Washington State Reports 15 Cases of Starvation in Adoption/Guardianship Since 2009; Governor Orders Work Group to Investigate Foreign and Domestic Adoption Abuse UPDATED

We know that only a fragment of cases ever get reported to the media. Now Washington has finally decided to look into all abuse cases in foster and adoption situations for starvation and other types.

“An alleged child starvation case near Longview is one of more than a dozen cases — including one death — that have state officials reviewing how adopted children are placed and treated.

The number of abuse cases is small compared to all adoptions. But a string of high-profile child starvation cases last year —including one from May accusing Jeffrey and Rebecca Trebilcock of starving their five adopted children at their Bunker Hill-area home— has state officials alarmed.

“Starting in the beginning of 2011 we started seeing a cluster effect of these types of cases,” said Mary Meinig, director of the state’s Family and Children’s Ombudsman office, who included a section about adoption abuse in her annual report, released last week.

Many of the cases include starvation. “We have so many great adoptive homes in the state, but then we also have these. … I think it’s apparent that it needs to be looked at.”

“We want to jump start this as quickly as possible,” said Denise Revels Robinson, assistant secretary of the state Department of Social and Health Services. “There’s a sense of urgency here. Not crisis, but urgency, because these are very serious issues.”

One adopted child, 13-year-old Hana Williams of Sedro Wooley, died in May from hypothermia and starvation after being left outside as punishment. The Trebilcock’s adopted son, then 13, landed in emergency room in March so severely malnourished that he weighed just 49 pounds, according to court documents.

Officials are concerned at the severity of these cases, the apparent spike in them and that so many seem to involve adopted children. The adoption cases are particularly concerning because screening by the state or private adoption agencies should catch unfit parents before children are placed.

Dr. Frances Chalmers, a Mount Vernon pediatrician who consults with DSHS, began to get a “nagging feeling” that something was up and started tracking starvation cases herself. Meinig started doing the same, finding 15 adoption or guardianship cases since 2009 that involved starvation or severe abuse. Eleven of those cases were in 2011.

Not all the cases listed in Meinig’s report became public because, unlike the Trebilcocks, not all the parents were criminally charged. All are horrific, though, including cases where children were beaten with wooden boards embedded with nails, sexually abused and severely malnourished.

[This begs the question: Why are some parents accused of severe abuse and starvation NOT charged?]

While Hana Williams’ death is the most serious and disturbing case, “even the kids who don’t die are significantly traumatized,” Chalmers, said.

Adoptions, concerns increasing

Officials aren’t sure if the surge of cases in 2011 is the start of a disturbing new trend — but they’re working to find out.

A work group of child experts – ordered by Gov. Chris Gregoire — will look at adoptions, including foreign adoptions, as well as abuse by withholding food.

Among other topics, they’ll investigate:

• Are neglect and abuse — including withholding food — on the rise and are they more prevalent in adoptive homes?

The state hasn’t tracked withholding food cases before. Anecdotally, though, the number of cases seems to be rising. Of the five criminal withholding food cases statewide in 2011, four involved adoptions.

It’s also possible that increased social worker training — and publicity about the most horrific cases — may have led to more cases being reported last year, said DSHS Spokeswoman Sherry Hill.

• Did a rapid increase in adoptions let some unfit parents slip through the cracks?

[PLEASE INVESTIGATE THE PLACING AGENCIES, TOO!]

In recent years, state and federal law encouraged quicker adoptions to move children out of foster care and into permanent homes. Meinig said they need to examine if it’s also lead to unfit parents being approved for adoption.

In 2002, there were 1,074 adoptions of Washington children in foster care or other child welfare programs. By 2009 that number nearly doubled to 2,091. The increase from 2008 to 2009 alone was 66 percent. Nationally, the increase from 2002 to 2009 was only 12 percent.

• Does the adoption process itself need to be reworked?

Child welfare officials screen parents adopting through the state foster care system and license private adoption agencies, but state workers do not screen private adoptions or adoptions in other states or countries. Some of the cases highlighted by Meinig included non-Washington adoptions or families who had no prior contact with state Child Protective Services. The state group will investigate if more oversight is needed.

