How Could You? Hall of Shame- Our Kids Transporter UPDATED

This will be an archive of heinous actions by those involved in child welfare, foster care and adoption. We forewarn you that these are deeply disturbing stories that may involve sex abuse, murder, kidnapping and other horrendous actions.

From Miami, Florida,”a 25-year-old male “transporter” with all of three days on the job, and no real background check. And a 17-year-old girl who wound up in foster care partly because she had fallen victim to forced prostitution.

When the eight-hour drive was over, the foster child had been victimized yet again, and the driver was under investigation for rape.

It was also the kind of encounter that prompts child welfare judges to write scathing orders, which is what Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Maria Sampedro-Iglesia did late last month, when she called the actions of a private social service agency borderline “reckless.”

“The Court feels impotent as to what actions or sanctions it can legally take,” Sampedro-Iglesia wrote in an order dated May 29. “Nothing that this Court can do or order the agency to do can fix all the wrongs this child has suffered. The agency is one more entity that has failed this child.”

Our Kids, the organization that oversees foster care and adoption services in Miami-Dade and Monroe counties under contract with the Department of Children & Families, declined to discuss the 17-year-old, whose case was being managed by the Family Resource Center, an Our Kids subcontractor. The Family Resource Center’s director, Oren Wunderman, at first agreed to discuss the girl, but, later, inquiries were referred to a Miami law firm, which also declined to comment.

“The alleged abuse this child suffered, at the hands of the employee of the Family Resource Center of Miami, is outrageous,” a spokeswoman for DCF said.

“Upon learning this information, the department immediately contacted law enforcement. We will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to ensure they have what they need during their active investigation, in order to bring a just resolution to the issue.”

The girl, who is not being named by the Miami Herald to protect her privacy, first came to the attention of the Department of Children & Families in the winter of 2013. Court records say she was abandoned by her parents, struggled with mental health, and had been forced into prostitution by human traffickers — the term child welfare and other authorities use for pimps who prey upon children or vulnerable adults.

For about a year, the girl lived on the streets as a runaway. Currently there are about 226 such children in Florida — 62 of them from Miami-Dade or Monroe — who have fled their foster or group homes. Last March, records say, the girl returned to court from the streets and “begged” Sampedro-Iglesia to allow her to live with her mother, whose legal rights to the child had earlier been terminated.

“While with her biological mother, the child stopped running, was doing well and finally began to engage in services,” the judge wrote in her order.

But there was a small glitch, which led to a big mistake with colossal consequences: When the teen registered for school, she was told she had to first resolve an outstanding warrant with state juvenile justice authorities. And that required a trip to Palm Beach County.

The Department of Juvenile Justice took care of the first leg of the trip, records say. For the teen’s return to Key West, the privately run Family Resource Center sent a “transporter” to drive her.

What occurred during the eight-hour drive now is the subject of a criminal investigation by both the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI. The federal agency, a DCF report said, “would be filing charges” against the man.

The girl’s mother became concerned that something terrible had happened when she found “inappropriate sexually [explicit] text messages on her daughter’s phone [sent] by the ‘transporter,’” the judge wrote. In an interview with the State Attorney’s Office, the girl disclosed details of her encounter with the man.

The driver, the girl said, stopped at a Walmart along the way and bought Smirnoff Ice, a citrus-flavored malt drink, and cigarettes, which he shared with her. He “asked the victim how she would feel if he kissed her.”

After the two had sex, the driver dropped the teen off at home at 3 a.m.

“The Court finds that the actions of the agency are not only negligent, but border on reckless,” Sampedro-Iglesia wrote. “The agency is entrusted with caring for and protecting those most vulnerable to our society: the voiceless children. Clearly, the agency has failed to do this.”

For Sampedro-Iglesia, the incident itself was only part of the problem.

Though the four-county drive took place on May 1, administrators of the Family Resource Center, or FRC, did not disclose it to the judge until almost two weeks later — at a routine hearing. The judge has ordered child welfare authorities to report adverse incidents involving children under her jurisdiction “immediately.”

