Part one of NCCPR’s news and commentary year in review for 2024
Part two looks at some of 2024s
finest journalism exploring wrongful removal and other harms to children caused
by our current system of family policing. You can read it here.
America’s massive child welfare
surveillance state was built on horror stories. Stories about
children murdered or tortured in their own homes stampeded us into building a gigantic
system that destroys children in the name of saving them. The system has torn
apart millions of families needlessly. It’s also so overloaded the
system that workers have no time to find the few children in real danger.
A system that attempts to make
policy-by-horror-story makes all children less safe. That’s why
we’ve long extended an offer to the fearmongers in the child welfare
establishment: a mutual moratorium on using horror
stories to "prove” anything.
We can do that because we have
actual evidence that, in the overwhelming majority of cases, family
preservation is not only more humane than foster care or massive
surveillance, it’s also safer. But the
fearmongers will never give up their horror stories because horror stories are
all they’ve got.
That’s why we’ve taken to
reminding people that the horror stories go in all directions. And
when it comes to the high rate of abuse in foster homes, group homes, and
institutions, the horror stories are backed up by study after study showing the rates of abuse in those settings are
appalling.
So now, just a few examples from
2024:
ROTTEN
BARRELS: THE HORRORS OF RESIDENTIAL TREATMENT
● There
have been scandals involving residential treatment in Arizona, Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, Utah, Oklahoma, Washington State, Arkansas, New
York, Connecticut and Rhode
Island – and that’s only a partial list. And yet, every time there’s
another expose of a residential treatment center, defenders of
institutionalizing children say the problem isn’t RTCs per se, just
a few rotten apples. But The
Imprint reported this year on
a Senate committee study that makes it abundantly clear: No, we’re talking
rotten barrels. Oh, and by the way, the report notes, the whole concept
of residential treatment doesn’t work. (Not that we’d ever say we
told you so.)
●
The report focused on several of what should be called McTreatment chains. The
Senator who chaired the committee, Ron Wyden, called on the Justice Department
to investigate these chains for allegedly defrauding Medicaid and violating the
Americans with Disabilities Act. The
Imprint and The
Hill have stories.
But in
both cases, Wyden is focusing on the fact that three of the chains the
committee examined most closely are for-profit corporations. But, as I wrote
for The Imprint, Nonprofit
Residential Treatment Also Stinks.
● A Philadelphia
Inquirer story also makes clear, it’s not just one institution in
one state. Consider what institutionalized young people told the
Juvenile Law Center for their latest report on these places:
“What
should have happened in my story is that someone should have asked me why I was
always late to school. Instead, no one asked me, and I was sent away.”
“I felt
like I was a prisoner there and I didn’t feel safe there.”
“It
messes with your head to be kept in a cage for so long.”
“You go
in there with one specific problem, and then you come back out with 30.″
JLC Senior
Attorney Malik Pickett summed it up:
“A lot of people tend to have this glorified view of
what placement looks like, especially residential juvenile justice facilities.
And they kind of picture it like this beautiful college campus where youth are
getting treatment services, but they don’t really realize the horrors that are
going on behind those walls. They’re so blind to what’s actually happening
inside these facilities.”
See
also The
Imprint’s story about the report.
● Two
other young people who endured institutionalization write
in The Imprint about why such places need to be
abolished.
● The Philadelphia Inquirer also reported that:
The Pennsylvania Department of Education and the Department
of Human Services have agreed to pay $450,000 to settle a case brought by
former students of the Glen Mills Schools, which closed in 2019 after an Inquirer investigation
revealed decades of violence against boys sent to the reform school in Delaware County.
The settlement also promises
increased oversight – but only enough to raise the level of oversight from
nearly nonexistent all the way to pathetic. And “oversight” never
works because abuse is practically baked into the institutional care model. That’s
one reason why institutional “care” should be abolished.
And from WHP-TV in Harrisburg:
Over
60 additional cases involving the sexual abuse of children at Pennsylvania
Juvenile and Residential Treatment Centers were filed on
Wednesday. The new filing brings the number of total cases alleging
sexual abuse at these centers to over 200 victims.
