wexwimpy
July 9th 04, 07:53 PM
DCF has made progress, chief says
Despite recent high-profile cases, Jerry Regier says the agency is
better today than when he took over two years ago.
By CURTIS KRUEGER, Times Staff Writer
Published July 8, 2004
Tragedy and controversy again are shadowing Florida's Department of
Children and Families:
A 10-year-old girl is found emaciated and weighing 29 pounds in the
home where caseworkers had placed her; a grand jury report slams
children's services in Palm Beach County; a similar report is brewing
in Citrus County; and a Tampa toddler in a DCF case dies in the
swimming pool where her sister drowned two years ago.
But DCF Secretary Jerry Regier said Wednesday the sprawling social
service agency he took over nearly two years ago has improved its
morale and performance.
"I absolutely don't see it as a troubled agency," Regier said in an
interview, though he acknowledged that in some cases "we have not done
casework up to the standards that I want to see in the department."
Regier, 59, has remained mostly unscathed by the scattered reports of
sloppy casework, even those involving the deaths of children under the
state's watch. Many key legislators say he's doing a good job, and
point to favorable numbers about the department's efficiency. He has
not suffered the searing scrutiny that led to the resignation of his
predecessor in 2002, after the department lost track of a 5-year-old
Miami girl it was supervising.
Now the question is whether a new controversy could change the
picture.
In his first comments on a new investigation into his agency, Regier
said he had nothing to do with DCF's initial decision to award a
$21-million contract to a computer company whose board includes former
Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating. It was Keating who in 2002 recommended
Regier to Gov. Jeb Bush.
Regier said he had "absolutely no involvement and did not talk to
anybody about it and in fact, (the state Department of Management
Services) is the final review of that."
He also said he agreed with Bush's assessment that it was
inappropriate for Regier's chief technology official and another
staffer to take trips paid for by a software company. "The action I
have taken speaks for itself," said Regier, who has placed the two on
administrative leave pending an investigation.
Beyond that, Regier didn't want to say much about computer contract
and travel questions.
"Basically, the inspector general is looking into a number of issues
and we're just waiting for a report to be completed," he said
Wednesday.
* * *
When Regier accepted Bush's offer to take over DCF in August 2002, the
most attractive thing about the job might have been simply that the
agency's public image had no place to go but up.
DCF had received national attention four months earlier when a
caseworker discovered that 5-year-old Rilya Wilson had disappeared -
and that her disappearance had gone unnoticed for the previous 15
months.
Hearings, a blue-ribbon committee and demands for reform soon
followed.
David Lawrence, a child advocate and former Miami Herald publisher,
led the Governor's Blue-Ribbon Panel on Child Protection after the
Rilya scandal. The panel called for a litany of reforms designed to
bring stable management and stronger casework to the department.
Lawrence this week called Regier "a smart and disciplined leader."
"I think the department still doesn't have enough money, but I think
he has made significant progress within the resources he has,"
Lawrence said.
Looking back on his panel's recommendations, he says, "point after
point after point, those have been attended to."
After nearly two years into what some call the most thankless job in
state government, Regier can claim to have tackled some of DCF's
longest ongoing child welfare problems. Some examples:
The latest DCF data from March showed more than 92 percent of child
abuse investigations were completed within 60 days, compared with just
38 percent in August 2002 when Regier took over. That's a key
statistic, because delayed investigations can mean caseworkers don't
know whether children are safe.
Adoptions of foster children have increased from 2,681 in fiscal
2002-03 to more than 3,100 in 2003-04.
Regier in early 2003 announced plans to reduce the number of children
in foster care by an ambitious 25 percent. He said he wanted to
accomplish this partly by offering better services to strengthen
families, so their children would not have to be removed in the first
place.
The actual progress has been much smaller - a 3.2 percent drop in
"total out-of-home care" since his announcement and a 6.8 percent
decrease since he took over.
