A Snapshot of California’s Broken CPS System: Kelly Nguyen Child Death Case

“Santa Clara County officials are reviewing why a medically fragile 2-year-old girl was sent home to live with her father in a transitional home for recovering drug addicts, about two months before she was found dead.

It still isn’t clear what caused the Feb. 28 death of Kelly Nguyen — who required specialized care for a chromosomal birth defect known as DiGeorge syndrome. But the unusual placement — and the rare death of a Santa Clara County foster child — is raising troubling questions.

Kelly’s death is not being investigated as a homicide. Her father is described by the girl’s previous foster parents as loving and well-intentioned, but they had been told he was recently released from jail and struggling with drug problems when social workers placed Kelly in his care. Her mother had already been ruled out as a caregiver.

The couple had two older, healthy boys also in foster care, but authorities chose to give the father a second chance at parenting with Kelly, who could not speak and suffered from a genetic syndrome causing lifelong disability and developmental delays.

“It raises red flags,” said Lisa Traxler, president of the Kinship, Adoptive and Foster Parent Association of Santa Clara County, a foster parents assistance program. “It’s a home with men coming out of jail or in recovery and they’re not better yet — they’re there for a reason, so having a nonverbal, medically fragile child in his care at age 2 — if something happened, she can’t tell anybody.”

For now, all eyes are on the Santa Clara County coroner’s office, which has completed an autopsy but is conducting further tests in the coming weeks to determine how the girl died.

“We grieve for her passing at much too young of an age,” said Stanley Lee, social services program manager for the Department of Family and Children’s Services. “But we don’t know why she passed away.”

Meanwhile, the county is exploring what might have gone wrong in Kelly’s case: County Executive Jeff Smith said Tuesday that in light of the girl’s death, the Department of Family and Children’s Services “is reviewing the decisions related to her placement.” Foster care placements must be approved by a judicial officer in the juvenile dependency court, after attorneys representing each parent, the child and the social worker have argued their positions. Traxler and other foster parents familiar with the case said they support reunification with birth families whenever possible. But this case was different.

“Had she been my foster child, I would have asked for a meeting,” said Traxler, who has cared for 68 foster children over 21 years. “I would have spoken with the child’s attorney, I would have stepped in to be a voice for this little child because she doesn’t have a voice — I would have said: ‘What’s the hurry? Let’s let dad get a little further in his recovery.’ ”

Most parents working through dependency courts to regain custody of children they’ve been accused of abusing or neglecting suffer from addiction, homelessness or mental illness. Often, they are placed in transitional housing units while they work their way through court-ordered recovery and parenting programs.

At times, children are placed with mothers in transitional housing. But it is more unusual for fathers to reunite in those settings, Lee and other system insiders confirmed.

“The department does the best they can and they don’t intentionally set out for anyone to be harmed, but I think sometimes mistakes are made as in any life situation,” Traxler said. “From what it looks like from where I’m sitting, maybe it was a mistake.”

Kelly’s father — who is not being named because he is not suspected of wrongdoing in her death and could not be reached Tuesday — was referred to a six-bed, two-story home in South San Jose that serves fathers going through the local Dependency Wellness Court. The specialty foster care court serves parents in recovery who are actively engaged in regaining custody of their children.

“It doesn’t matter whether it’s a mother or a father, as long as a parent can safely protect and care for a child,” Lee said. And if that parent is deemed worthy while “transitioning to more long-term housing,” he added, “the law would require us to consider that as a possibility.”

But the placement continues to trouble those mourning Kelly’s death, including foster parents who attended services March 10 at the Oak Hill Memorial Park for the affectionate little girl with short-cut bangs and boundless enthusiasm. Her tiny body lay in a small casket in a lacy white dress.

“She was literally a ray of sunshine; she was infectious,” said one of her several former foster mothers, Shellie Nichol. “Everywhere she went, she would walk around and hug everyone. Within hours, you’d fall in love with her because she was just the sweetest thing on the planet.”

Kelly arrived at Nichol’s San Jose foster home last June, completely nonverbal and with a clear need for ongoing medical attention and physical therapy, Nichol said. During the six months she cared for Kelly, who she affectionately called “Kiki,” Nichol said she kept a video monitor trained on her all night. That’s because the small girl would often choke on her mucus, and frequently vomited after crying and overeating, she said.

Nichol was told when she first received Kelly that her mother was mentally impaired and her father was in jail. But by July, he was out and visiting his daughter diligently, she said. Nichol and others familiar with the case said they believed the parents loved the girl but were unable to care for her.

Yet, based on a social worker’s recommendation, Kelly was moved from Nichol’s home to another in a succession of foster homes, and then reunified with her father.

Within two months, San Jose police received a 1:15 a.m. call from her father’s temporary home stating that the toddler was unresponsive. She was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Although homicide detectives were initially called to the home — following protocol for an unexpected child death — there has been no arrest in the case. “We are not investigating it as a homicide at this point,” San Jose police spokesman Officer Albert Morales said.

Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors President Dave Cortese, who leads a committee overseeing foster care, said Tuesday he was not familiar with the details of Kelly’s death. But he noted the loss.

