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Child welfare agency changes leadership A for-profit management firm is brought in to study ways to improve management of Family Continuity Programs.
Child welfare agency changes leadership A for-profit management firm
is brought in to study ways to improve management of Family Continuity Programs. By CURTIS KRUEGER, Times Staff Writer Published January 3, 2004 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ST. PETERSBURG - The non-profit company that oversees foster care and other child welfare programs in Pinellas and Pasco counties has replaced its executive director with a for-profit management firm that could ultimately take over the organization. Jeff Richard, who was executive director of Family Continuity Programs, "went on vacation on Dec. 24 and will not be returning to FCP," the company's communications director wrote in an e-mail this week to other social service agencies. Meanwhile, Family Continuity's non-profit parent corporation has brought in the Arizona-based Providence Service Corp., which will conduct a study of ways to improve the Pinellas-Pasco agency's management. Family Continuity has been criticized in state reviews. The Department of Children and Families denied asking for a management change, but in a news release Friday said it "welcomes a renewed effort to strengthen community based care." Although foster care, adoptions and other social services generally are provided by government or nonprofits, Providence Service is a for-profit company traded on the Nasdaq that specializes in managing and providing social service programs. Its CEO predicted a growth rate for the company of 40 percent or more this year. The new company's first act on Monday will be installing Lisa Tackus of Tampa as interim CEO. Tackus spent four years as executive director of a similar agency in Hillsborough County, Camelot Care, and now is a vice president of Providence. Asking profit-making companies to dive into the often-underfunded world of social services mystifies child advocates such as Jack Levine, a well-known Tallahassee human services consultant. "I just can't believe that there's ever going to be profit to be made in the troubled-family business," Levine said Friday. But Tackus said "it's not uncommon for any organization, for-profit or not-for-profit, to hire management companies." The new management arrangement, which is to last at least three months, "could potentially culminate with the acquisition of FCP-Florida by Providence Service Corporation," according to the e-mail memo. But officials on Friday downplayed that possibility. "The question has been raised, but that's all . . . there's no decision made," said James Souza, president of Family Continuity's parent company, Care Development, based in Maine. Family Continuity is the main government-funded agency that works with children in Pinellas and Pasco counties who are considered abused or neglected. State government hired Family Continuity in July 2000 on a five-year, roughly $118-million contract to take over work that had previously been handled by the state Department of Children and Families, formerly called HRS. Family Continuity now works with about 4,400 children considered victims of abuse or neglect, and supervises 470 foster homes. The agency's performance periodically has been called into question. An early report by DCF officials in 2002 said FCP's caseloads had swelled so high many workers were "consistently working 50- to 60-hour weeks." Later that year an agency that partnered with Family Continuity was sued by two former workers who said employees were told to keep quiet about Family Continuity shortcomings that allegedly included falsification of records. The Department of Children and Families recently prepared a review that cited a "fundamental lack of supervisory oversight" at FCP. It said Family Continuity needed far better documentation of how it is working to help the children under its supervision, and that it "must significantly improve the consistency of supervisory oversight, review of case work and mentoring of staff if it is to ensure child safety, well-being and permanency." It also pointed to other concerns: Brothers and sisters were kept together in foster care in only 55 percent of the cases reviewers looked at; only two-thirds of the separated siblings got documented monthly visits together. In a sample of 47 children taken out of their homes and placed in some sort of foster care, 22 (47 percent) were moved from one location to another. In 36 percent of the cases, parents were not notified of the changes. In a sample of 2,127 children, nearly one in four had been moved three or more times, which can increase trauma for already fragile children. Next week, Family Continuity and DCF officials are scheduled to appear for one hour before Pinellas County's Juvenile Welfare Board. DCF spokesman Doug Tobin said the state had not asked for a new manager at Family Continuity. That statement was echoed Friday by Souza, of Family Continuity's parent company. He said Richard, the former executive director, would be offered another position within Care Development. Richard could not be reached Friday for comment. http://www.sptimes.com/2004/01/03/ne..._agency_.shtml |
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