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Archive for the ‘Adoption’ Category
A damage award settlement is being discussed in a case that’s shaken the Florida and New York social services arena for foster, adoptive and disabled children.
In “one of the most disturbing child welfare fraud cases in New York City in recent years,” Judith Leekin “used four aliases to adopt the children, who had physical or developmental disabilities, including autism and retardation, and later moved them to Florida. The children were caged, restrained with plastic ties and handcuffs, beaten with sticks and hangers, and kept out of school, according to court papers. An 11th child disappeared while in Ms. Leekin’s care and is presumed dead,” according to the New York Times.
Florida children’s rights attorney Howard Talenfeld is handling the case.
Florida wants its foster kids to find a home. During National Adoption Month, the state Department of Children and Families has launched an effort to help some 800 foster kids find permanent homes.
DCF Secretary David Wilkins launched the effort this week to get foster teenagers into permanent homes with loving parents. The issue is vital: Kids who “age out” or leave the state’s care when they become adults – and without having found foster homes – are at a greater risk of dropping out of school, being arrested or becoming homeless, according to a story in the Associated Press.
Read their stories on AdoptFlorida.org. Read the original news story here.
The ChildLaw Blog writes how “Echos of the Masha Allen case play out in a New York courtroom.” The editorial focuses on the story of adoptive parent Judith Leekin, and how details of her child abuse and the personal injury it caused disabled kids “share shocking similarities to Masha Allen’s second adoption.” The writer commented that, according to the New York Times…
“More than 30 years ago, a Queens foster mother was investigated and cited for scalding a boy in her care. But despite that finding, the city did nothing in the decades that followed to prevent the woman, Judith Leekin, from carrying out one of the most brazen and disturbing child welfare schemes in recent memory.
“The failure of child welfare officials to bar Ms. Leekin from the system after that 1980 episode is one of the most striking revelations in new court reports filed in a Brooklyn lawsuit. Ms. Leekin was arrested in 2007; the authorities determined she had adopted 11 disabled New York foster children using aliases, then moved to Florida, where she subjected them to years of abuse — all the while collecting $1.68 million in subsidies from New York City until 2007.
Read the entire story here.
The widely publicized child abuse case of Judith Leekin — and the personal injury it caused the children she cared for — has been portrayed in the media and by children’s rights attorneys as a significant breakdown in New York’s adoption system. Documents, which provide a look into her motives, are part of a 2009 civil rights lawsuit against the city brought in Federal District Court on behalf of 10 of those children (the 11th disappeared while in her care and is presumed dead), the New York Times wrote.
The Times reported, “The suit refers to the city’s child welfare system as ‘a maze of dysfunctional bureaucracy operating under unconstitutional policies and practices.’ It also charges negligence by three private organizations that had city contracts to handle some of the adoptions.”
Read the entire New York Times story of Judith Leekin here.
Amid budget cuts and tough times for Florida’s most vulnerable citizens, Florida Gov. Rick Scott has named his wife and First Lady, Ann Scott, to the role of Florida’s “Chief Child Advocate.” Her predecessor, Jim Kallinger, made great strides in raising adoptions and lowering the number of kids in state care. Statewide and in the Department of Children and Families, tidings are tough: Funding for children and social services is low – and dropping, and needs of its most vulnerable are high – and growing.
Ms. Scott has a significant role ahead of her in advocating for the state’s most vulnerable citizens: Abused, neglected and abandoned children who end up “in the system” as foster children or seeking adoption. Former state Rep. Jim Kallinger, appointed by Gov. Charlie Crist, held the role as a full-time employee. Meanwhile, oversight and lapses by the DCF have resulted in lawsuits, damage claims and significant awards.
(more…)
Should dependency hearings related to the case of Victor Barahona be open or closed? That’s the question posed by advocates, guardians ad litem and media attorneys – and now facing a judge this week in Miami. Lawyers were arguing whether to close or keep open hearings regarding the boy, who at 10 was severely abused earlier this year, along his twin sister, Nubia. Nubia died from her injuries.
Jorge Barahona, their Miami, Florida, adoptive father, was found with Victor in critical condition and Nubia dead in Jorge’s pick-up truck. Both were victims of alleged abuse. An independent panel later found that Florida Department of Children and Families case workers’ efforts in the Barahona case were shoddy and was the result of “fatal ineptitude.”