Sampedro-Iglesia said she suspected something was amiss when a number of “higher ups” from FRC and Our Kids, South Florida’s lead foster care agency, showed up for the hearing unexpectedly.

In her order, Sampedro-Iglesia called the event “criminal in nature.” Then, she blasted child welfare administrators, both for leaving a human trafficking victim alone with an unvetted young man and for failing to quickly disclose the results.

FRC did not help itself, the judge wrote, by suggesting that what an incident report called “sexual abuse” or “sexual battery” could have been prevented by better training. “It shocks the conscience of this Court that the incident report indicates ‘the issue in this case was not of negligence, but of one where additional training would have helped and guided process development,’” Sampedro-Iglesia wrote.

“It is insulting to this Court that the agency feels that any type of training would have educated a transporter that perhaps having sex with a child [who] was entrusted to him is inappropriate and criminal in nature,” Sampedro-Iglesia wrote.

“It is equally repugnant to this Court that the agency testified that, had it known ‘that the child was a victim of human trafficking, perhaps a male transporter would not have been the most appropriate person’’ for the several-hour drive. “The agency’s remarks make it sound as if the incident that occurred was actually the child’s fault and not the adult that the agency entrusted her to.”

Details of the 25-year-old driver’s background are unclear. The Herald was given his name by a source with knowledge of the investigation, but the name cannot be matched to a person in any available database. His name is not in court records reviewed by the newspaper. And FRC administrators did not quickly release the man’s employment records.

In her order, Sampedro-Iglesia said the agency’s “background check” on the man was confined to Miami — though he “had lived most of his life [in] Tampa” — and relied instead “on the fact that the ‘transporter’ was recommended [by] and related to one of FRC’s ‘good employees.’”

What is known about the man: He got his job driving kids partly upon the recommendation of another FRC employee, a case worker, to whom he is related, records say. The driver had been working for the foster care and adoption agency three days when he was assigned to transport the teen.

Said the DCF incident report, written by an employee of a Key West shelter that is working with the family: “Mother and myself do not understand how a 17-year-old girl with her background [redacted] was released to a single male transporter and why a female transporter was not accompanying her.””

 

Sexually trafficked girl endures new torment — in foster care[Miami Herald 6/19/15  by Carol Marbin Miller]

REFORM Puzzle Piece

 

Update:”Neglect and abandonment landed the girl in foster care. But it’s what happened next, she said, that nearly destroyed her.

In a hushed courtroom in Miami’s gleaming new downtown Children’s Courthouse, a teenage foster child inventoried the traumas she had endured at the hands of those who were assigned to protect her: She had been starved and beaten, molested and forced to fight during her two years in foster homes and group care. As a runaway, she was trafficked into prostitution.

And, just as her life appeared to be mending, the girl was raped by a driver in whose care she was entrusted by a privately run child welfare group, records say. Earlier this week, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Maria Sampedro-Iglesia allowed the girl to read a long letter in court, detailing her many grievances against the state.

The Department of Children & Families “has messed me up mentally and emotionally. I know I can never get my childhood back,” the girl said in court, reading from the letter she had written to Sampedro-Iglesia, who is overseeing her case. “But I refuse to let my past take my future.”

The girl arrived in court Monday afternoon dressed in a crisp patterned dress, clutching a teddy bear. She hugged Sampedro-Iglesia, calling the judge “the only one working for the state who has ever looked into my care, and who has ever tried to fix the errors others have made.” She then told the judge she wanted to fire her court-appointed lawyer, and chided the state for failing her still.

The teen, who is not being identified by the Herald to protect her privacy, came into state care in the winter of 2013. Records say her parents abandoned her, which left mental and emotional scars. In her remarks to the court on Monday, the girl did not talk in detail about what sent her to foster care. “By the age of 14, I had already been through the worst,” she said, adding: “so I thought.”

As to what followed, the girl had plenty to say. “Since my involvement in DCF, I have always been a throwaway case, and I knew it. I personally didn’t think I’d even make it.”