●
Longtime followers of family policing will recall when Maryville, a modern-day
orphanage near Chicago, was cited as a national model – so wonderful, in fact,
that it was the centerpiece of a 1995 60 Minutes story touting
orphanages. Seven years later it was exposed as rife with so much abuse
that Illinois took all foster youth out of the place. In 2016 the
entire residential program was shut down.
Want to
know how much Illinois learned from this?
In 2019,
the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services touted the brand-new
Aunt Martha’s Integrated Care Center as a national model. Just five
years later, amid a sexual abuse scandal, it was shut
down. But, as
the nonprofit news site Injustice Watch explains, the
abuse scandal was only the beginning:
The list of alleged transgressions — many seemingly
overlooked by state officials for years — includes: sex trafficking of minors;
staffers who should never have been hired in the first place because of
disqualifying prior arrests; overlooked claims of guards using sexual innuendos
with children, sleeping on the job, and sharing pornographic videos among
themselves at work; and thousands of reported violent attacks among young
residents.
Somehow in
just five years, a facility with only 33 beds racked up
3,850 unusual incident
reports when young residents displayed “physically aggressive behavior” against
their peers or staff, records show.
Oh, and
care to guess where the director of DCFS during most of this time used to
work?
See also this
follow-up story from Injustice Watch.
● And now
over to Arkansas, where the Arkansas
Times has done a deep dive into the harm caused by that
state’s residential treatment industry. The story quotes Reagan
Stanford of Disability Rights Arkansas who told lawmakers:
“Across Arkansas, facilities are rife with countless
examples of abuse, violence and neglect. The child is often seen as
the failure, not the treatment facility. And because they are viewed as the
failure, all too often the child gets cycled back into a residential
placement.”
● In Alaska, Mother Jones updates
an expose of a residential
treatment center where
Despite
the facility’s troubling track record of assaults, escapes, and improper use of
seclusion, state officials have admitted what foster youth have long suspected:
Foster children are warehoused at North Star when there’s nowhere else for them
to go.
● From NBC News,
still another expose of still another residential treatment center, this one in
Utah.
And speaking of Utah, The Salt Lake Tribune reports that
A
Utah treatment center for “troubled teens” has been sued by two parents who say
their daughter was sexually assaulted by other girls at the facility after
staff failed to conduct regular bed checks. …
From the Santa Fe New Mexican
A 9-year-old boy suffered
physical restraint and food restrictions and was secluded in his room during a
2022 stay at a Los Lunas center for children with mental and behavioral health
issues, a new lawsuit alleges. The suit, filed in state District
Court in Santa Fe earlier this month, alleges staff at the privately run
Sandhill Center abused and neglected children, including the boy, who is now
11.
The center was understaffed
and more interested in the profits from enrollment, and the state Children,
Youth and Families Department, which licensed and oversaw the center, was aware
of issues at Sandhill and allowed the abuse to happen, the suit alleges. …
●VT Digger reports that
In
the past two years, two Florida residential facilities experienced outbreaks of
violence that left multiple youths injured. Vermont’s human services agency
continued to send teens there — even after the incidents.
Yeah; that’s going to happen when
in a state like progressive little Vermont, which keeps tearing apart families
at the second highest rate in America – more than quadruple the
national average.
● WFLA-TV reports:
As each day passes, Zy’kiria
Bell’s death is still a mystery. The 17-year-old girl died on May 29 at Lake
Academy, a state-owned facility in Tampa. It’s sites like this one that are
entrusted to care for our most vulnerable youth. …
8 On Your Side has learned the
Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office has launched a criminal investigation into
Zy’kiria’s death. It comes as the Department of Juvenile Justice shut down the
site.
● The Columbus Dispatch reports that
Children sent to a
state-licensed facility for mental health care are subjected to chokeholds and
slaps, being pinned to the ground and verbally abused, and are regularly
leaving the campus, according to an investigation conducted by Disability
Rights Ohio.
Disability Rights Ohio
Director Kerstin Sjoberg said neither Ohio Department of Mental Health and
Addiction Services nor the center, Youth Intensive Services, are working to
correct the problems. …
● MLive reports that
The
CEO of Wolverine Human Services says her agency is taking seriously a lawsuit
alleging staff at a now-closed facility routinely sexually abused its minor
wards.
