F
fx
Guest
abuse cases rushed, state reports
Posted on Sun, Nov. 18, 2007
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking_news/story/312913.html
BY CAROL MARBIN MILLER
cmarbin@MiamiHerald.com
A 2-year-old girl is beaten so savagely that her skull is fractured from
ear to ear.
A 15-year-old girl is repeatedly raped by the boyfriend of her mother,
who refuses to believe her.
A psychotic, suicidal 14-year-old boy bounces between a juvenile lockup
and a mental hospital after his only caregiver, an aunt, abandons him.
All three Miami-area children, and scores of others, had been reported
as victims of abuse, neglect or abandonment earlier this year to Florida
child welfare caseworkers -- who closed their cases days later without
helping them, in some instances without ever laying eyes on them.
A state report into the children's cases obtained by The Miami Herald
concludes there was a ''widespread'' practice among Miami child-abuse
caseworkers of closing investigations prematurely, sometimes without
even visiting suspected victims of abuse or neglect.
The report details the early findings of a Department of Children &
Families Inspector General investigation into a complaint that three
supervisors in Perrine and central Miami-Dade encouraged investigators
to cut corners in order to improve their rankings on a county-wide
''leader board'' that ranked offices' compliance with 12 performance
measures.
DCF employs about 100 abuse investigators and 20 supervisors in 24
neighborhood ''units'' throughout Miami-Dade.
The complaint was made by a child abuse investigator in Miami-Dade, who
has since been formally declared a ''whistle-blower'' by the inspector
general. The whistle-blower has not been identified.
The complaint, e-mailed to Gov. Charlie Crist's chief inspector general
in early July, was assigned to a DCF investigator two months later, and
child-welfare administrators say they did not learn of the allegations
until late in September. DCF did not order investigators to stop closing
cases prematurely until Oct. 18.
In an e-mail to two agency spokeswomen and a lower-ranking administrator
last month, Jack Moss, DCF's top South Florida chief, expressed
``concern about the rush to close cases for the sake of the leader board.''
In scores of Miami-area cases, the whistle-blower complained,
investigators dismissed abuse reports for lack of ''jurisdiction'' even
though victims of suspected child abuse were left in harm's way. Miami
investigators closed abuse reports for lack of jurisdiction 310 times in
the months of January, February, April, June and July alone.
DCF policy allows investigators to close child abuse or neglect reports
for lack of jurisdiction only in relatively rare cases, such as when the
perpetrator is not caring for any children, when the children at the
center of the report are not in Florida or are 18 or older.
The interim inspector general report, written by family services
specialist Mark Holsapfel, says: 'It is widespread knowledge among child
protection staff in [Miami] that closing an investigation `no
jurisdiction' is a shortcut to closing the report quickly and this
allows the investigator to move on to their next report.''
Holsapfel wrote that most of the 70 cases he reviewed were closed with
no jurisdiction after the investigator was unable to locate the
suspected abuse victims. He added: ``In few of the cases was the no
jurisdiction classification appropriate.''
The report also raises questions about another troubling shortcut:
Investigators sometimes closed cases as being ''duplicates'' of previous
reports -- even when they contained new allegations of abuse or neglect.
Under state policy, abuse reports can only be closed as duplicates if
the allegations are virtually identical to a very recent prior report.
In one instance, Holsapfel wrote, two reports on the same family were
both closed as duplicates of each other -- leaving no reports at all in
the system left to investigate.
Holsapfel called the questionable practices ''ingrained behavior'' that
had been passed on by supervisors ``over time.''
DCF Assistant Secretary George Sheldon said Friday he did not know all
the details of the inspector general's investigation, as it remains
incomplete.
''Are there some bad apples? That is obviously true any time you have
14,000 employees,'' he said. ``But the vast majority are doing this
because it is the work they want to do.
Sheldon was most critical of the inspector general's failure to warn
Secretary Bob Butterworth for two months that there was a ''safety
issue'' under investigation in Miami that could affect the lives of
children. Butterworth did not find out of the whistle-blower's
allegations until September.
''If there is a safety concern, we need to know it up front,'' Sheldon
said. Sheldon also acknowledged DCF failed to halt the widespread
closure of cases as ''no jurisdiction'' until a month later, when The
Herald first reported allegations that cases were being closed improperly.