Regier said he believes in reducing the number of kids in foster care
because the department can help some troubled families even while the
children remain at home.
"Without lowering the bar of safety, children are certainly better in
their own families," Regier said. But he said it has sometimes been
difficult to convince his staff of this. During a meeting of district
administrators from around the state, one official said staff members
still believe that if they see any sign of domestic violence or
substance abuse, they must automatically remove the children.
Regier said that comment "just blew me away." He said for families
that have those issues, "there are services that can be provided."
He stressed that children should stay in the home only if caseworkers
determine it's safe. But some worry about the effect of these
policies.
Gerard Glynn, executive director of the advocacy group Florida's
Children First, said Regier's goal of reducing foster care and
increasing adoptions is "a good vision and the correct vision."
But he thinks Regier has not fought hard enough to increase DCF's
budget. He fears that a tight budget, combined with pressure to reduce
foster care numbers, might lead the department to fail to investigate
some abuse cases as aggressively as it should.
Regier says he is trying to transform DCF from a "rules-based" system
to a "performance-based" system. In other words, he doesn't want to
hear that a caseworker ticked off every item on a checklist of good
practices. He wants to hear the caseworker found a good home for a
child.
High staff turnover has been a nationwide problem in child welfare
agencies, but Regier said he has worked to combat it, partly with a
pay increase legislators improved for caseworkers. Among child abuse
investigators, for example, annual projected turnover went from 51.7
percent in fall 2002 to 28.5 percent for the same period in 2003,
according to a legislative audit. Those numbers didn't include
investigators who work for sheriff's offices rather than DCF.
Regier is expecting to hear soon from a task force looking into the
case of the Hernando County girl who weighed 29 pounds when she was
removed from a home where caseworkers had placed her, but who
reportedly has gained substantial weight since.
Asked his reaction to the news this week that a girl drowned in a
swimming pool where her sister had died two years before, which
caseworkers knew about, Regier said, "My reaction is horror. It's just
so sad, but it's a tragic accident. I think when we see these tragic
accidents happen, we all immediately want to find some blame or some
cause, but all I can say right now is it's just a tragic accident."
Despite such problems, "I believe today that things are a lot better,
I mean night and day," said Rep. Sandra Murman, R-Tampa, who heads a
subcommittee that helps set DCF's budget. She credits Regier with
improving the department by offering clear goals and frequent
consultations with his employees. "Before he came it was crisis du
jour."
Even some critics of the department can find a positive side.
"The state of Florida continues to rank toward the very bottom of
child welfare systems nationwide," said Richard Wexler of the National
Coalition for Child Protection Reform. "It is spinning its wheels,
making little or no improvement." But that constitutes progress for
Florida, he said, because under Regier's predecessor Kathleen Kearney,
"DCF careened full speed backward."
He said the slight drop in the foster care population coupled with a
slight decrease in the number of children abused in foster care amount
to evidence that DCF has "inched forward."
In a report this year, state auditors said the abuse rate of children
in foster care had increased from 7.3 percent in the second quarter of
2002 to 9.7 percent in the final quarter of the year, dropping to 9.1
percent in the first quarter of 2003. All those figures exceeded the
state standard of 7 percent.
In figures provided by DCF recently, however, officials said the
reabuse rate had later dropped to 6.3 percent.
Democratic Sen. Frederica Wilson of Miami, who is the vice chairwoman
of the Senate's Children and Families Committee, sees pros and cons in
Regier's performance, but faults him for failing to fight aggressively
enough to increase the department's budget and staff. With DCF, she
said, "The root of the problem is the workers are not adequately
trained, they are not adequately compensated and the turnover is too
great."
The investigation into the computer contract and trips bears watching,
she said.
"We might be looking for a new secretary. That speaks of corruption
and cronyism."
http://www.sptimes.com/2004/07/08/State/DCF_has_made_progress.shtml
Defend your civil liberties! Get information at http://www.aclu.org, become a member at http://www.aclu.org/join and get active at http://www.aclu.org/action.
