A Snapshot of Florida’s Broken CPS System

This is a devastating story about a boy in Florida that was abused by his mother and the child protection system. In the seven years he has been in the system, he has been in 20 foster homes and is now in a psychiatric hospital. His case is finally being reviewed. Every social worker and DCF worker in this case should be penalized or fired. The volunteer GAL at least tried to make a difference, similar to the Barahona case.

Inferior Placement

“The boy spent 4½ years living in what was described as a “separate room attached to the foster family’s doublewide trailer” located along a nearly impassable road in the Ocala National Forest. His room had no television or toys. Games, Legos and books that he was given disappeared quickly. Records show that his guardian ad litem, a volunteer child advocate, complained that the foster parents isolated the boy, who usually was allowed to come into the main house only for meals and wasn’t permitted to play outside. She fought to move him and complained so bitterly of his treatment that the foster parents in 2010 gave up their license, DCF officials stated.”

Inferior Therapy

“From 2006, when he became a permanent ward of the state, to 2009, the boy got sporadic counseling, usually from family therapists rather than a specialist in sexual trauma. Therapy stopped for nearly a year between March 2007 and March 2008. It restarted only after the guardian insisted, records show. The boy spent much of his time stewing alone in that tacked-on room, the anger boiling and spilling over into rages.

He was caught in a conundrum no child could solve: He was furious and had no idea why and no skills to blunt his anger or change his behavior, but at the same time, he was desperate to be adopted by a family that DCF never could provide — likely because he behaved so badly.”

He now has been diagnosed with PTSD and RAD.

DCF Pathetic Commentary

“During an information-gathering session when the boy was admitted in February to a psychiatric hospital in Ocala, a nurse asked him for the name of the person to whom the boy turns when he is upset. Could the hospital ask that person to visit?

The boy could not name a single soul. And, indeed, a variety of records fail to reveal any human being who ever has been close to the child.

A DCF spokeswoman said the supervisor for the five-county district including Lake ordered a “full review” of the case last week after being asked why the agency failed the boy. She said it would be unfair to comment on the quality of care he received until the records have been examined. As of Friday, that examination was still going on.”

Boy abused by mother, then child-welfare systemolumn
[Orlando Sentinel 5/15/11 by Lauren Ritchie]

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