''There's no excuse for that,'' he said. ``That does not demonstrate [a]
sense of urgency.''
Chelly Schembera, who worked nearly 30 years as a top Florida child
welfare administrator -- including a stint as district chief in Miami
and as inspector general -- told The Herald the practice of improperly
closing cases for lack of jurisdiction are ``deliberate acts of
obfuscation that put children at substantial risk of harm in order to
look good.''
Schembera said improperly closing reports as duplicates could be the
most dangerous practice of all: Such reports disappear forever from
DCF's computer history, making it impossible to go back to them for a
safety check, she said.
The situation is worse, she said, if cases are closed as duplicates when
there is more than one complaint to the hot line about an abused child.
In such instances, she said, experience shows the child is in greater
danger, especially if the reports were made by different tipsters.
While the allegations refer only to problems in Miami, there are
indications investigators in other parts of the state had engaged in
similar practices.
An Aug. 31 report by the inspector general's office said at least seven
supervisors in Central Florida admitted falsely labeling child-abuse
reports as less serious matters in order to improve their standing on
statistical measures.
Sheldon said his administration has been vigorously emphasizing the
safety of children -- and not artificial performance measures -- in the
training of child-abuse investigators, though he acknowledges that
``obviously, concerns have been raised.''
''I don't believe it is a systemic issue,'' Sheldon said. ``I don't
think it is pervasive in the agency.''
The Miami complaint said that caseworkers were refusing to investigate
some child-abuse reports in an effort to improve an investigative unit's
ranking on the district-wide leader board. When a deadline on a case was
missed, the complaint said, supervisors encouraged investigators to
eliminate the case so that it didn't count in the rankings.
At the center of the Miami investigation is Alejandro Villibord, a
former management and logistics expert DCF hired as an administrator
over child-abuse investigators in Miami-Dade. Villibord had worked about
four years as a branch manager for Brinks and had also been a credit
analyst for Merrill Lynch.
The whistle-blower accused Villibord of encouraging supervisors to close
cases prematurely to meet meaningless performance measures -- and of
placing unnecessary pressure on investigators to better their
performance on the measures by constantly threatening to fire workers
who lagged.
''Failure to follow this protocol will result in disciplinary action
through Labor Relations towards the unit supervisor,'' Villibord wrote
in several recent memos outlining policy.
Earlier this year, Villibord was promoted to program administrator,
making him the second-highest manager in Miami-Dade for abuse
investigations. His personnel file shows only positive reviews, such as
a September 2007 evaluation in which Circuit Administrator Gilda
Ferradaz praises him: ``The program team made improvements in meeting
performance measures.''
Last month, Moss told The Herald that Villibord was no longer overseeing
DCF's child abuse investigations in Miami. But an organizational chart
of DCF's South Florida child protection program, handed out internally
Friday, shows he still runs the program.
On Friday, Villibord named supervisor Jose F. Aviles -- who is accused
in the whistle-blower complaint of rising to the top position on the
leaderboard by routinely closing out cases prematurely -- to the new
position of ``technical advisor.''
Villibord and Aviles refused to discuss the investigation with a
reporter, directing calls to DCF spokespeople.
Sheldon, DCF's statewide deputy, said he will wait until the inspector
general report is complete before making any judgments on workers named
in the complaint.
''I don't want to prejudge the IG report,'' he said.
Of Villibord, he added: ``I see him right now as a pretty good manager
and hard worker... He has attempted to do the right thing.''
CURRENTLY CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES VIOLATES MORE CIVIL RIGHTS ON A
DAILY BASIS THEN ALL OTHER AGENCIES COMBINED INCLUDING THE NSA / CIA
WIRETAPPING PROGRAM....
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.
CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES, HAPPILY DESTROYING THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT
FAMILIES YEARLY NATIONWIDE AND COMING TO YOU'RE HOME SOON...
BE SURE TO FIND OUT WHERE YOUR CANDIDATES STANDS ON THE ISSUE OF
REFORMING OR ABOLISHING CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES ("MAKE YOUR CANDIDATES
TAKE A STAND ON THIS ISSUE.") THEN REMEMBER TO VOTE ACCORDINGLY IF THEY
ARE "FAMILY UNFRIENDLY" IN THE NEXT ELECTION...
