children with an open or recently open case were classified as accidental. Fourteen of these deaths were attributed to asphyxia, suffocation, or sleep related causes; there were also two accidental drownings, an accidental hanging, and an accidental shooting of a three-year-old by an 11-year-old, as described below.

The OIG completed “full investigations” of four cases that have drawn extensive media attention:

Seventeen-month-old Semaj Crosby was found dead under a couch in her home 30 hours after being reported missing. There was both an open in-home case and a pending child protection investigation of the family at the time Semaj was reported missing. The family had been the subject of 11 investigations during the two years before her death. The mother received SSI for cognitive delays but was never assessed to determine her ability to keep her children safe. Semaj’s seven-year-old brother was psychiatrically hospitalized three times for threatening to kill himself during the time the family’s case was open. A family service caseworker visited the home the day before the toddler was reported missing, and a child protection investigator had been to the house the day the report was made. No immediate safety concerns were reported by this investigator, even though the health department deemed the apartment uninhabitable after the body was found. Criminal and child neglect investigations are pending.
Four-year-old Manual Aguilar was killed, apparently starved to death, and his body was burned post-mortem. Four years before his death, Manual and his three siblings were removed from their mother’s custody after she left the three older children in a car overnight at temperatures hovering around freezing, while Manual was left in a stranger’s care. The children were returned home a year before Manual’s death despite the mother’s failure to progress in therapy and an unfounded investigation stemming from bruises to one child that his older siblings reported were inflicted by the mother during an overnight visit. Five months before Manual’s death, the two older siblings texted to their former foster parent that their mother was beating them, but the investigation was unfounded when they recanted. The mother has been charged with murder.
A daycare center reported that a two-and-a-half-year-old appeared to have cigarette burns on both hands. The reporter also said the child’s face had been swollen on two prior occasions, and an unknown male accompanying the mother was seen to hit the child across the face a week before. The investigator closed the case without investigating adequately either the child’s burns or the family’s allegation that they occurred at the daycare. Two days following the investigation’s closure, the child experienced cardiac arrest and died four days later. The autopsy concluded that the manner of death was undetermined and suspicious, but a child protection investigation did not find evidence to find anyone responsible for the death.
An eleven-year-old girl accidentally shot her three-year-old brother in the head while playing at home. This child survived and and this appears to be the only non-fatal case reviewed. The parents had left four of their children, of which the eleven-year-old was the oldest, at home alone. The father had eight drug convictions and had been arrested multiple times for physically assaulting the mother. The investigation of the shooting was the eleventh investigation of this family since 2008. One investigation had occurred when the father barricaded himself in the home with the mother, who was eight months pregnant, and the screaming and crying children. The children’s eight-year-old sibling was in residential care in the custody of DCFS at the time of the shooting and the agency was required to monitor the at-home siblings as well. Nevertheless no visits by case managers to the home were documented in the 45 months before the shooting with one exception. A case manager attempted to visit the home 21 days before the shooting but was not allowed in. .

The acting Inspector General told a reporter that understaffing may have contributed to the state’s inability to prevent child deaths. Following the death of Semaj Crosby, the OIG investigated a media report that child protection workers in the local office were offered incentives for early case closure. The IG found that while Semaj’s family was involved with DCFS, the entire region was understaffed (at times as low as 66% of staff needed), resulting in excessive caseloads for investigators. In December 2016, the field office administrator offered a $100 gift card to the investigator who could close the most cases in January. The IG found similar incentive programs for early case closure around the state.

The OIG also found that “a large contributing factor to the caseload problem was that the previous director had several management initiatives that seemed to take priority” over any attempt to redistribute caseloads. One of these initiatives, Rapid Safety Feedback, received some media attention last year. DCFS awarded a multimillion-dollar contract to two out-of-state firms using a “propriety algorithm to identify cases most likely to result in death or serious injury.” There were concerns that this contract was one of several no-bid contracts given to a circle of former associates of the previous director, as described by the Chicago Tribune. The contract was terminated after 25 to 50 percent of cases were flagged as having a a greater than 90% probability of death or serious injury in the next two years, alarming and overwhelming social workers. At the same time, the algorithm failed to predict the death of Semaj Crosby and other children who were killed while under supervision by DCFS.

The OIG report identified two areas of “chronic misfeasance,” or conduct that is lawful but inappropriate or incorrect. One of these areas is “intact family services,” which is DCFS-speak for the services provided to families to prevent further abuse or neglect without removing the child. OIG’s 2018 annual report included an eight-year retrospective on the deaths of children in intact family services cases. The OIG concluded that in many of these cases the children remained in danger during the life of the case due to violence in their homes, when DCFS should have either removed the children or at least sought court involvement to enforce participation in services.

