Florida’s Largest Private Child Welfare Provider Under Fire

It’s no surprise that the Barahona’s adoption placement agency, Our Kids, is under further scrutiny. This agency is only 5 years old and is paid $101 million per year to care for 3,400 kids.

“Figures just released show that, in 2010, the agency paid $353,104 in bonus money to 95 employees, including $28,000 to a technology manager and $22,000 to the chief financial officer.”

But the money is not the extent of the problem. The criticisms of Our Kids by the latest panel include the following:

• “Although multiple people, including a nurse practitioner, said Nubia and her twin brother weren’t getting proper medical and dental care while living with the Barahonas as foster children before their adoption by the couple, Nubia’s case record with an Our Kids subcontractor had little documentation of what health services she did and did not receive.
• Case managers with an Our Kids affiliate failed to inform psychologist Vanessa Archer of calls to the state’s child abuse hotline suggesting the Barahonas were not fit to raise the twins, and never sought to amend Archer’s psychological evaluation when it omitted the material in a report. The absence of that information bolstered the couple’s case for adoption.
• And although an attorney for the children’s lay guardian had raised the “very serious concerns’’ of educators that Nubia was afraid of her foster mother, caseworkers waited five months before completing the court-ordered psychological evaluation.
• Though an oversight group, the Foster Care Review Panel had recommended Nubia be given mental health therapy in light of her disclosure that she had thoughts of killing herself, her Our Kids foster care record doesn’t show the therapy was given.”

[The Miami Herald 3/25/11 by Carol Marbin Miller, Mary Ellen Klas and Diana Moskovitz]

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