● In Rhode Island the headline on
this Providence Journal story about a “residential treatment
center” sums things up well: Overdoses, assault and restraints: Inside a damning
report on St. Mary's Home for Children
● The Arizona Mirror reports teenagers in foster care in that state told a legislative
committee why they run away: The group homes in which they are placed are so
horrible that, at first, even the streets seem like a better alternative.
● From NBC Connecticut:
Another teenager has filed a lawsuit claiming she was
sexually assaulted by an employee at a state Department of Children and
Families facility in Harwinton last year. …
While she lived there from March of 2023 to May of 2023, the
lawsuit said the 14-year-old female was raped and sexually assaulted by a
facility employee. As a result, she reportedly suffered significant physical
and emotional harm.
This lawsuit comes after other allegations of sexual assault
at the facility.
From CBS News Detroit:
One Republican Michigan state representative says she's been
working on getting answers to disturbing allegations of abuse at state-run
mental health facilities for children but says her party affiliation is
preventing her from gaining much traction.
State Rep. Jamie Thompson called for action on how state-run
mental health facilities operate. Thompson's latest attempt comes after a
lawsuit alleges that a 9-year-old patient at the Hawthorn Center was assaulted
and employees did not intervene.
WLNS-TV also
has a story about this.
● The Nevada
Independent reports:
A January legislative audit identified seven care
facilities for children that failed to adequately protect those in their care,
with complaints ranging from children self-administering medication to
substance abuse issues.
THE OTHER HORRORS
● Some of the strongest backers
of tearing apart even more families point to West Virginia as a model – not
only because it takes away children at the highest rate in America, but also
because that state has what the take-the-child-and-run crowd sees as an
exemplary record of rushing to terminate children’s rights to their parents and
dump them into adoptive homes. NBC News has a story about how that worked out in one recent case. The
headline on the story is: “White West Virginia couple accused of adopting Black
children and forcing them to work ‘as slaves.’”
● Also in West Virginia, West Virginia Watch reports that
A federal judge says Child
Protective Services failed to respond and perform an adequate investigation in
a high-profile case where Kanawha County children were found last fall locked
in a shed without access to water or a toilet.
“As a result, the children
were left to suffer at the hands of their adoptive parents for months, until
law enforcement officers eventually found the children locked in their house or
in a detached shed, deprived of food, water, bathroom facilities, hygiene
products and beds,” U.S. Magistrate Judge Cheryl Eifert wrote in an order.
● The Enterprise in
Patrick County, Va., reports that
the family policing system in that small county is failing so horrendously that
“It would be impossible for children to have not been hurt” in foster care –
according to the county’s juvenile court judge.
● Family police agencies love to
tout figures purportedly showing that when they, in effect, investigate
themselves they find very little abuse in foster care. Next time that happens,
please keep this in mind: In Texas, the Texas Tribune reports, the family police agency is so willfully blind to such
abuse that a federal judge tried to fine the agency $100,000 – per day. But the nation’s most right-wing federal appellate
court stayed the fines -- and ultimately
removed the judge who tried to impose them.
● Among the many ways the
so-called Adoption and Safe Families Act fosters adoption-at-all-costs is a national
Adoption Excellence Awards program. (That’s in addition to the bounties the law
pays for every finalized adoption over a baseline number, even if the adoptions
later fail.)
In 2024, Wyoming News Now reported, the winners of one of those awards were in the news for
a different reason:
Natrona
County Sheriff’s deputies arrested Steven Marler, a formally nationally
recognized foster parent. Over the years, Marler and his wife,
Kristen, have fostered over 60 children at their home on Casper Mountain. Now,
Steven Marler is facing 26 felonies, including counts of child
endangerment.
Cowboy State Daily reported that one of those counts of endangerment
is for allegedly kicking a child off a roof and not getting him medical
attention. The charges also include 20 counts “related to alleged
sexual abuse of minors involving four children.”
● From KABC-TV, Los Angeles: A story about a civil lawsuit filed by victims of
horrific abuse both in their own home and then in foster care. They’re
suing Riverside County and the private agency that oversaw their foster
care. So let’s remember, if California private agencies get their
way, it will be incredibly difficult for such children to sue
in the future. Yet one
California news organization after another keeps writing news stories
suggesting the real victims are the agencies!