A second area of “chronic misfeasance” identified in the 2019 report which has also drawn media coverage is the practice of leaving foster children in psychiatric hospitals “beyond medical necessity,” or after they are stable enough to be cared for outside that setting because there is no appropriate placement. OIG reported that the number of such episodes increased from 273 in FY 2017 to 329 in 2018. “The availability of community-based services and resources for youth with significant mental and behavioral needs continues to be at crisis levels.”

The OIG’s overall conclusion–that child safety and well-being are no longer priorities for DCFS–is sobering. But even more alarming is the fact that this description could be applied to many or even most other states. Although we don’t have numbers for most states, every year brings stories from around the country of children killed after long histories of contact with child welfare authorities. Twenty-seven percent of the fatality cases analyzed by the Administration on Children and Families for its Child Maltreatment report had at least one Child Protective Services contact within the past three years. State child welfare agencies tend to hide behind strict privacy protections in order to avoid releasing information on child protection failures, even though the case information could be released without including the names of the families involved. As a member of the District of Columbia’s Child Fatality Review Commission, I hear at almost every monthly meeting about one or more children who died after the family was called to the attention of CPS multiple times. And yet, I am not allowed to share any information about these cases with anyone, including legislators.

At least in Illinois, thanks to the DCFS Inspector General, the public and its elected representatives are given the opportunity to learn about failures to protect children while in the custody of their parents as well as those the custody of DCFS. This information helps make the case for change. The OIG report was the subject of a hearing in Springfield. The Governor has already requested an increase of more than $70 million for 126 new staff and technology upgrades.

Unfortunately, most states do not have an independent agency like the Illinois OIG to look out for children who are served by the agency both at home and in care. In a report issued on April 4, 2018, the National Council of State Legislators found that only 11 states have “an independent and autonomous agencies with oversight specific to child welfare,” although they seem to have missed Illinois. All states need such an autonomous agency. Somebody needs to reveal the truth about how we fail our most vulnerable children–and what it would take to do better.

Number of Child Deaths by Case Status from OIG Report

Case Status* Number of deaths or serious injuries

Pending Investigation at time of child’s death………………………………………………………12

Unfounded Investigation** within a year of child’s death……………………………………37

“Indicated” Investigation*** within a year of child’s death…………………………………..15

Youth in care………………………………………………………………………………………………………………16

Open Placement/Split custody****……………………………………………………………………………..3

Open Intact Case*****………………………………………………………………………………………………….8

Closed Intact Case within a year of child’s death……………………………………………………….3

Child of Youth in Care……………………………………………………………………………………………………1

Child Welfare Services Referral (no allegation of abuse or neglect)………………………….2

Preventive services to assist family but not as result of indicated investigation………1

Total……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….98

*When more than one reason existed for the OIG investigation, the death was categorized based on “primary reason.”

**An investigation in which the agency was unable to verify that abuse or neglect occurred.

***An investigation in which abuse or neglect by the parent was found to have occurred.

****Child was in home with siblings in foster care

****A case in which the family was receiving services while the child remained in the home.

Of the 16 children who died while in foster care, a 14-year-old and an 18-year-old died of gunshots by unrelated perpetrators, two died as a consequence of abuse by their parents in infancy, three were infants in care of relatives and cause of death was undetermined for two and suffocation for one, two died of methadone or opioid intoxication, one 18-year-old died in a car accident and five died of natural causes. ↩

Therapeutic Group Homes: Needed Programs in Danger from Family First Act

It is a fact universally acknowledged that some children cannot thrive in foster care. This includes children whose behaviors are so challenging that most foster parents will be unable to cope. These children often go through many foster homes before they are finally placed in a more appropriate placement, usually a therapeutic group home or residential treatment program.

One of the goals of the Family First and Prevention Services Act (FFPSA), passed last year as part of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018), was to reduce the use of placements other than relative homes and traditional foster care. However, FFPSA recognized that some children and youth cannot thrive in foster care and allowed for placements to meet their needs. Unfortunately, the many restrictions imposed by the Act mean that many of these young people may not able to access these facilities or will be prematurely removed from them.

Many youth who are placed in foster care have serious emotional and behavioral issues. Many have endured years of trauma, including physical and sexual abuse, severe neglect, and living in dangerous and chaotic conditions. Some have cognitive or neurological issues caused by drug exposure in utero or severe neglect. Some have violent outbursts, many are verbally aggressive, and many have difficulty in making attachments. As a result of these problems, many of these hard-to-place young people have been placed in ten or more foster homes.

High-quality therapeutic group homes are more able than foster families to work with challenging youth for a number of reasons described in an excellent video from the Sonoma County Juvenile Justice Commission. Their staff are trained in working with behaviorally challenging youth and often operate from a trauma-informed perspective. These facilities often have therapists and psychiatrists and other mental health personnel on staff. Good therapeutic group homes create a homelike environment, with young people living in cottages with a total of six or eight youths. Staff are dedicated and passionate about what they do. Unlike foster parents, these staff usually work shifts and thereby avoid burnout. Residents also draw strength from peers with similar issues, especially older peers who have improved and can serve as role models.