In one foster home, the girl said, parents “starved us, and turned off the electricity for punishment at night. No air, no light. We couldn’t open windows or doors; they were locked.”

“So, that’s usually how fights started.”

In another group home, the caregivers themselves “instigated” fights among the children. “It’s literally a war over who’s gonna make it out alive or not.”

So the girl ran.

As a runaway, she told the judge, the girl sold and abused drugs. She called her caseworker to report she’d been “trafficked” into prostitution — “having guns pointed to my head and having to put guns to [other] people’s heads.”

A DCF spokeswoman said on Friday that the agency was investigating both the teen’s accusation that she was raped in May, as well as other allegations of mistreatment while in state care.

“The horrors described by this young girl are absolutely intolerable,” said Michelle Glady, a spokeswoman for DCF, which contracts with a private foster care agency in Miami, called Our Kids, to oversee child welfare in Miami-Dade and Monroe counties. Our Kids, in turn, subcontracts with another agency, the Family Resource Center, in whose care the teenager had been placed.

“DCF opened an investigation immediately following the allegations of sexual abuse by an employee of Family Resource Center of Miami. All additional allegations of abuse or neglect will be investigated. DCF is reviewing her case history and will work with Our Kids … on providing her the care she needs to support her recovery.”

A spokeswoman for Our Kids said the agency “is working diligently with all parties to carefully address the matters raised in court on Monday. In doing so, Our Kids wants to ensure the child receives the best available care and services, while also making sure the child is, and feels, safe in her surroundings. The safety and well-being of every child in our care is the only acceptable outcome for us — as is the case here.”

Sampedro-Iglesia scheduled Monday’s hearing after child welfare administrators reported in May that the girl had been raped by a 25-year-old “transporter” hired by the Family Resource Center to drive her from West Palm Beach to the Keys. The judge was outraged: “The Court finds that the actions of the agency are not only negligent, but border on reckless,” she wrote in a tartly worded order.

The transporter, who recently moved here from New York and had been hired by FRC three days before he was assigned to drive the teen, quit days later. He now is under investigation by the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI. The girl told authorities that he stopped at a Walmart during the eight-hour odyssey to buy Smirnoff Ice, a citrus-flavored malt drink, and then began to kiss her.

Records obtained by the Miami Herald show he had been recommended for the job by a relative of his who then worked for the foster care agency, and the relative’s spouse. Both references appear to have been written by the same person. The driver has not been charged with any offense.

Tensions between the teen and DCF persisted throughout Monday’s hearing. The girl told Sampedro-Iglesia she was willing to see a female psychologist to address mental health issues, but was opposed to speaking with a male therapist. Her current caregiver said she had found a counselor the girl liked. DCF, however, was reluctant to retain the therapist, because the state’s insurance carrier couldn’t pay her.

And the teen began to weep when DCF’s lawyer suggested she might have to move from her current home because it wasn’t appropriately licensed.

“I’m not moving,” the girl shot back. “You try to move me and I’m running.”

The girl’s current caregiver urged the state to let her remain where she is finally happy. “She is a victim here,” the caregiver said. “If everyone can just remember she’s a victim. She feels stable now, and we ask everyone to remember that.”

Sampedro-Iglesia reassured the girl: “I think I’ve proven to you,” she said, “that I’ve kept what you want in mind. They are not going to move you without court approval.”

What’s left, the girl said, is to somehow craft a happy ending. She likes where she is living. She is making plans to go to college, and maybe law school, with scholarship money the state will give her. “I am a reborn [person],” she said, “and I have rewritten my story. I gave my life to the Lord and I have goals and dreams to accomplish.”

“I don’t look for sympathy. Nor do I want a pity party,” the girl said. “Actually, all I’m worried about is the other children’s safety who have been labeled ‘a lost case.’””

 

Sexually trafficked girl recounts litany of horrors under DCF’s watch[Miami Herald 7/3/15 by Carol Marbin Miller]