Despite recent high-profile cases, Jerry Regier says the agency is
better today than when he took over two years ago.
By CURTIS KRUEGER, Times Staff Writer
Published July 8, 2004
Tragedy and controversy again are shadowing Florida's Department of
Children and Families:
A 10-year-old girl is found emaciated and weighing 29 pounds in the
home where caseworkers had placed her; a grand jury report slams
children's services in Palm Beach County; a similar report is brewing
in Citrus County; and a Tampa toddler in a DCF case dies in the
swimming pool where her sister drowned two years ago.
But DCF Secretary Jerry Regier said Wednesday the sprawling social
service agency he took over nearly two years ago has improved its
morale and performance.
"I absolutely don't see it as a troubled agency," Regier said in an
interview, though he acknowledged that in some cases "we have not done
casework up to the standards that I want to see in the department."
Regier, 59, has remained mostly unscathed by the scattered reports of
sloppy casework, even those involving the deaths of children under the
state's watch. Many key legislators say he's doing a good job, and
point to favorable numbers about the department's efficiency. He has
not suffered the searing scrutiny that led to the resignation of his
predecessor in 2002, after the department lost track of a 5-year-old
Miami girl it was supervising.
Now the question is whether a new controversy could change the
picture.
In his first comments on a new investigation into his agency, Regier
said he had nothing to do with DCF's initial decision to award a
$21-million contract to a computer company whose board includes former
Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating. It was Keating who in 2002 recommended
Regier to Gov. Jeb Bush.
Regier said he had "absolutely no involvement and did not talk to
anybody about it and in fact, (the state Department of Management
Services) is the final review of that."
He also said he agreed with Bush's assessment that it was
inappropriate for Regier's chief technology official and another
staffer to take trips paid for by a software company. "The action I
have taken speaks for itself," said Regier, who has placed the two on
administrative leave pending an investigation.
Beyond that, Regier didn't want to say much about computer contract
and travel questions.
"Basically, the inspector general is looking into a number of issues
and we're just waiting for a report to be completed," he said
Wednesday.
* * *
When Regier accepted Bush's offer to take over DCF in August 2002, the
most attractive thing about the job might have been simply that the
agency's public image had no place to go but up.
DCF had received national attention four months earlier when a
caseworker discovered that 5-year-old Rilya Wilson had disappeared -
and that her disappearance had gone unnoticed for the previous 15
months.
Hearings, a blue-ribbon committee and demands for reform soon
followed.
David Lawrence, a child advocate and former Miami Herald publisher,
led the Governor's Blue-Ribbon Panel on Child Protection after the
Rilya scandal. The panel called for a litany of reforms designed to
bring stable management and stronger casework to the department.
Lawrence this week called Regier "a smart and disciplined leader."
"I think the department still doesn't have enough money, but I think
he has made significant progress within the resources he has,"
Lawrence said.
Looking back on his panel's recommendations, he says, "point after
point after point, those have been attended to."
After nearly two years into what some call the most thankless job in
state government, Regier can claim to have tackled some of DCF's
longest ongoing child welfare problems. Some examples:
The latest DCF data from March showed more than 92 percent of child
abuse investigations were completed within 60 days, compared with just
38 percent in August 2002 when Regier took over. That's a key
statistic, because delayed investigations can mean caseworkers don't
know whether children are safe.
Adoptions of foster children have increased from 2,681 in fiscal
2002-03 to more than 3,100 in 2003-04.
Regier in early 2003 announced plans to reduce the number of children
in foster care by an ambitious 25 percent. He said he wanted to
accomplish this partly by offering better services to strengthen
families, so their children would not have to be removed in the first
place.
The actual progress has been much smaller - a 3.2 percent drop in
"total out-of-home care" since his announcement and a 6.8 percent
decrease since he took over.
Regier said he believes in reducing the number of kids in foster care
because the department can help some troubled families even while the
children remain at home.