Some hard-to-place youth could thrive in the right kind of foster homes, those with training, time, and willingness to work with young people whose behavior is challenging. But many foster parents refuse to take teens or any or children with behavioral or mental health problems. Some states are trying to increase the availability of therapeutic foster homes, but funding and supply constraints mean that such efforts will be far too small to replace therapeutic group homes.

Unfortunately, the restrictions imposed by FFPSA may make it difficult to for many needed therapeutic group homes to continue operating. FFPSA allows the federal government to share the costs of treatment-based congregate care only at facilities that qualify as Qualified Residential Treatment Programs (QRTP). These programs must meet several criteria, including accreditation, a trauma-informed model, medical staff on call, and an aftercare program, among others. Accreditation especially is a long and arduous process that generally takes 12 to 18 months and some homes may not be able to accomplish it by the time the Act takes effect on October 1, 2019 (unless the state chooses to delay implementation for two years). Accreditation is a difficult and costly requirement for a smaller facility. It is important to ensure that only high-quality group homes retain state contracts, but accreditation may not be the best way to ensure quality for smaller programs.

Even more concerning are the limits on which children can be placed at these facilities and for how long. A child’s initial placement in a QRTP will not be reimbursed unless a “qualified professional” determines within 30 days of placement that the child needs to be placed in such a setting rather than a relative or foster family home. This assessment must use an approved tool and be conducted by “a trained professional or licensed clinician who is not an employee of the State agency and who is not connected to, or affiliated with, any placement setting in which children are placed by the State.” The decision must be approved by a court within 60 days and must be reviewed at subsequent status hearings. Moreover, a child cannot remain in a QRTP for more than 12 consecutive months (or 6 months for a child under 13) without written approval from the head of the agency.

There are several problems with these restrictions. It is not clear that agencies can find enough qualified professionals who are not employed by the agency or connected to any placement setting used by the state. More concerning are the time limits. Many therapeutic group home professionals believe that most children with emotional and behavioral problems cannot be in and out of therapeutic residential settings in six months. Many will need to stay a year or even longer.

Without needed therapeutic group homes, many children will experience a string of failed foster home placements, with each one leading to further damage to the child, who may end up on the streets or in jail. As a director of a facility that closed in North Dakota put it, new policies mean that “You are only going to refer kids to (residential child care facility) levels of care after you have exhausted all the other less restrictive options of care. That means putting them with their families, in foster care and repeating failed foster care placements several times before a referral to this level of care would be entertained.”

Group homes have already been closing around the country as states have adopted policies against congregate care (and also due to failure to provide adequate funding) and some states are already seen bad consequences from these closures. In Baltimore, the number of children sleeping in offices shot up from less than five per six month period in 2015 to 130 in the first half of 2018 due to a shortage of foster homes and a dramatic reduction in group home capacity. In Hillsborough County, Florida, hard-to-place foster youths have been spending the night in cars for lack of appropriate placements. In the state of Washington, group homes have been shutting down for years due the state’s failure to keep up with the increasing costs of care. This has contributed to a crisis in care for older, harder-to-serve youth, who are being put up in hotels, offices and $600-per night emergency foster homes and being sent out of state for care. In Illinois, hundreds of foster youths were being kept unnecessarily in psychiatric hospitals as of last August because of a decline in licensed residential facilities.

The attempt to close congregate care facilities without providing an alternative is eerily reminiscent of the closure of institutions for the mentally ill in the 1960s. These hospitals were supposed to be replaced with community health services that were never funded. We are still reaping the consequences with the abundance of mentally ill people sleeping on the streets of America’s cities.

As I mentioned in last week’s post, FFPSA’s group home restrictions were not based on ideology alone. The cost savings from reducing federal reimbursement for group homes were necessary to offset the increased cost of funding services to prevent children’s placement in foster care. But penny-wise is often pound-foolish and the future costs of eliminating therapeutic residential options for foster youth may be much greater than the present savings.

It is not too late for Congress to amend the Family First Act to reduce restrictions on therapeutic group care. Until we have an abundance of qualified therapeutic foster parents willing and able to take the hardest to place youth, cutting down on therapeutic group homes is irresponsible, short-sighted, and a recipe for possible disaster.

Supporting homelike residential settings: a needed correction to the Family First Act

Crossnore With the passage of the Family First Prevention Services Act as part of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, much attention has been paid to Part I, which allows jurisdictions to use federal foster care money to pay for services to a family to to prevent a child’s entry into foster care. Part IV of the Act, which drastically restricts federal reimbursement for placements other than relative homes and traditional foster care, has received less coverage.

