FL - Foster children lost in files

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Published Friday, November 3, 2000, in the Miami Herald

Foster children lost in files Errors cost Dade, Monroe $473,000 BY JACQUELINE CHARLES jcharles@herald.com

State officials estimate the problem has resulted in the underreporting of nearly 1,000 children in Miami-Dade and Monroe. Hundreds of South Florida foster children have been accidentally omitted from state computer files over the last 10 years -- a costly mistake that has one juvenile judge wondering whether welfare workers can account for all the kids in their care.

``It's appalling they have no clue how many kids there are,'' said Cindy Lederman, administrative judge of Miami-Dade County Juvenile Court. ``We have difficulty finding answers to a lot of questions because the data is so bad.''

The problem, which the Department of Children and Families estimates has resulted in the underreporting of nearly 1,000 children in Miami-Dade and Monroe counties, was discovered during recent efforts to comply with a state mandate to clean up the district's databases.

The information is crucial because it's used by the state to track the number of children in Florida's troubled foster care system -- where they are, with whom they are living and how much money is needed to support them. The agency says most of the children are accounted for and the mistake is largely an administrative one.

``Quite frankly, based on the data cleanup we have done this fiscal year, it demonstrates our data was not very accurate,'' said Charles Auslander, Children and Families district administrator for Miami-Dade and Monroe.

But for children already abused and neglected and sent to live with strangers, inaccurate data means fewer dollars. And fewer dollars mean fewer caseworkers in an already overburdened system, making it even tougher for welfare workers to track the thousands of children in state care.

At the very least, Dade and Monroe counties are not getting as much state money as they could -- at least another $473,000 each year because of the data problems.

That money, in part, covers the cost of supervising foster children -- a demanding job involving nearly 100 cases at a time.

FLAWED FILES

And child advocates say the record problems aren't limited to the data miscount. Overall, the agency's record keeping often is flawed, with files failing to note how often children are visited and whether they made court hearings and doctor appointments.

``We have difficulty finding the answers to a lot of questions because the data is so bad,'' Lederman said. ``It extends in every area, not just in counting children. It's an across the board problem.''

Lederman said she's not convinced that no child is lost. Last week she presided over a dependency hearing in which a foster child had not been seen by a caseworker in eight months.

She sent a memo to Auslander about the problem and plans to hold a hearing Nov. 29 to determine if the department should be held in contempt.

Every week, she says, she sends Auslander memos about mistakes that crop up in court: missed hearings, missed doctor appointments, failure to comply with her orders such as replacing the eye glasses of a foster child.

Auslander has only been in the job since August 1999.

SYSTEM HAS DOUBLED

The latest revelations are just one more example of the problems plaguing Florida's foster care system, which has nearly doubled since 1998 to 15,000 kids. In recent years, the system has come under fire from foster children, attorneys and national children's rights advocate groups -- all alleging that the system often does more harm than good.

``It's an intolerable situation,'' said Lederman.

Barbara Garrett, a Miami-Dade social service provider who helps families in danger of having their kids put into foster care, said: ``Who knows what is happening to those children. Even the ones that get seen, the infrequency of the visits is shocking.''

Auslander doesn't dispute that such mishaps occur and says he was recently approached by a foster family who informed him that their child had not been visited by a counselor in 17 months.

``There are going to be lapses like that,'' Auslander said. ``They happen because of our constant [staff] turnovers and a lot of reshuffling of cases because of people transitioning. Retention is our biggest problem.''

Since discovering the error, Auslander said he's implemented new measures to prevent such mistakes.

Though no other districts are reporting similar discrepancies, state officials won't know if the problem goes beyond Dade until all of the cleanup efforts are completed next year.

``The old system was a prescription for disaster,'' Auslander said.

Auslander said data clerks used to input the information from the courthouse -- but that stopped when the Department of Juvenile Justice separated from the old Health and Rehabilitative Services.

As a result, child welfare workers, already overwhelmed with cases, had to do it themselves.

Some forgot to input kids. Others listed youngsters as living with parents when in fact they were living with relatives. In some cases, only one sibling -- instead of an entire family -- was entered into the computer.

``It's scandalous,'' said Modesto Abety, director of the Miami-Dade Children's Services Council.

In June when the state made funding decisions, the number of children believed to be living in state custody in Miami-Dade and Monroe counties was about 4,000. In the last five months, Children and Families discovered nearly 1,000 more.

``One thing to conclude is we need more money. I don't think anybody would argue if the data reflects more children in out-of-home care there should be a relation to thinking we need more money.''

This year, the Miami-Dade-Monroe District received $25.2 million for foster care, said Owen Roach, an agency spokesman in Tallahassee.

``They are running at a deficit,'' he said. ``If you have more children taken into a program or you realize a sizable population increase, the money you have budgeted isn't going to work. That is the financial impact.''

Karen Gievers, the lead attorney in a class-action lawsuit against Florida's foster care system, isn't surprised.

``One of the problems in dealing with the foster care system in Florida generally, and Dade in particular, is that there is not a lot of comfort with the data,'' Gievers said. ``When I started doing this work in the late 1980s Dade kept track of children on index cards kept in shoe boxes.

``If the department doesn't know about the kids, it not only boggles the mind, it makes you say a prayer quickly that the kids who have been `misplaced' are OK,'' she said.

http://www.herald.com/content/today/docs/056271.htm



-- Doris (reaper@pacifier.com), November 03, 2000


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