● Hawaii, 2021: six-year-old Ariel Sellers was allegedly adopted to death. Though relatives wanted to take her in, she was placed with
strangers. Ultimately, they adopted her and changed her name to Isabella
Kalua. The foster/adoptive parents have been charged with murdering the
child. She allegedly died trapped in a dog cage with duct tape covering
her mouth and nose. Honolulu Civil Beat reports that
For more than two years, the
Department of Human Services has stonewalled in accounting for its actions in
the horrific death of Ariel Sellers, the 6-year-old Waimanalo girl whose
adoptive parents are accused of murdering her. This, despite federal
law and state regulations that require disclosure of at least minimal
information when children die or nearly die as the result of abuse and
neglect.
Now DHS can explain itself to
a judge.
But now there’s even more the
Hawaii family police need to explain:
● Hawaii: 2024: Because the family police agency is stonewalling, a
lot still is unknown, but as Honolulu Civil Beat reports, ten-year-old Geanna Bradley appears to have been a
foster child. The presumed foster parents obtained guardianship
status – and were paid $1,961 per month to “care” for her. Then,
police allege, they “restrained her with duct tape [and] confined her to a tiny
space while they collected money for her care” and ultimately killed her.
According to Hawaii News
Now Prosecutors say Geanna’s
death was “especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel, manifesting exceptional
depravity.” KHON-TV reports she suffered “multiple
injuries to her face including her ears, eyes, forehead, cheeks, lips and a
road rash-type of injury on her chin. Part of her nose bridge was
missing.”
Another child, this one known to
have been adopted, also was found abused in the same home.
● Another Civil Beat story has more details on this horrifying abuse and a
demand that the state family police agency tell what it knows about the case, including not only what happened to
the child who died, but also what happened to the other child “mistreated in
almost unimaginable ways” in the same home.
● Still
on the case, Honolulu Civil Beat reports it turns out it took
incompetence – or worse – in two states for Geanna Bradley to be taken from
loving relatives and wind up in the foster home where she died.
● Hawaii Public Radio got comment from Prof. Dorothy Roberts, author of Shattered
Bonds and Torn Apart and a member of NCCPR's Board of Directors who
said:
"This
is just one example of a child who was harmed after the system took her from
her home. As far as I could tell from the father who was interviewed, she would
have been better off in his care than in the care of these people who abused
her."
● In a related case, Hawaii News Now reports that
A
new lawsuit accuses the state and Catholic Charities Hawaii of negligently
placing another child in the same home where a little girl was allegedly
tortured to death.
● And in still another case Honolulu Civil Beat reports that
The state has tentatively
agreed to pay $750,000 to settle a lawsuit over the mysterious death of a
3-year-old boy in state foster custody in 2017 on the Big Island.
One other thing to know about
Hawaii: The state takes away children at a rate nearly 30% above the national
average.
● In still another case, Hawaii News Now reports:
A
circuit court judge has ruled that the state was “grossly negligent” when it
placed an eight-year-old boy in a foster home, where he was then repeatedly
sexually abused for years.
● Here’s
how John Hill of Civil Beat summed it all up:
If the
Legislature can’t be persuaded to demand accountability from the child welfare
bureaucracy for the sake of — you know — the welfare of children, maybe they
could do it on behalf of taxpayers.
Because
the lawsuits, settlements and verdicts against the Department of Human Services
for botching their life-and-death job just keep piling up.
The
latest: $600,000 to the plaintiffs in a lawsuit alleging the state negligently
placed a teenage girl in a Kailua-Kona home where she was sexually
assaulted.
Negligent,
in the sense that a state social worker placed the girl in that foster home
even after the girl’s older sister allegedly warned that she had been sexually
assaulted and harassed by a man living there.
●In North Carolina,
The
Fayetteville mother charged with murdering two of her adopted children was a
licensed adoptive parent for years, WRAL Investigates has learned. Avantae Deven was a licensed foster parent
from 2007-2013 through a nonprofit called Grandfather Home. She later became a
licensed adoptive parent. Deven is charged with murdering Blake
Deven and London Deven, two of the five children she adopted during the time
span.
Two stories about death in
Kansas:
●The Kansas Beacon reports on two foster youth who died while being warehoused
in state offices.