Placements that are not in the homes of relatives or foster families are often described as “congregate care.” The term is generally used to include group homes, residential treatment, maternity homes, and other placements that are not a family home. As these placements have fallen out of favor, this label has taken on a pejorative tone.

The Administration on Children and Families stated in 2015, that

Although there is an appropriate role for congregate care placements in the continuum of foster care settings, there is consensus across multiple stakeholders that most children and youth, but especially young children, are best served in a family setting. Congregate care should be a temporary placement for young people with behavioral or mental health issues who need therapeutic services in order to become stable enough to return to a family setting.

FFPSA enshrines this view by denying federal funding for placement in congregate care settings beyond two weeks, unless the setting meets criteria for a Qualified Residential Treatment Program (QRTP) as defined by the Act. These include accreditation, a trauma-informed model, medical staff on call, and an aftercare program, among others.

Moreover, a child’s initial placement in a QRTP will not be reimbursed unless a qualified professional determines within 30 days of placement that the child needs to be placed in such a setting rather than a relative or foster family home. This assessment must use an “age–appropriate, evidence-based, validated, functional assessment tool approved by the Secretary” and the conclusion must be approved by a court within 60 days and must be reviewed at subsequent status hearings. A child cannot remain in such a setting for more than 12 consecutive months (or 6 months for a child under 13) without written approval from the head of the agency.

Keeping all but the most troubled children out of congregate care would make sense in a world with enough great foster homes to accommodate all children, including large sibling groups. But we are far from having such a world. In most states there are not enough foster homes, even including bad and indifferent ones, to accommodate all the children in need. And that means some children staying in congregate care, some in hotels, and others bouncing from one unsuitable home to another.

The shortage of foster homes is no secret, which is why foster home recruitment has been such a big topic in child welfare circles. Unfortunately, there is no sign that any of the highly-touted and often-expensive new efforts taking place around the country will make a dent in the gap between demand and supply. Society is changing in many ways, including the influx of women into the workforce, and there are simply not enough people who are willing and able to provide foster care in the same areas where it is needed.

Yet there is another model of foster care that has not drawn sufficient attention and is in great danger from the implementation of FFPSA. These are residential homes and boarding schools providing “residential (home-like) non-treatment related services to children living away from their families,” according to the Coalition of Residential Excellence (CORE), which represents such programs. These programs often consist of one or more cottage-style homes with live-in cottage parents, with or without an onsite school. Some of the well-known examples are the Crossnore School and Children’s Home in North Carolina, the Connie Maxwell Children’s Home in South Carolina, the San Pascual Academy in San Diego, A Kid’s Place in Tampa Bay and the Florida Sheriff’s Youth Ranches.

Like QRTP’s, these residential programs are generally accredited, seek to involve families, and provide aftercare services, and they often have a trauma-informed model of care. But because these programs are not designed for children with severe behavioral problems who could not flourish in foster care, they cannot receive reimbursement under FFPSA.

So what is the problem? Couldn’t the children in these programs do equally well in traditional foster care? There are numerous reasons why that may not be the case.

There are simply not enough foster homes. If cottage-based residential facilities can no longer take children, that will worsen the situation and will lead to more stays in hotels, offices, sibling separations, and foster homes that are not well-matched to children’s needs. Unfortunately, FFPSA specifically says that “a shortage…of foster family homes shall not be an acceptable reason for determining that the needs of the child cannot be met in a foster family home.”
Due to the scarcity of foster families, few jurisdictions can afford to be choosy enough about whom they accept and retain. And that is why we never stop hearing stories of abusive foster homes that were not closed despite numerous complaints. And that is why every foster care social worker (and former workers like myself) can tell you multiple stories about foster parents who simply don’t care. They may not be abusive or neglectful, but they won’t lift a finger to take the doctor, visit their schools, or drive them to and from extracurricular activities. Of course there are many great foster parents, who treat their charges as their own children but these are a minority. Many foster homes are only slightly less deprived or chaotic than the homes from which the children were removed. When you contrast these homes to the enriched environments of a place like Crossnore (with its house pets, rope-based adventure playground, on-site school, medical care, and 19 kinds of therapy (including equine assisted therapy), it is hard to imagine anyone preferring an indifferent foster home.
Many children must be separated from their siblings because most foster homes cannot take larger sibling groups. Many residential cottage-based programs like Crossnore, the Florida Sheriff’s Youth Ranches, and A Kid’s Place in Florida pride themselves on taking large sibling groups.
Even the best foster parents can have trouble making sure the children’s needs are met in school and coordinating the wide variety of educational, mental health and medical services the child may need. Many of these residential facilities, benefiting from private donations, provide high-quality mental health services and extracurricular activities on site. Those that have schools provide a seamless integration of home and school and education tailored to children’s needs and saving transportation time and funds.