Posted on Sun, Nov. 18, 2007
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking_news/story/312913.html
BY CAROL MARBIN MILLER
cmarbin@MiamiHerald.com
A 2-year-old girl is beaten so savagely that her skull is fractured from
ear to ear.
A 15-year-old girl is repeatedly raped by the boyfriend of her mother,
who refuses to believe her.
A psychotic, suicidal 14-year-old boy bounces between a juvenile lockup
and a mental hospital after his only caregiver, an aunt, abandons him.
All three Miami-area children, and scores of others, had been reported
as victims of abuse, neglect or abandonment earlier this year to Florida
child welfare caseworkers -- who closed their cases days later without
helping them, in some instances without ever laying eyes on them.
A state report into the children's cases obtained by The Miami Herald
concludes there was a ''widespread'' practice among Miami child-abuse
caseworkers of closing investigations prematurely, sometimes without
even visiting suspected victims of abuse or neglect.
The report details the early findings of a Department of Children &
Families Inspector General investigation into a complaint that three
supervisors in Perrine and central Miami-Dade encouraged investigators
to cut corners in order to improve their rankings on a county-wide
''leader board'' that ranked offices' compliance with 12 performance
measures.
DCF employs about 100 abuse investigators and 20 supervisors in 24
neighborhood ''units'' throughout Miami-Dade.
The complaint was made by a child abuse investigator in Miami-Dade, who
has since been formally declared a ''whistle-blower'' by the inspector
general. The whistle-blower has not been identified.
The complaint, e-mailed to Gov. Charlie Crist's chief inspector general
in early July, was assigned to a DCF investigator two months later, and
child-welfare administrators say they did not learn of the allegations
until late in September. DCF did not order investigators to stop closing
cases prematurely until Oct. 18.
In an e-mail to two agency spokeswomen and a lower-ranking administrator
last month, Jack Moss, DCF's top South Florida chief, expressed
``concern about the rush to close cases for the sake of the leader board.''
In scores of Miami-area cases, the whistle-blower complained,
investigators dismissed abuse reports for lack of ''jurisdiction'' even
though victims of suspected child abuse were left in harm's way. Miami
investigators closed abuse reports for lack of jurisdiction 310 times in
the months of January, February, April, June and July alone.
DCF policy allows investigators to close child abuse or neglect reports
for lack of jurisdiction only in relatively rare cases, such as when the
perpetrator is not caring for any children, when the children at the
center of the report are not in Florida or are 18 or older.
The interim inspector general report, written by family services
specialist Mark Holsapfel, says: 'It is widespread knowledge among child
protection staff in [Miami] that closing an investigation `no
jurisdiction' is a shortcut to closing the report quickly and this
allows the investigator to move on to their next report.''
Holsapfel wrote that most of the 70 cases he reviewed were closed with
no jurisdiction after the investigator was unable to locate the
suspected abuse victims. He added: ``In few of the cases was the no
jurisdiction classification appropriate.''
The report also raises questions about another troubling shortcut:
Investigators sometimes closed cases as being ''duplicates'' of previous
reports -- even when they contained new allegations of abuse or neglect.
Under state policy, abuse reports can only be closed as duplicates if
the allegations are virtually identical to a very recent prior report.
In one instance, Holsapfel wrote, two reports on the same family were
both closed as duplicates of each other -- leaving no reports at all in
the system left to investigate.
Holsapfel called the questionable practices ''ingrained behavior'' that
had been passed on by supervisors ``over time.''
DCF Assistant Secretary George Sheldon said Friday he did not know all
the details of the inspector general's investigation, as it remains
incomplete.
''Are there some bad apples? That is obviously true any time you have
14,000 employees,'' he said. ``But the vast majority are doing this
because it is the work they want to do.
Sheldon was most critical of the inspector general's failure to warn
Secretary Bob Butterworth for two months that there was a ''safety
issue'' under investigation in Miami that could affect the lives of
children. Butterworth did not find out of the whistle-blower's
allegations until September.
''If there is a safety concern, we need to know it up front,'' Sheldon
said. Sheldon also acknowledged DCF failed to halt the widespread
closure of cases as ''no jurisdiction'' until a month later, when The
Herald first reported allegations that cases were being closed improperly.
