Lawsuit: Camelot Community Care & Florida Foster Care Dissolution Statistics

This Florida story is about a family who adopted two boys from Camelot Community Care-contracted foster care in Florida. They had asked to exclude placements of children with sexual abuse pasts when they applied to be foster parents. It turns out that the 11-year-old boy that they adopted had been sexually abused and became a predator to his 4-year-old brother.

Amazingly, this family has not dissolved the adoption although their living situation has been dramatically altered. The adoptive mother is living with the 4-year-old and the adoptive father is living one hour away with the 11-year-old who is under constant supervision. They have filed a lawsuit against Camelot Community Care for not disclosing the extensive background that they had on the 11-year-old–disclosures that they have only offered after a lawsuit was filed.

Yes, this is the same old, same old across the US. Never is there accountability. The whole foster care system must be dissembled and reconstructed.

Florida Foster Care Dissolutions in Past 5 Years

This article also accounts the number of DISSOLUTIONS in the past 5 years in Florida.

“Over the past 5 years, 268 children have been returned to foster care after permanent adoptions in Florida. “

The Florida DCF spokesman tries to defend their placements: ““The policy of DCF and the agencies that we contract with is to offer full disclosure of information about children to the parents who will be adopting them.  However, in many cases, children may not disclose information about any sexual abuse they may have suffered until several years later.  Additionally, children may not show signs of mental health issues for several years,” said DCF Spokesman John Harrell.

 

The State Department of Children and Families checks in with the agencies they contract with regularly to ensure compliance.

 

“We emphasize that no adoption dissolution occurs the same year as the finalized adoption.  These dissolutions took place several years after the first adoption, in many cases when the children hit puberty and teenage years,” said Harrell.” [So, they had MANY years to be predators before dissolution and you think this is good?]

 

Read the whole story at Adoption forever? [First Coast News 9/12/12 by Kaitlyn Ross]

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