Richard McKenzie, a professor of economics who grew up in an orphanage in the 1950’s, responded to the contention that children always do best in loving and responsible families as follows: “Well, duh! Clearly, families are the bedrock of all societies. The basic problem in child welfare is that many parents, biological and foster, are far from loving and responsible. Indeed, many are derelict in their duties.” (His article, The Success Story of Orphanages, is well worth a read.)

So why is Congress, along with other federal and state policymakers, so oblivious to the benefits of family-like residential settings? It is clear that the high cost of residential care contributed to Congress’ eagerness to restrict it. Savings from Part IV of FFPSA were needed to offset the cost of adding services under Part I. But cost comparisons are often deceptive and short-sighted. Residential home-like programs provide therapists, case managers, after-school activities, and more. Moreover, they bring in substantial private funding in addition to state support. And the future savings that come from providing high-quality, trauma-informed care and education will doubtless reduce future expenditures caused by dropout, crime, and drug abuse.

CORE supports amending FFPSA to treat residential programs that use a house parent model as foster homes for the purpose of federal reimbursement. It is essential that Congress make this improvement this year before the provisions of FFPSA take effect in October. (A state can delay implementation for two years, which means it foregoes receipt of TItle IV-E funds for in-home services for the same period).

Cutbacks on residential programs have already resulted in sibling separations in states like California. From 2006 to 2015, Sonoma County Children’s Village was a haven for 24 foster children who lived in four homes, with surrogate grandparents living on campus. But after California began to limit group home placements to children requiring high levels of care, the village had to close. Sixteen children, including a group of seven siblings, had to leave. Let us hope that Congress will have the compassion to prevent such senseless actions from taking place on a national scale.

Feds confuse substantiation with victimization

On January 28, the Administration of Children and Families (ACF) released its annual report on child maltreatment. In its press release, the agency heralded “a decline in the number of victims who suffered maltreatment for the second consecutive year.” There are three problems with this. First, the alleged decrease in victimization between Federal Fiscal Years (FFY) 2016 and 2017 is so small as to be insignificant. Second, what declined was not child maltreatment but rather the number of children who were “substantiated” as maltreated–a decline that may reflect changing state practice rather than declining child maltreatment. Finally, ACF’s presentation appears designed to support a narrative that favors family preservation over child safety rather than to report the data in an objective manner.

The newest edition of ACF’s Child Maltreatment report is based on state data for FFY 2017, which ran from October 2016 to September 2017. The report shows that states received 4.1 million referrals (calls to child abuse hotlines) alleging maltreatment involving 7.5 million children in 2017. The number of referrals as a percentage of the number of children has increased annually since 2013. ACF does not discuss the reasons for this ongoing increase, nor does it present referral numbers by state, but such increases could stem from increased awareness of child abuse and neglect (often due to highly-publicized child deaths), public information campaigns, or other factors.

Of the 4.1 million referrals received nationwide in 2017, 2.4 million (or 58%), were “screened in” by state or county child welfare agencies, which means they met agency criteria for receiving a response. As a result, 3.5 million children received either a traditional child maltreatment investigation or were assigned to an alternative non-investigative track, as described below. And of these 3.5 million children, an estimated 674,000 or 19% were found to be victims of abuse or neglect. This flowchart, based on data from Child Maltreatment 2017, illustrates this funneling effect from referrals to substantiation.After rounding and a calculation to account for missing data from Puerto Rico in FFY 2016, HHS estimates that the number of children found to be maltreated decreased of 3,000 (or 0.4%) from the previous year. Such a small change is hardly meaningful; it would be more accurate to say that the number was basically unchanged. This difference from one year to the next is so small that the rate of children found to be victimized was the same in 2017 as in 2016–9.1 per 1000 children. In other words, almost one percent of all children were found to be the victims of maltreatment in 2016 and 2017.

But perhaps more important than the small size of the decrease is the fact that referring to a “decline in the number of victims” or the “victimization rate” is deceptive, which is why I have used cumbersome terms like “found to be victims of child maltreatment.” Most states use the term “substantiation” to connote that they have concluded maltreatment have occurred; some have an additional finding called “indication” that is somewhat less conclusive than substantiation. But as we all know, a finding of maltreatment is not the same as actual maltreatment. Just look back at my columns on Jordan Belliveau in Florida, Anthony Avalos in California, the Hart children in Oregon, and Adrian Jones in Kansas to find cases where horrific abuse occurred but was not substantiated until a child died.

And that is not the only problem. As ACF itself explained, changes in state policy and practice can influence the number of reports that are substantiated. Different states have different evidence thresholds to substantiate an allegation. According to the report, 37 states require a “preponderance of” evidence, 8 states require “credible” evidence, 6 states require “reasonable” evidence and one requires “probable cause.” One state changed its evidence threshold between 2016 and 2017.