According to the Miami Herald, “Lawyers for the Guardian Ad Litem program argued before Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Maria Sampedro-Iglesia that the hearings should be closed to protect Victor.” Read the entire story here.
All Andrew Dolan and Suzanne Tyler wanted was a “forever family” when in 2009 they adopted foster children as their son and daughter via Family Support Services of North Florida. The couple soon discovered the boy and girl, now 6 and 8 respectively, had been in four foster homes and a failed adoption and suffered physical, emotional and sexual abuse — none of which was ever disclosed (as required by law) by the community based agency.
The boy punches his nanny. The girl threatens to kill her adoptive mother. Their savings have been depleted seeking care for the children.
The couple were in Jacksonville, Florida, Tuesday, filing a lawsuit that seeks money to care for the children, plus damages for pain and suffering. It says the agency failed to keep track of JD and WD, as they are named in the lawsuit, or advise the new parents of abuse in the foster homes, at least one of which later was closed, said the parents’ Jacksonville attorney, Brian Cabrey.
“My clients were told the reasons why that home was closed were unknown,” Cabrey said. “Records reflect that home was closed due to physical abuse on our clients’ children and/or other foster children.”
Read the entire story here.
Jorge Barahona, the Miami, Florida, adoptive father who was found with 10-year-old Victor Barahona in critical condition and twin Nubia Barahona dead in Jorge’s pick-up truck — both victims of alleged abuse — will be moved to Miami, a Palm Beach County judge has ruled.
The news follows a panel’s findings that Florida Department of Children and Families case workers’ efforts in the Barahona case were shoddy and was the result of “fatal ineptitude.”
Judge Karen Miller earlier this week approved moving Jorge Barahona to Miami-Dade County, where he will face multiple criminal charges. Read the entire story here.
The report is in from the panel investigating the death of Nubia Barahona, 10, and critical injuries to her twin brother, Victor (read the report here). An editorial from WPLG Channel 10 in Miami held no punches in calling for a total overhaul of the Florida Department of Children and Families for its inability to prevent abuse to children. The Palm Beach Post questioned the role of private lead agencies serving DCF — and requests by them to provide sovereign immunity protections that will cap personal injury damage claims by lawyers.
WPLG wrote how “…past failures have prompted changes at DCF, just not enough. A broken, bureaucratic system needs to be dismantled and staffed with people held accountable. Children’s lives depend on it.”
At the same time, Gov. Rick Scott is calling for deep cuts to DCF, and Secretary David Wilkins blamed issues on high turnover, during a hearing before state lawmakers.
The take-away is this: Our Kids, the lead agency responsible for the overall system, needs to be held accountable for permitting the adoption of Nubia and Victor Barahona. If CEO Fran Allegra does not admit fault, improvement will not come — and more children will slip through the cracks of this dysfunctional and unaccountable system. And more harm will come.
A task force empaneled to study the death of 10-year-old adopted child, Nubia Barahona, and the critical injuries to her twin brother, Victor, could not have been more direct in its assessment. They called the Florida Department of Children and Families’ oversight “a case of fatal ineptitude” and questioned the “quality of the services performed by Our Kids and its subcontractors. Our Kids of MiamiDade / Monroe receives about $100 million per year from DCF to perform contracted services.”
 Nubia Barahona Guardians, advocates, attorneys and others in attendance heard a scathing assessment. From DCF to the investigators it employs, the panel cited “a litany of bumbling by state child welfare workers,” noted the Miami Herald, and a host of “missed red flags” — any one of which should have set off alarms among the agency and its people. Read the entire DCF Report here.
Even Pete Digre, a DCF deputy, in apologizing for the agency’s woeful efforts to protecting the Nubia, said, “Our sorrow is compounded by the realization that there were many missed red flags and many missed opportunities that might have created a better outcome. The performance of our staff and community partners is completely unacceptable. Nubia did not receive the care, and prompt and urgent attention that each of us would have given our own children. As such, we failed miserably.’’
That about sums it up. Read the entire article here.
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- Miami Herald – Miami, Florida – December 30, 2011 - Barahona Judge’s Efforts to Ferret Out Leaks Detailed Court records released to The Herald document a judge’s efforts to identify lawyers or child welfare administrators she suspected of leaking secret material to the newspaper.
- Miami Herald – Miami, Florida – December 17, 2011 - South Florida Charter Schools Admit Few Special Needs Children From South Dade to the northern reaches of Broward County, only a handful of students with profound disabilities make it into charter schools, according to a Miami Herald / State Impact Florida analysis of student enrollment data. The trend holds true across the state, where 87 percent of charter schools don’t serve any students with the most intense support needs.