“The worst possible tragedy is the loss of a child — in any circumstances — and a foster child is our child,” Cortese said. “Fundamentally it’s our responsibility to ensure the safety of every child that’s in our system. This is a member of our extended family and we need to feel the emotional pain and look at what we could have done differently.””

Santa Clara County Foster Child Dies After Being Sent to Live with Dad in Home for Recovering Addicts [San Jose Mercury News 3/16/16 by Karen de Sa]

“The former foster mother of a medically fragile girl in the Santa Clara County foster system is questioning why the child was removed from her care and placed in a transitional home for men with her father. Two months later, she was found unresponsive in her crib and later died at the hospital.

San Jose police responded to the halfway house in the 500 block of Glenburry Way after receiving a call that 2-year-old Kelly Nguyen wasn’t breathing at 1:15 a.m. on Feb. 28. She was rushed to the hospital where she was pronounced dead. The coroner has not released the cause of death and the San Jose Police Department has not launched a criminal investigation.

Now, Kelly’s former foster mom is speaking out, saying she thinks her death could have been prevented. Shellie Nichol says she expressed serious concerns to the Santa Clara County Department of Family and Children’s about the agency’s decision to place the girl with her biological father, who Nichol said has a history of drug use.

“We were gravely concerned you would take a non-verbal girl to a men’s halfway house overnight to begin with,” Nichol said. “We didn’t understand how that was being allowed. It seemed crazy to us.”

Nichol has been a foster parent for 15 years and says she and her husband were asked by social workers if they would be willing to adopt Kelly because it appeared she was unlikely to be reunited with her parents. They agreed.

“She was a ray of light,” Nichol said. The mother of six said she’s dedicated her life to being a foster parent and had become incredibly close to the girl who lived in her home for six months.

“She couldn’t be angry,” Nichol said. “She was always kissing and hugging and smiling and giggling.”

But Nichol said her family’s life was turned upside down last December when the agency informed her they would be removing Kelly from their home. Nichol said she never got a straight answer from social workers and was given conflicting reasons for Kelly’s removal, from not providing adequate medical care to taking too much control over the child’s medical care.

Yet a December 2015 letter obtained by NBC Bay Area from Kelly’s doctor to the social worker in charge of Kelly’s case expressed concerns about the girl’s placement with her father. The doctor also informed the agency that Kelly’s foster parents were providing “diligent” care for the girl.

“As you know, Kelly is a 1-year old little girl in foster care, who has been shown to have an unusual genetic abnormality,” the letter stated. “As it is planned that she return to her father’s care, I wanted to provide you with this medical summary of her condition and the concerns held by her medical providers. She is a complicated little girl who will require intense attention from her caregivers to achieve her best outcome.”

Nichol said she was never given notice of Kelly’s removal or the opportunity to fight the removal in person.

“There was absolutely no reason to remove Kiki [Nichol’s nickname for Kelly] from our home,” Nichol said. “She was illegally removed. We are supposed to be given a seven day written notice. We are supposed to have a meeting and discuss the removal of this child.”

The Santa Clara County Department of Social Services provided a statement regarding Kelly’s death, but said they could not provide answers to specific questions from NBC Bay Area by deadline, such as why the child was placed in a transitional home for men or if that was a common practice for the agency.

“We grieve the passing of a child at such a young age,” the agency said in a written statement. “Our thoughts are with the child’s family. Confidentiality laws prevent us from commenting about a specific child or case. Information regarding the cause of death will be released through the Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Office.”

Nichol said Kelly’s removal devastated the family and they worried about her safety.

“My kids didn’t get to say goodbye,” Nichol said. “We didn’t know that would be the last time we’d see her alive. There’s this agony inside of us. Unless you’ve lost someone you love you wouldn’t understand. We lay in bed at night and we cannot sleep.”

Nichol said she fought the agency’s decision as hard as she could, even writing the director of the Department of Family and Children’s Services Lori Medina. Medina wrote back saying their primary focus was on Kelly.

“I have been meeting with a variety of the staff involved with Kelly,” Medina’s email said. “I really regret that you feel you and Kelly do not matter, and nothing could be further from the truth. At this point, our primary focus is on Kelly, and I will have the manager follow-up with her new caregiver regarding her transition. Thank you for all that you have done, and take care.”

In fact, Nichol first contacted NBC Bay Area before Kelly died, after she saw these reports in October about the foster system in Santa Clara County.  At the time, Nichol said the girl had been removed illegally from her home and she was worried about the agency’s decision to place Kelly with her father.

After Kelly’s death, Nichol wrote Medina again. Medina responded in an email saying, “We are actively reviewing this and are saddened by her passing.”

Despite her dedication to helping kids in the foster system, Nichol said she turned in her foster license to the county after Kelly was removed from her home. But Nichol says she will fight for reforms at the agency, such as reducing the heavy caseloads burdening social workers.

“If you’re going to allow something this outrageous and disgusting to happen, we can’t hang our hat with you,” Nichol said.”

Foster Mom Warned Social Services Agency Before Child’s Death in Halfway House [NBC Bay Area 3/16/16 by

Vicky Nguyen, Michael Bott and Mark Villareal]

 

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