In addition to different criteria for substantiation, some states treat all screened-in referrals in the same way while others have a two-track system of responding to reports. In these two-track systems (often called “differential response” or “alternative response”), some allegations receive a standard investigation, but others (usually deemed to be at lower risk of harm) receive less rigorous response, often known as a “family assessment.” The children in these cases are not determined to be victims even if they have been abused or neglected. Instead their families are offered voluntary services. About half of states reported data on children in alternative response programs. As the above flow chart shows, 639,634 children received an alternative response, almost as many as the 674,000 who were determined to be maltreated.

So a given state’s substantiation rate will be influenced by whether it has differential response in all or part of the state. And if the use of differential response in a state was expanding or contracting over a given period, this will influence the change in the number of children who are determined to be victims of maltreatment. Specifically, if states increased their use of differential response overall, that would have reduced the number of children found to be maltreated.

And indeed, ACF reports that “states’ commentaries suggest the increased usage and implementation of alternative response programs ….may have contributed to the changes noted in the 2017 metrics.” And upon review, the commentaries, included in an Appendix to the report, do suggest that the number of reports subject to differential response increased between FFY 2016 and 2017. Six states, including New York, and Texas (two of the four states with the highest number of children)¹ were ramping up their use of differential response during FFY 2017, while Massachusetts and Oregon stopped using the two-track system in FFY 2016 and 2017 respectively.

ACF also suggests that changes to state legislation and child welfare policies and practices might influence the number of substantiated allegations. The state commentaries reveal that some states experienced such changes, although it is not clear that they trended in one direction. Some states like Pennsylvania reported an increased emphasis on safety resulting in increased substantiations and others like New Jersey reporting reduced substantiations due to new policies.

As all this discussion shows, it is almost impossible to attribute a change in the number or rate of substantiation to an actual change in the amount of child abuse and neglect. Too many other things are influencing this number and rate.

Not only did ACF inaccurately herald a decrease in maltreatment but it went on to contrast this alleged decrease with the increasing number of referrals, stating “We are experiencing increases in the number of children referred to CPS at the same time that there is a decrease in the number of children determined to be victims of abuse and neglect.” Media outlets lost no time in picking up on this alleged contrast. For example, the Chronicle of Social Change reported that Child Victimization Declines as Reports of it Continue to Rise.

The interpretation of child welfare numbers to paint a picture of decreasing maltreatment in the face of increasing reporting is not an accident. It feeds into the narrative that is currently dominating in most states and on the federal level without regard to party. According to this narrative, almost all children are better off staying with their parents, no matter how egregious the maltreatment. Removals should be prevented at all costs. If maltreatment is decreasing and reporting is increasing, perhaps something should be done to squelch those pesky hotline callers.

The data presented in Child Maltreatment is extremely important. It is too bad ACF did not stick to reporting it accurately so that readers can understand what it means–and what it does not.

Colorado, Georgia, Nebraska and Washington were the other four states that expanded the use of differential response during FY 2017. ↩

Yet another child abandoned by another state: Two-year-old Jordan Belliveau dead at his mother’s hands in Florida

Juliet Warren (left) with her foster child, Jordan Belliveau. The 2-year-old toddler went missing for more than two days and was then found dead late Tuesday. His 21-year-old mother, Charisse Stinson, now faces a charge of first-degree murder in the death of her child. [Photo Courtesy the Warren Family] — Jordan Belliveau, Jr. with his foster mother: *Tampa Bay Times*

On September 4, 2018, the body of two-year-old Jordan Belliveau was found in a wooded area in Largo, Florida. Two days before, his mother Charisse Stinson told police she was assaulted by a stranger and that her son was missing when she recovered consciousness. She later admitted that she had fabricated this account and in fact had caused the injuries that caused Jordan’s death.

Jordan had been removed from his parents in October 2016 and reunited with Stinson in May 2018. At the time of his death, Jordan was under court-ordered “protective supervision” by a nonprofit agency under subcontract with the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF). There was also an open investigation of allegations of ongoing domestic violence between Stinson and Jordan’s father, Jordan Belliveau, Sr. DCF convened a special review team to determine why Jordan killed despite being under supervision by the system that was supposed to protect him. The team’s report was issued earlier this month.

To understand the case, one must grasp the particularly fragmented nature of child welfare in Pinellas County, Florida, in which three crucial functions usually vested in one agency are split between three different agencies. The Sheriff’s Department handles child abuse investigations, a private agency called Directions for Living manages in-home service cases under contract with Eckerd Connects, which in turn has a contract with DCF, and the State Attorney’s Office represents DCF in court.

The first call concerning Jordan and his parents came in to the child abuse hotline on October 2016, when Jordan was three months old. Jordan and his parents were living in the home of his paternal grandmother, and the caller was concerned about drugs, gang activity and firearms in the home. The allegations were verified and an emergency hearing was called. Ms. Stinson was ordered to relocate immediately and was referred to a program providing housing and support services to young mothers. However, she refused to cooperate with the program and was rejected. A second hearing was convened on the same day (November 1, 2016) and Jordan was placed in foster care. In order to get Jordan back, the parents had to comply with a case plan which required each of them to obtain stable housing and income, comply with a “biopsychosocial assessment,” and follow the recommendations of the assessment. Ms. Stinson was also required to obtain counseling.