- Associated Press – State College, Pennsylvania – December 16, 2011 - Penn. Deputy Attorney General Cites PSU 'Inaction' A graduate student waited a day after allegedly seeing a child being sexually assaulted on Penn State's campus before telling his supervisor, football coach Joe Paterno. Paterno waited another day before calling the university's athletic director, who looped in a school vice president. "I think it's a sad, sad, sad day, when you think about all of these victims, and you saw the inaction by a number of supposedly important, responsible adults. And there's a lot of inaction in this case," Marc Costanzo, a senior deputy attorney general, said after the preliminary hearing.
- USAToday – State College, Pennsylvania – December 13, 2011 - Penn State Coach Jerry Sandusky Waives Right to Hearing, Will Face Accusers Former Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky waived his right to a preliminary hearing today, sending the case directly to trial at a later date.
- Palm Beach Post – Miami, Florida – December 9, 2011 - Barahona Records: Neighbor Says Jorge Barahona Was 'Super Paranoid' Jorge Barahona was given to paranoia and fears of conspiracies around him that he expressed to a neighbor, according to investigative materials released this week by the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s office, fears that may have led him to murder his adopted daughter and almost kill her brother, Victor.
- The Miami Herald – Miami, Florida – December 9, 2011 - Pleas by Nubia Barahona’s Family Went Unheeded — Until It Was Too Late Relatives of Nubia and Victor Barahona were convinced that the children were being abused by their adoptive father. But they couldn’t get anyone to listen. Nubia Barahona, 10, was found dead in the back of her adoptive father's pickup truck in Broward on Valentines Day.
- Associated Press – State College, Pennsylvania – December 8, 2011 - Ex-Penn State Coach Sandusky Jailed on New Child Sex Abuse Charges Based on 2 New Accusers Former Penn State University assistant coach Jerry Sandusky spent Wednesday night behind bars after new child sex abuse charges were filed against him based on the claims of two new accusers, including one who says he screamed in vain for help while Sandusky attacked him in a basement bedroom.
- Gainesville.com – Plant City, Florida – Mentally Disabled Man Forced to Stand on Ant Hill A 21-year-old worker at a group home was arrested, and the facility where he worked was later shut down after authorities said he forced a mentally disabled man to stand barefoot on fire ant hills as punishment for stealing money. Florida MENTOR's Ike Smith Group Home's license has been suspended. Florida MENTOR continues to operate other facilities throughout the state. The Department of Children and Families and the Agency for Persons with Disabilities are investigating.
- Orlando Sentinel – Orlando, Florida – December 3, 2011 - Orlando Mom Was Foster Parent to Hundreds of Kids Dorothy Pearl Johnson didn't have children of her own. However, as a foster parent for four decades, she mothered about 400 children. Johnson, 87, continued to nurture children until a few months ago, when her failing health forced her to stop. After battling leukemia, she died on Tuesday in the home on Trentonian Court where she had cared for hundreds of children as if they were her own.
- New York Times – New York – November 22, 2011 - Drugs Used for Psychotics Go to Youths in Foster Care Foster children are being prescribed cocktails of powerful antipsychosis drugs just as frequently as some of the most mentally disabled youngsters on Medicaid, a new study suggests.
- USAToday – State College, Pennsylvania – November 16, 2011 - Penn State Case Presses Others to Tighten Abuse Laws Lawmakers and university officials across the USA are moving quickly to tighten up rules on who must report sexual abuse on campus in the wake of the Penn State scandal.
Reuters – State College, Pennsylvania – November 13, 2011 - A Long History in Penn State Child Abuse Case It will not be so easy to wipe out the stain on Penn State's reputation from the alleged abuse and what critics see as a cover-up by university officials who were told that Sandusky was seen raping a young boy in a shower in 2002. The case has drawn comparisons to the child abuse scandals that rocked the Catholic Church, whose top officials are also accused of covering up child abuse over decades.
Forbes – State College, Pennsylvania – November 11, 2011 - Conrad Murray, Penn State and Why the Powerful Enable Evil After Dr. Conrad Murray was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Michael Jackson, the blogosphere, rightly, called him an enabler in a long line of celebrity enablers. Allegations that Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky raped a pre-teen boy in the college shower seem less shocking than the nauseating cover-up that follows.
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