●From the Topeka Capital-Journal:
Police in a small town
near Wichita have publicly identified the child whose decomposing body was
found in a backyard after officers were called to a home for an unrelated
matter earlier in September.
Rose Hill police chief Taylor
Parlier on Friday identified the girl as Kennedy Jean Schroer, who is believed
to have been about 6 years old when she died. Kennedy was born July 14, 2014,
and was adopted in November 2018. Police believe she died in late 2020. ...
None of this should be a surprise
in a state that has, for decades, overloaded its system by tearing apart
families at one of the highest rates in the nation.
● NewsNation reports that
A
northwest Indiana woman accused in the death of her 10-year-old foster child
has been taken into custody in Michigan following a days-long search. …
[Jennifer] Wilson has been charged with reckless homicide in connection with
the death of 10-year-old Dakota Levi Stevens in late April.
● The Sacramento Bee reports that
Sacramento city and county
have paid a $300,000 settlement to the parents of an infant who died after he
was allegedly wrongfully placed in foster care.
● KOVR-TV, Sacramento reports:
Young twin brothers drowned in
a pool in Roseville last October. The Placer County Sheriff's Office on Tuesday
said their foster caregiver has now been arrested in connection to their
deaths.
Schitara Victoria Page faces
two counts of cruelty to a child by abuse, neglect or endangering health
relating to the deaths of the 22-month-old boys. She faces two counts of
special allegations of willful harm or injury resulting in death.
● KOTV in Tulsa reports:
A Green Country mother filed a
lawsuit against the Oklahoma Department of Human Services after she said the
agency put her daughter in the care of a foster home where the girl was
abused.
The lawsuit says both of the
toddler's biological parents told DHS Case workers about the abuse, but their
concerns were ignored.
● WTVF-TV Nashville reports that
Law
enforcement officials are investigating why a group of teenagers have
repeatedly run away from the same foster home on Haskins Chapel Road in Bedford
County. During the past two years, at least four Hispanic teenage
girls have disappeared from this location.
● The Leader-Call in Mississippi reports that
A
pair of foster parents in Ellisville are facing four counts of felony child
abuse after Ellisville police found four children living in what were described
as horrific conditions on Saturday night.
● From the Oregon Capital Chronicle
The
Oregon Department of Human Services has agreed to pay $40 million to settle a
lawsuit filed by four former foster children who were sexually and physically
abused in a foster home, court records show. … One of the victims in the case
endured sexual abuse that led to a 30-year prison sentence for a former foster
father in 2017. With detailed documents and testimony, the lawsuit alleges
caseworkers repeatedly ignored signs of abuse and tried to cover up the abuse
of one child who suffered seven broken bones – even as a criminal prosecution
was underway.
● KRQE-TV in Albuquerque reports:
A civil lawsuit against the
New Mexico Children, Youth, and Families Department involving a developmentally
and intellectually delayed teen girl getting raped by her foster parents has been
settled. The lawsuit claimed they put the girl with a known sexual
predator.
Clarence Garcia pled guilty to
seven sexual abuse charges as part of a plea deal in January 2023. One of his
victims included a vulnerable teen girl. “Beginning when she was 14 J.H., an
intellectually and mentally delayed young woman, was continuously raped by
Clarence Garcia for 16 months while in his supposed care,” said the victim’s
attorney Kate Ferlic.
●KRQE-TV in Albuquerque reports on still another
lawsuit against the New Mexico family police agency and a private foster care
agency. The case concerns a young boy who was
hospitalized for two months,
during which he told doctors he had been physically and sexually abused by his
foster parents. He told doctors they pulled his tongue and kicked him.
The claims were later
substantiated by CYFD, according to the lawsuit. … [A lawyer for the child’s
grandparents] said before the child was placed in foster care, his grandparents
offered to take him in, and even underwent a home evaluation by CYFD personnel.
“Why was this boy not placed with his grandparents when at least,
theoretically, CYFD prioritizes family placements over non-family placements,”
he said.