In January 2017, Jordan was placed with the foster family that would keep him until he was returned to his mother 16 months later. It was in this home, as his foster mother reported in a heartbreaking statement after his death, Jordan learned to roll, crawl, walk and talk and flourished in a supportive community of church members, foster families, and Coast Guard families.

While Jordan was thriving in foster care, an escalating series of violent incidents was reported between his parents. Each parent was in turn arrested for violence against the other but each case was dropped because the other parent did not press charges. Despite these incidents, Ms. Stinson was granted unsupervised visits with her son starting June 18, 2017. During the first unsupervised visit, Ms. Stinson allowed Mr. Belliveau to attend despite the fact that his visits were still required to be supervised. At this visit, which took place at a Burger King, members of a rival gang arrived and a fight ensued. Holding Jordan in her arms, Ms. Stinson struck at a woman who was fighting with Mr.Belliveau. Attempting to hit back, the woman hit Jordan in the mouth, inflicting lacerations. This incident was reported to the child abuse hotline, along with allegations that Mr. Belliveau was selling cocaine and marijuana from their home and that both parents used these drugs. Both parents refused to be tested for drugs. The investigation concluded with a finding of inadequate supervision and failure to protect Jordan by both parents.

In the next court hearing on the family case, the magistrate in charge of the case was not informed that this was a gang-related incident, that Ms. Stinson was involved, or that Jordan was injured. There was no mention of the need to screen both parents for drug use.

According to Florida statute, DCF was required to file a petition for termination of parental rights within 60 days of November 1, 2017, when Jordan had been in foster care for 12 months. Yet no such petition was filed. At the hearing on January 8, 2018, the court found “compelling reason not to consider termination” because Ms. Stinson was “partially compliant” with her case plan tasks because she had completed an assessment and was wrongly reported to be in counseling.

During a court hearing on April 23, 2018, Ms. Stinson’s attorney reported that she had completed the counseling mandated by her case plan, but no documentation was provided. As a matter of fact, Ms. Stinson had been terminated from counseling for the second time a week before the hearing. The Guardian ad Litem (GAL appointed to represent Jordan’s interests in court) objected to reunification because there was no documentation that Stinson was going to counseling and it appears that the case management agency objected as well. Without requiring documentation, Magistrate Jennifer Sue Paullin ordered reunification and gave all parties 20 days to object based on new information. No objection was filed.

The court order, obtained by the Tampa Bay Times, states: “No evidence was presented to show that the circumstances that caused the out-of-home placement have not been remedied to the extent that the return of the child to the mother’s care with an in-home safety plan … will not be detrimental to the child’s safety.”.

On April 25, 2018, in anticipation of Jordan’s return to Ms. Stinson, the latter was referred to an in-home reunification program that provided twice-weekly visits from a licensed clinician. Ms. Stinson missed three or her five scheduled visits prior to reunification, which went ahead as scheduled on May 21, 2018. She missed seven of 11 visits following reunification and was unsuccessfully discharged from the program due to failure to participate

In a court hearing on June 11, 2018, the court granted reunification to Mr. Belliveau, allowing him to join the family. Ms. Stinson had already missed several appointments with the clinician but the case management agency and government attorney reported that both parents were compliant with services.

On July 14, 2018, police responded to the parents’ residence to find Ms. Stinson bleeding and bruised and reporting that she had been punched by Belliveau. Mr. Belliveau was arrested after threatening to kill Ms. Stinson and “a lot of ….cops.” The child abuse hotline was not notified of this incident until three weeks later, on August 4. Despite the escalating violence and threats, the ensuing investigation did not find Jordan to be in danger warranting removal, but it was still open at the time of Jordan’s death.

On August 17, 2018, the agency filed an amended case plan with the court, including domestic violence services for Belliveau (as a perpetrator) and Ms. Stinson (as a victim). On August 24, Ms. Stinson refused to allow the GAL into the house. The investigator contacted the case manager for the first time on August 29, more than three weeks after the investigation began. The case manager said she normally visited once a week but admitted that he sometimes had trouble reaching Ms. Stinson. On August 31, the case manager completed a home visit and explained to the parents that they needed to participate in services in order to retain custody of Jordan. Less than 24 hours later, Ms. Stinson reported Jordan missing.

Charisse Stinson has been charged with first degree murder for hitting Jordan, causing him to hit his head and have a seizure. Police report she did not seek medical treatment immediately and Jordan died. She then allegedly dumped his body in a wooded area and lied to police about a stranger kidnapping him, resulting in an Amber Alert and days of searching before Jordan’s body was found.

