Death points to flaws in foster system

Death points to flaws in foster system

By Brian Newsome, The Gazette

October 13, 2007

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5721613,00.html

COLORADO SPRINGS - Months before a foster mother allegedly slammed

2-year- old Alizé Vick into a coffee table, causing fatal head injuries,

state auditors warned that children in foster care could be at risk.

An audit released in May looked at El Paso County and seven other

counties and found faults in the system from the state to county levels.

It concluded that the Department of Human Services lacked adequate

safeguards for foster children.

Alizé's case has spotlighted issues identified by the report, including

that parent files often lack basic documentation and that investigations

are sometimes deficient.

"Weaknesses in the Department's oversight of abuse or neglect

investigations may result in counties' and (child placement agencies')

continuing to place foster children in abusive foster homes," the audit

said.

Many of the problems had been identified in previous audits. The

Colorado Department of Human Services agreed with auditors'

recommendations for improvements and is implementing them, spokeswoman

Liz -McDonough said.

Any changes will come too late for Alizé, who died Wednesday at Memorial

Hospital. An autopsy Friday found that she died of head injuries and

ruled her death a homicide, said Bureau Chief Joe Breister, of the El

Paso County Sheriff's Department.

Cuneo is jailed on suspicion of first-degree murder and felony child

abuse after telling a detective that she threw Alizé "hard enough that

she landed on the opposite side of the table on the floor," according to

the arrest affidavit.

It is the first homicide this year in unincorporated El Paso County.

There have been 20 so far in 2007 in Colorado Springs.

Sheriff's deputies are looking into past child-abuse complaints against

Cuneo and executed search warrants Friday for files, computers and other

potential evidence from DHS and Kids Crossing, the child placement

service that handled her case, Breister said.

DHS is conducting its own investigation, which includes a review of its

handling of the case and that of Kids Crossing.

Alizé is the first child in El Paso County to die in foster care since

at least 1988, the earliest records in the state's database, said

Barbara Drake, the county's director of the Department of Human Services.

In the report, the Office of the State Auditor reviewed DHS files and

interviewed employees in the state's largest counties on the Front

Range, Mesa County on the Western Slope and Alamosa County in the San

Luis Valley.

An Inconvenient Truth about Child Protective Services, Foster care, and

the Child Protection "INDUSTRY"

CPS Does not protect children...

It is sickening how many children are subject to abuse, neglect and even

killed at the hands of Child Protective Services.

every parent should read this .pdf from

connecticut dcf watch...

http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com/8x11.pdf

http://www.connecticutdcfwatch.com

Number of Cases per 100,000 children in the US

These numbers come from The National Center on

Child Abuse and Neglect in Washington. (NCCAN)

Recent numbers have increased significantly for CPS

Perpetrators of Maltreatment

Physical Abuse CPS 160, Parents 59

Sexual Abuse CPS 112, Parents 13

Neglect CPS 410, Parents 241

Medical Neglect CPS 14 Parents 12

Fatalities CPS 6.4, Parents 1.5

Imagine that, 6.4 children die at the hands of the very agencies that

are supposed to protect them and only 1.5 at the hands of parents per

100,000 children. CPS perpetrates more abuse, neglect, and sexual abuse

and kills more children then parents in the United States. If the

citizens of this country hold CPS to the same standards that they hold

parents too. No judge should ever put another child in the hands of ANY

government agency because CPS nationwide is guilty of more harm and

death than any human being combined. CPS nationwide is guilty of more

human rights violations and deaths of children then the homes from which

they were removed. When are the judges going to wake up and see that

they are sending children to their death and a life of abuse when

children are removed from safe homes based on the mere opinion of a

bunch of social workers.

Currently Child Protective Services violates more civil rights on a

daily basis then all other agencies combined, Including the NSA/CIA

wiretaping program…

FOSTER CARE IS A 80 PERCENT FAILURE:. A Brief Analysis of the Casey

Family Programs. Northwest Foster Care Alumni Study. By Richard Wexler

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:E2PcWEpNCD4J:www.nccpr.org/reports/cfpanalysis.doc

or for .doc

http://www.nccpr.org/reports/cfpanalysis.doc

HOW THE WAR AGAINST CHILD ABUSE BECAME A WAR AGAINST CHILDREN

http://www.nccpr.org/issues/1.html

A recent study has found that 12-18 months after leaving foster care:

30% of the nation’s homeless are former foster children.

27% of the males and 10% of the females had been incarcerated

33% were receiving public assistance

37% had not finished high school

2% receive a college degree

50% were unemployed

Casey Family Programs National Center for Resource Family Support

Children in foster care are three to six times more likely than children

not in care to have emotional, behavioral and developmental problems,

including conduct disorders, depression, difficulties in school and

impaired social relationships. Some experts estimate that about 30% of

the children in care have marked or severe emotional problems. Various

studies have indicated that children and young people in foster care

tend to have limited education and job skills, perform poorly in school

compared to children who are not in foster care, lag behind in their

education by at least one year, and have lower educational attainment

than the general population.

Casey Family Programs National Center for Resource Family Support

80 percent of prison inmates have been through the foster care system.

The highest ranking federal official in charge of foster care, Wade

Horn of the Department of Health and Human Services, is a former child

psychologist who says the foster care system is a giant mess and should

just be blown up.

http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=2017991

This study found thousands of children already in foster care who would

have done better had child protection agencies not taken them away in

the first place.

Front-page story in USA Today.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-07-02-foster-study_N.htm?csp=34#Close

The full study is available here.

http://www.mit.edu/~jjdoyle/doyle_fosterlt_march07_aer.pdf

The bottom line? - the foster care system nationwide for the most part

turns out young adults that are nothing more than walking wreckage...