• Does age, race or gender play a role in abuse of adopted children?

Some of the cases highlighted by Meinig involved foreign and/or cross-race adoptions. Officials don’t know if that played a role in these cases, but want to examine it further. Three of the Trebilcock’s five adopted were from Haiti.

There isn’t one simple answer, though, because abuse itself is so complex.

“Nobody’s going to say during screening that ‘If I don’t like them, I’m not going to feed them,’ ” Meinig said. “And I don’t think anyone actually envisions that they’re going to do this. I think it’s a progression thing that happens.”

Local case, common threads

The Trebilcocks deny they starved their children and are fighting the charges in both the criminal and child dependency courts. (See related story.)

But Meinig said the allegations in the case bear several of the hallmarks common in all the cases she reviewed.

The five adopted Trebilcock children, ages 8 to 14, told investigators they were denied food. Kitchen cabinets had alarms on them and the children were punished for “stealing food,” they said. Other family members, though, appeared well-fed, according to investigators.

“There was plenty of food” in all the cases, Meinig said. “These were really purposeful withholding and punishment and control. … Food is kind of the ultimate control.”

The Trebilcock children also told investigators they were beaten and made to stand outside, isolated from the rest of the family -another commonality Meinig found in many of the cases. The Trebilcocks also were home-schooled, which some officials say can be a way hiding the signs of starvation.

“Food withholding as a form of abuse has been around forever, from its mildest form of a misbehaving child being sent to bed without dinner to really severe cases of withholding that lead to medical problems,” said Dr. Chalmers, who helps train social workers to look for signs of abuse. “So I’ve been trying to think about ways we could identify these kids before they die or end up in the hospital for malnutrition.”

Reluctance to call

State officials hope the group of child experts can meet by early February and complete its work by May.

Any recommendations will be forwarded to DSHS, which will brief the governor’s office as well as the Legislature, Revels Robinson said.

The state’s budget crunch doesn’t leave much extra money for new programs or enforcement, but Revels Robinson said she believes many of the recommendations could be relatively inexpensive. Some of the changes could be a change of emphasis in screenings, for example. Additional or substitute training also could provided to social workers at little cost, she said.

Officials also stress one of the best defenses against child abuse is for people to speak up when they suspect it. Too often people are afraid to “cause trouble” and then live to regret it, they said. And while there may not be immediate action from one report or call, that doesn’t mean the calls are ignored, they said.

“We really do rely on the eyes and ears of the community to alert us,” Revels Robinson said.

Hana Williams — the 13-year-old who died in May — “had a number of friends and family who now say ‘I wish I’d called earlier,'” Chalmers said. “We really need to encourage people to be less reluctant to make those calls.”

State officials investigating several cases of abuse of adopted children
[The Daily News 1/15/12 by Barbara La Boe]

REFORM Talk Cases

We have reported about the following Washington cases that occurred in the past 3 years:

a lawsuit of a foster child who died in a fire in 2008.

Sandra and Jeff Weller in 2011 abuse including withholding food of Filipino twins. It remains unclear if they were adopted from foster care in California or internationally from the Philippines.

David Wayne Murphy in 2011 accused of sexually abusing a female foster child.

Mary Mazalic in 2011 is an AP from New York but her adult son was taking care of the 10 year old special needs girl in Washington for reasons unknown and he is accused of starving and abusing her.

Dr. Louis Chao Chen in 2011 stabbed his partner and AP to his son (through surrogacy) to death.

Scott and Drew Anne Hamrick in 2011. Scott was under investigation for sexually abusing his adopted daughters. He committed suicide in June by pumping exhaust from a generator into the living quarters of a horse trailer at the family’s ranch. Drew Anne is still is under investigation and may be charged with abuse.

Hana and Immanuel Williams in 2011. These special needs, unrelated children were adopted at the same time from the AAI (Washington) agency from Ethiopia. Hana died of hypothermia and starvation. Immanuel who is deaf, was found to be underschooled. Larry and Carri Williams have been charged with homicide by abuse and assault on a child and are awaiting trial. Larry recently violated the court order for no contact with his wife and other children causing his bail to be raised to $500,000.