The special review team made six findings about the system’s failures to save Jordan:.

The decision to reunify Jordan with his parents was apparently driven by the parents’ perceived compliance to case plan tasks rather than behavioral change. Case decisions were solely based on addressing the reasons Jordan came into care. which related to gang and drug activity in the home where he was living. Although other concerns came to light during the life of the case, like substance abuse, domestic violence and mental health issues among the parents, these factors were not added to the case plan or considered in the decision to reunify Jordan with his parents. Ms. Stinson herself requested anger management training during a meeting in 2016 but this was never included in her case plan or provided. Moreover the court was kept in the dark about many of these concerns. “On multiple occasions, Ms. Stinson provided false information to the court,” which the case management agency and government attorney did not correct.
Following Jordan’s reunification with his parents, staff failed to follow policy and procedures to ensure child well-being, such as making weekly visits. Moreover, they did not notify the court or take any action based on the mother’s lack of compliance with post-reunification services.
When a new report was made to CPS, the investigator “failed to identify the active …threats occurring within the household that were significant, immediate, and clearly observable.” These included: ongoing and escalating violence between the parents, the father’s threat to kill the mother, and his gang membership and access to weapons, among others. In a major understatement, the Special Review Team opined that “Given the circumstances, a modification of Justin’s placement should have been considered.”
There was a “noted lack of communication and collaboration” between investigative staff located in the Sheriff’s Department and case management staff during the August 2018 child abuse investigation. The investigator did not talk to the case manager for over three weeks after opening the investigation.
There was a failure of communication and collaboration between all of the different entities involved in the case. There was a “lack of diligence in conducting multidisciplinary staffings at critical junctures of the case.” Neither the case management agency nor the state attorney provided accurate information to counter the false information provided by the mother to the court. Unbelievably, the case manager attended court hearings with no information about the mother’s participation in counseling, which was provided by the same agency.
Assessments of both parents failed to consider the history and information provided by the parents and resulted in treatment plans that were ineffective to address behavioral change.

The review team did a good job of isolating the specific system failures that occurred in Jordan’s case but was not as successful identifying the systemic problems behind these failures. In this writer’s opinion, three major systemic factors contributed to the failure to protect Jordan:

Lack of coordination and communication between agencies. This was the factor emphasized by the review team, which suggested that this issue was limited to Pinellas County. State Senator Lauren Book castigated the team for for this implication, arguing in a statement that the issue of “siloed communication” goes beyond the county and even beyond child welfare itself, citing the errors that predated the shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School.
Inadequate funding of child welfare services, leading to high caseloads and staff turnover. The review team gave an offhand mention to the difficulty caused by high caseloads and turnover, both of which can be traced to inadequate funding but treated it as a given, rather than a problem to be rectified.
The overemphasis on family reunification. In Florida and around the country, family reunification has been emphasized to the degree that children are often placed at risk. The Tampa Bay Times highlighted this problem in its editorial entitled, Another child dead, another state failure. The death of a child following reunification is not a new story in Florida or around the country. If Florida law had been followed, Jordan’s parents’ rights should have been terminated before he was ever returned to them. A case manager who left Directions for Living shortly before Justin’s death told Florida’s News Channel 8 that the system “puts far too much weight on reuniting kids with unfit parents and makes it nearly impossible for caseworkers to terminate parental rights.” When asked why workers did not remove Jordan, she replied, “We are on quotas and we are told, ‘If there is any way to keep this kid in home do it.”

What is to be done to prevent future deaths like Jordan’s? It must begin, as the Tampa Bay Times editorial board asserts, with holding those involved accountable. This applies particularly to the magistrate on the case, who should have given the child rather than the parents the benefit of the doubt and held up reunification until she heard from the mother’s counselor. Second, child welfare must be funded adequately so that its staff are well-qualified and able to devote the time to handle cases correctly. Third, the silos must be broken down through improved policies and procedures that mandate data sharing and collaboration, but only adequate funding to enable reasonable caseloads will allow this to happen.

Finally, Florida and other states must rectify the balance between a child’s safety and the value of family reunification. Agencies must recognize that some parents who are suffering from the consequences of intergenerational trauma and dysfunction cannot change–at least within a timeline that is appropriate for a developing child. This decision must be made early, with the input of qualified staff, high-quality evaluations, and laws and policies that put the child first.

As Justin’s foster parents put it, “Ultimately, we hope that our painful loss will result (in) a fundamental re-examination of the entire system, of how foster care works, of the reunification process. Jordan deserves that, and the other children in the system deserve that.”

Charisse Stinson is awaiting trial on charges of first degree murder and lying to police. She gave birth to another child in December and Belliveau has been determined to be the father. Both parents have filed court documents requesting the child be handed over to Belliveau, who has been arrested twice since Jordan’s death.