"Without lowering the bar of safety, children are certainly better in
their own families," Regier said. But he said it has sometimes been
difficult to convince his staff of this. During a meeting of district
administrators from around the state, one official said staff members
still believe that if they see any sign of domestic violence or
substance abuse, they must automatically remove the children.
Regier said that comment "just blew me away." He said for families
that have those issues, "there are services that can be provided."
He stressed that children should stay in the home only if caseworkers
determine it's safe. But some worry about the effect of these
policies.
Gerard Glynn, executive director of the advocacy group Florida's
Children First, said Regier's goal of reducing foster care and
increasing adoptions is "a good vision and the correct vision."
But he thinks Regier has not fought hard enough to increase DCF's
budget. He fears that a tight budget, combined with pressure to reduce
foster care numbers, might lead the department to fail to investigate
some abuse cases as aggressively as it should.
Regier says he is trying to transform DCF from a "rules-based" system
to a "performance-based" system. In other words, he doesn't want to
hear that a caseworker ticked off every item on a checklist of good
practices. He wants to hear the caseworker found a good home for a
child.
High staff turnover has been a nationwide problem in child welfare
agencies, but Regier said he has worked to combat it, partly with a
pay increase legislators improved for caseworkers. Among child abuse
investigators, for example, annual projected turnover went from 51.7
percent in fall 2002 to 28.5 percent for the same period in 2003,
according to a legislative audit. Those numbers didn't include
investigators who work for sheriff's offices rather than DCF.
Regier is expecting to hear soon from a task force looking into the
case of the Hernando County girl who weighed 29 pounds when she was
removed from a home where caseworkers had placed her, but who
reportedly has gained substantial weight since.
Asked his reaction to the news this week that a girl drowned in a
swimming pool where her sister had died two years before, which
caseworkers knew about, Regier said, "My reaction is horror. It's just
so sad, but it's a tragic accident. I think when we see these tragic
accidents happen, we all immediately want to find some blame or some
cause, but all I can say right now is it's just a tragic accident."
Despite such problems, "I believe today that things are a lot better,
I mean night and day," said Rep. Sandra Murman, R-Tampa, who heads a
subcommittee that helps set DCF's budget. She credits Regier with
improving the department by offering clear goals and frequent
consultations with his employees. "Before he came it was crisis du
jour."
Even some critics of the department can find a positive side.
"The state of Florida continues to rank toward the very bottom of
child welfare systems nationwide," said Richard Wexler of the National
Coalition for Child Protection Reform. "It is spinning its wheels,
making little or no improvement." But that constitutes progress for
Florida, he said, because under Regier's predecessor Kathleen Kearney,
"DCF careened full speed backward."
He said the slight drop in the foster care population coupled with a
slight decrease in the number of children abused in foster care amount
to evidence that DCF has "inched forward."
In a report this year, state auditors said the abuse rate of children
in foster care had increased from 7.3 percent in the second quarter of
2002 to 9.7 percent in the final quarter of the year, dropping to 9.1
percent in the first quarter of 2003. All those figures exceeded the
state standard of 7 percent.
In figures provided by DCF recently, however, officials said the
reabuse rate had later dropped to 6.3 percent.
Democratic Sen. Frederica Wilson of Miami, who is the vice chairwoman
of the Senate's Children and Families Committee, sees pros and cons in
Regier's performance, but faults him for failing to fight aggressively
enough to increase the department's budget and staff. With DCF, she
said, "The root of the problem is the workers are not adequately
trained, they are not adequately compensated and the turnover is too
great."
The investigation into the computer contract and trips bears watching,
she said.
"We might be looking for a new secretary. That speaks of corruption
and cronyism."
http://www.sptimes.com/2004/07/08/State/DCF_has_made_progress.shtml
Defend your civil liberties! Get information at http://www.aclu.org, become a member at http://www.aclu.org/join and get active at http://www.aclu.org/action.