Jeffrey and Rebecca Trebilcock in 2011. We just updated this case today. They are charged with multiple counts of Criminal Treatment and Felony assault on their five adoptive children. This includes starvation. The children resorted to eating dog and goat food and dandelion leaves. Three girls were adopted from Haiti, one girl and one boy from US foster care. Their biological children also may have been abused. Custody hearing is in March 2012. This is the Longview case described in the article above.

Timothy L. Dampier, a foster parent, in 2011. He is accused of sexually assaulting three boys and has been charged with 3 counts of child molestation and 1 count of child rape. Additionally, he had been employed by at least eight organizations serving children, such as group homes and Boys and Girls Clubs. He also was a music minister at a church.

Foster child’s sexual abuse history covered up and he went on to sexually assault the biological daughter of his foster parents in 2009.The foster parents won a $470,000 settlement in a lawsuit against the state in 2011.

Richard Jason Boothby in 2011. He was charged with two counts of first-degree rape for allegedly assaulting his 5-year-old foster son.

There were several other lawsuits that were settled in 2011 from cases older than three years available in our archives.

REFORM Puzzle Pieces

We can tell you right now without a governor-ordered panel. The training of social workers and homestudy process needs reform. Looking at a PAPs discipline techniques coupled with the reason for adopting and ability and capacity to parent special needs children would be a great start. Those that have suspect reasons for adopting-Savior mentality, for instance- need to be screened OUT.

Accountability for those that committed the crimes is a given. Licensing of agencies and social workers needs to have real accountability including permanently shutting down adoption agencies. In some cases, we question if there was honest representation of the children’s needs.

“Jeffrey and Rebecca Trebilcock of Bunker Hill, in Cowlitz County, have been accused of staving their five adopted children, three of them from Haiti. The Trebilcock children, as well as Hana Williams, were home-schooled and isolated from the community.

Mary Meinig, of the Office of the Family and Children’s Ombudsman, read case files on each child starved and found striking similarities.

“These parents were withholding food, beating the children, putting them outside, locking them in closets, locking them in bathrooms or not giving them bathroom facilities,” Meinig said.

DSHS oversees foster-care placements and assigns caseworkers who follow up with the families, but adoptions are a different story.

“Once that adoption is approved and closed by the order of the judge, the child welfare agency would no longer have responsibility. The parents who have adopted the child would be legally responsible for the care,” DSHS Assistant Secretary Denise Revels Robinson said.

In February, a work group of child experts ordered by Gov. ChristineGregoire will meet to discuss what more can be done.

“We really want to learn from international adoption agencies what they do and what they look for and their follow-up after children are adopted here,” Meinig said. “It’s very serious business. We all promise these children a safe and loving family, and with these children we’ve failed to give them that and we need to know why.”

The governor hopes the group can complete its work in May and make a presentation on proposed changes.”

“The group of child experts will examine adoption abuse and the “cluster of very concerning situations in 2011,” according to the letter sent by state officials. Five abuse cases involving starvation were reported in 2011, and four involved adopted children. Included in that group is the Cowlitz County criminal case against Jeffrey and Rebecca Trebilcock in May. The couple denies ever harming their children.

The work group will be lead by Denise Revels Robinson, assistant secretary of the state Department of Social and Health Services and Mary Meinig, ombudsman of the state Office of the Family & Children.

The work group will be asked to answer several questions, including:
• Are neglect and abuse, including withholding food, on the rise? And are they more prevalent in adopted homes?
• Are changes needed to foreign or cross-race adoptions procedures? Or in the foster care adoption process?
• Do child welfare agencies maintain adequate long-term data on adoption outcomes?
• Does a push to have more foster children adopted sooner created risks to child safety?

The first meeting is Feb. 21 in Olympia. Officials hope to have their report completed by May.”

State work group on adopted child abuse will meet in February[TDN 1/29/12 by Barbara LaBoe]