Initial stumble or permanent bungle?

Initial stumble or permanent bungle? he state is pushing ahead with
its privatized child welfare program despite a local agency that might
lose its license. By CURTIS KRUEGER, Times Staff Writer Published
January 25, 2004
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It has been billed as the answer to Florida's social service mess: a
radical new approach designed to put much of the scandal-prone
Department of Children and Families out of business.
But one of the longest-running programs created to meet Gov. Jeb
Bush's vision of a state social services system turned over to local,
nonprofit agencies has built a track record that makes some experts
wonder whether Florida moved down the new road too quickly.
Family Continuity Programs, which in 2000 took over foster care in
Pinellas and Pasco counties, has been criticized for the past two
years for failing to meet some basic standards for protecting abused
and neglected children.
A state investigation last year concluded that Family Continuity had
sent foster kids into potentially abusive homes and that caseworkers
didn't understand when to report new cases of abuse. Children are
moved from foster home to foster home far too frequently, state
officials say.
"The emotional toll on the children being moved around within our
system is tremendous, and we will deal with its aftermath for years to
come," Patsy Buker, executive director of Help-A-Child Inc., wrote in
a letter to the Pinellas Juvenile Welfare Board.
Buker also complained that a foster child had been given new
caseworkers 12 times in the past 11 months.
And now, state officials have warned Family Continuity it could lose
its license unless it reduces foster home overcrowding.
In spite of these stumbles, the state's push to privatize child
welfare services is charging ahead. In fact, DCF Secretary Jerry
Regier last year decided to speed up the transition for most regions
by about six months.
About half of the 22 DCF districts across Florida have signed
contracts to shift their foster care programs over to other community
agencies, said David Fairbanks, DCF assistant director for child
welfare and community-based care. He expects the whole state except
the Miami-Dade district to follow suit by July 1 and Miami-Dade to
come on board by the end of the year.
This month, Bush said Family Continuity's troubles do not make him
think the state rushed into its new approach.
"Not at all," he said. "I think that given the record of
community-based care posted up against the Department of Children and
Families, community-based care is the way to go."
Bush said DCF officials have monitored Family Continuity, checked its
progress and pointed out its shortcomings as they are required to, "so
it's working in that regard."
Although some community-based agencies around the state have won high
marks - state officials often praise those in Sarasota and Escambia
counties - Family Continuity is not the only one to get into trouble.
In 2000, DCF canceled its contracts with the Lake County Boy's Ranch
amid claims that it essentially had stolen state money through double-
and triple-billing for children's services. (Prosecutors ultimately
dropped Medicaid fraud and grand theft charges.)
More recently, state reviewers have slammed a similar agency in
Volusia County for failing to make required monthly visits to foster
children, high caseloads and accounting problems.
Some experts worry about the pace of the changes.
"I would be very concerned with artificial dates that say, "We're
going to be full-blown into community-based care by July 1.' I don't
think it's fair to anybody, certainly not to kids and families," said
Larry Pintacuda, a former high-ranking DCF official who now serves as
chief executive officer of the advocacy group Voices for Florida's
Children.
"Making a radical change is difficult," said Don Dixon, a former DCF
district administrator for Hillsborough and Manatee counties who now
works for the Hillsborough Children's Board. "Making radical change in
a hurry can be even more difficult."
Radical change is a good way of describing the community-based care
approach. For decades, Florida has dealt with child abuse and neglect
through its massive social services agency DCF, formerly known as HRS.
The agency has suffered blistering criticism over the years after
various tragedies involving children. Among them: Rilya Wilson, the
Miami girl who disappeared while under state supervision in 2002, and
Kayla McKean, the 6-year-old Lake County girl killed by her father
after caseworkers missed clear signs of abuse.
The solution endorsed by Bush, the Florida Legislature and some child
welfare experts is to blow this system up and give its pieces to local
communities. The theory is that a local agency with an office on Main
Street will operate with better support and communication than a
distant state bureaucracy.
So DCF is getting out of the business of directly sending its workers
to homes and schools to investigate child abuse and work with the
parents of children in foster care. DCF is supposed to remain closely
involved, however, by supervising contracts and monitoring how well
the agencies perform.
That's what DCF has been doing with Family Continuity, and it often
has found problems.
After whistle-blowers complained that Family Continuity had sent
foster children into abusive homes, the DCF inspector general
concluded in April 2003 that "(Family Continuity) continues to place
children in foster homes that have been reported as abusive, that at
least one former case manager failed to make appropriate referrals for
psychological evaluations for children and that (Family Continuity)
case managers failed to provide necessary information to foster
parents."
A DCF report distributed this month to the Pinellas Juvenile Welfare
Board cited "a lack of fundamental supervisory oversight" at Family
Continuity.
It also said that more than one in four children in a sample review
had three different caseworkers during a one-year period and that
nearly one in four children in licensed foster homes had been moved
three times in the same year. Both findings are considered bad,
because children in general need stability, especially those who might
have suffered abuse and have been separated from their families.
Not all of Family Continuity's reviews have been negative. The agency
has done an excellent job of working to find permanent adoptive homes
for foster children, DCF regional administrator Lynn Richard told the
Juvenile Welfare Board.
Family Continuity spokeswoman April Putzulu said the agency is in the
process of increasing its caseworkers from 149 last year to 228 this
year. This process already has begun to turn around some of the
problems the agency was facing, Putzulu said, because more caseworkers
means smaller caseloads and more time to work harder on the needs of
individual families. This change "has improved everything: lower
turnover rate, they have improved client responses, decreased client
complaints, bringing on more foster homes."
But questions remain. Family Continuity recently let go its executive
director and hired a for-profit Arizona company to provide a manager.
Fairbanks acknowledged doing some "soul-searching" over that
arrangement, but said it's not necessarily bad. In the medical field,
administrators routinely hire for-profit companies to help provide
services, he said.
But, he added, "it increases the onus on the department as the
ultimate purchaser with taxpayer dollars to make sure that we know
what we're getting."
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