● WAFB-TV in Baton Rouge, La., tells the story of the children of Diamon Bell:
Bell
first came to WAFB last year when her daughter was molested by another child at
a different foster home, all while she’s been fighting to get all of her
children back. She believes because she came forward to report what’s been
happening, she’s faced retaliation from the DCFS case worker on her case. [A
source inside DCFS]… confirms the mother’s story. The source says they have
also witnessed the DCFS worker threatening to “never let her get her kids
back.” …
That child finally was returned –
after being abused in still another foster home. But other children
remain in foster care:
The
source … says it is past time this mother got her kids back because they
believe the children have been harmed far more in the state’s care than they
ever have in their mother’s care. The source says the children have faced
sexual, physical, and mental abuse and everything in between.
● In Augusta County, Va., WHSV-TV reports:
Jessica Duff, 44, of Raphine,
pleaded guilty to child sexual abuse charges in Augusta Circuit Court and was
sentenced to five years in prison. The victim of the abuse was Duff’s adopted
daughter.
●KOLD-TV Tucson reports that
A
man was sentenced to more than 200 years in prison for the sexual abuse of a
child in his care. That is in addition to a current sentence 53-year-old
Francisco Medina is serving from different cases. Medina is a former
foster parent who was convicted of six counts of sexual conduct with a minor
under the age of 15, all class two felonies. He was also convicted
of molestation of a child, also a class two felony and a dangerous crime
against children.
● KTVF-TV
in Fairbanks, Alaska, reports:
A
60-year-old Fairbanks man will serve 30 years in prison after forcing underage
boys to have sex with him, sometimes giving the minors cigarettes or alcohol as
part of the exchange.
Paul
Michael Worman pleaded guilty Tuesday to first-degree sexual abuse of a minor
as part of an agreement reached between his attorney, Emily Cooper, and State
Prosecutor Kathryn Mason.
Trooper
investigators discovered in 2020 that Worman had been a state-licensed foster
care provider for more than two decades until allegations arose in 2017, saying
that Worman was grooming the minors for sexual favors.
|
● KOVR-TV in Sacramento reports
that
|
|
|
A former foster parent in
Rancho Cordova was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison for sexually
assaulting multiple children and being in possession of child pornography,
prosecutors said Friday. Kevin Baker, 43, pleaded no contest to four counts
of committing lewd acts on a child and possession of child porn back in early
October, the Sacramento County District Attorney's Office said. Prosecutors
said Baker admitted to having multiple victims and befriending children with
the intent of molesting them. … |
|
● From KJRH-TV, Oklahoma:
“A literal nightmare,” Alexis
Fridenberg called her childhood foster, and ultimately adoptive, home. At
four years old, Fridenberg said she was placed into a home of “career” foster
parents. “That is what they got out of it, the money,” she said.
…
Alexis said her adoptive
brother, the parents’ biological son, Sammy Fridenberg, sexually assaulted her
daily from age 7 to 18. He now faces multiple charges. Court documents show
other relatives have come forward alleging abuse as well.
● Fox13 Seattle reports that
The
State of Washington has agreed to pay $15 million to three sisters who were
sexually abused for years at a foster home in Centralia, according to attorneys
representing them. The three women allege the abuse spanned between
1990 and 2000, starting at ages four, five, and six, and lasted until they were
teenagers. Two teenage sons of the foster parents are accused of carrying out
the abuse.
From KXII in Oklahoma:
A Pontotoc County man,
who created a foundation to help children in foster care, is accused of child
sexual abuse. According to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation
(OSBI), Michael Priest, 72, was arrested for allegedly committing several acts
of sexual assault towards a child.
●
From VT Digger:
A former state Department for Children and Families
employee has been charged with sexually assaulting a youth she was working with
when she was employed by the department several years ago.
● From the Tampa Free Press
|
The
Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office has arrested a youth counselor at A
Kid's Place of Tampa Bay for allegedly engaging in sexual acts with a minor
resident. |
● From The Columbian:
A Kelso man formerly employed as a Child Protective
Services caseworker is facing charges of third-degree child molestation and
communication with a minor for immoral purposes after he allegedly sexually
abused a child under his care.
And finally…
● In New Jersey where New Brunswick Patch reports on a $25 million settlement for a victim of abuse
in one foster home after another in the 1990s, they’ve done the one thing that
makes it less likely that the same will happen today: They’ve significantly
reduced the number of children they take away.