''There's no excuse for that,'' he said. ``That does not demonstrate [a]
sense of urgency.''
Chelly Schembera, who worked nearly 30 years as a top Florida child
welfare administrator -- including a stint as district chief in Miami
and as inspector general -- told The Herald the practice of improperly
closing cases for lack of jurisdiction are ``deliberate acts of
obfuscation that put children at substantial risk of harm in order to
look good.''
Schembera said improperly closing reports as duplicates could be the
most dangerous practice of all: Such reports disappear forever from
DCF's computer history, making it impossible to go back to them for a
safety check, she said.
The situation is worse, she said, if cases are closed as duplicates when
there is more than one complaint to the hot line about an abused child.
In such instances, she said, experience shows the child is in greater
danger, especially if the reports were made by different tipsters.
While the allegations refer only to problems in Miami, there are
indications investigators in other parts of the state had engaged in
similar practices.
An Aug. 31 report by the inspector general's office said at least seven
supervisors in Central Florida admitted falsely labeling child-abuse
reports as less serious matters in order to improve their standing on
statistical measures.
Sheldon said his administration has been vigorously emphasizing the
safety of children -- and not artificial performance measures -- in the
training of child-abuse investigators, though he acknowledges that
``obviously, concerns have been raised.''
''I don't believe it is a systemic issue,'' Sheldon said. ``I don't
think it is pervasive in the agency.''
The Miami complaint said that caseworkers were refusing to investigate
some child-abuse reports in an effort to improve an investigative unit's
ranking on the district-wide leader board. When a deadline on a case was
missed, the complaint said, supervisors encouraged investigators to
eliminate the case so that it didn't count in the rankings.
At the center of the Miami investigation is Alejandro Villibord, a
former management and logistics expert DCF hired as an administrator
over child-abuse investigators in Miami-Dade. Villibord had worked about
four years as a branch manager for Brinks and had also been a credit
analyst for Merrill Lynch.
The whistle-blower accused Villibord of encouraging supervisors to close
cases prematurely to meet meaningless performance measures -- and of
placing unnecessary pressure on investigators to better their
performance on the measures by constantly threatening to fire workers
who lagged.
''Failure to follow this protocol will result in disciplinary action
through Labor Relations towards the unit supervisor,'' Villibord wrote
in several recent memos outlining policy.
Earlier this year, Villibord was promoted to program administrator,
making him the second-highest manager in Miami-Dade for abuse
investigations. His personnel file shows only positive reviews, such as
a September 2007 evaluation in which Circuit Administrator Gilda
Ferradaz praises him: ``The program team made improvements in meeting
performance measures.''
Last month, Moss told The Herald that Villibord was no longer overseeing
DCF's child abuse investigations in Miami. But an organizational chart
of DCF's South Florida child protection program, handed out internally
Friday, shows he still runs the program.
On Friday, Villibord named supervisor Jose F. Aviles -- who is accused
in the whistle-blower complaint of rising to the top position on the
leaderboard by routinely closing out cases prematurely -- to the new
position of ``technical advisor.''
Villibord and Aviles refused to discuss the investigation with a
reporter, directing calls to DCF spokespeople.
Sheldon, DCF's statewide deputy, said he will wait until the inspector
general report is complete before making any judgments on workers named
in the complaint.
''I don't want to prejudge the IG report,'' he said.
Of Villibord, he added: ``I see him right now as a pretty good manager
and hard worker... He has attempted to do the right thing.''
CURRENTLY CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES VIOLATES MORE CIVIL RIGHTS ON A
DAILY BASIS THEN ALL OTHER AGENCIES COMBINED INCLUDING THE NSA / CIA
WIRETAPPING PROGRAM....
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.
CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES, HAPPILY DESTROYING THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT
FAMILIES YEARLY NATIONWIDE AND COMING TO YOU'RE HOME SOON...
BE SURE TO FIND OUT WHERE YOUR CANDIDATES STANDS ON THE ISSUE OF
REFORMING OR ABOLISHING CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES ("MAKE YOUR CANDIDATES
TAKE A STAND ON THIS ISSUE.") THEN REMEMBER TO VOTE ACCORDINGLY IF THEY
ARE "FAMILY UNFRIENDLY" IN THE NEXT ELECTION...
