State: Faking records not new at DCF

Faking records not new at DCF

Neither is the agency's failure to check on children in its care. These issues take on new meaning in light of Rilya Wilson's case.

By CURTIS KRUEGER, Times Staff Writer

Neither is the agency's failure to check on children in its care. These issues take on new meaning in light of Rilya Wilson's case.

In the baffling disappearance of Rilya Wilson, a caseworker has been accused of falsifying records, and the Department of Children and Families is struggling to explain why it failed to check on her properly for more than a year.

This tragic scenario, Gov. Jeb Bush and DCF Secretary Kathleen Kearney have said, amounts to an isolated incident.

But caseworkers who falsify records and fail to check on children are not new concerns for the Department of Children and Families. They are well-known problems the agency has battled for years.

Documents from DCF and other sources show:

DCF child welfare workers have been cited at least 14 times since 1999 for falsifying records in their work on behalf of children considered abused or neglected, according to DCF Inspector General's Office records reviewed by the St. Petersburg Times. One worker phoned in a false abuse report about a child she wanted to adopt.

DCF fired a family safety worker in Pinellas County in January 2000 for falsifying his application, but only after the agency's inspector general criticized his supervisors' inaction. The report said DCF managers "failed to investigate" and prepared paperwork that "implied that the staff were not concerned about the alleged falsifications."

An October 2000 review of 18 child welfare cases in Pinellas County stated that "in well over half the cases, reviewers noted that children and parents were not being seen in the home on a monthly basis. In some cases, months had passed without any documented contact with the family." These cases were handled by Family Continuity Inc., which works under contract for DCF in Pinellas and Pasco counties.

Several current and former employees of the child welfare system have testified in a lawsuit that counselors routinely falsified reports of visits to foster children, attorneys said in Palm Beach County last week.

DCF recently agreed to a $5-million settlement in the case of six children who were physically and sexually abused in a Broward County foster home. Their attorney says DCF made no documented visits to the foster home for 20 months.

These issues are taking on new meaning as police and caseworkers search for Rilya, the 5-year-old Miami girl who disappeared while in the state's care.

Gov. Bush said during a visit to Brandon this week: "Falsification of documents, I hope, is isolated. But now, if it isn't, it is a felony in our state." He was referring to a law he signed this week that makes it a crime for workers to falsify child welfare records.

As to caseworkers visiting children at least monthly, Bush said, "We've made progress on that but last month, for example, in April, 8 percent of the kids weren't seen for a variety of reasons, and we need to improve on that."

Rilya disappeared after state workers removed her from her mother and sent her to live with Geralyn Graham and her sister Pamela. Geralyn Graham, who says she is Rilya's grandmother, said someone claiming to be from DCF removed the girl from their Miami home last year.

DCF says no records indicate this and they don't know where Rilya went.

But this much is clear: DCF was supposed to send a caseworker to visit Rilya at least monthly and make periodic reports to a juvenile judge. In reality, Kearney has said, "The casework, there is no doubt, was abysmal." The caseworker reported to a judge that Rilya was doing well, even though she had been gone for months.

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman blasted the department's handling of the case, and Kearney acknowledged she "had every right to be exceptionally angry."

Now, the hastily assembled Governor's Blue Ribbon Commission on Child Protection is looking into the handling of Rilya, and Chairman David Lawrence Jr. has specifically said he wants to determine if hers was an isolated case.

The St. Petersburg Times reviewed summaries of 14 cases in which DCF workers were cited for falsifying records since 1999. The documents show a variety of false information has crept into DCF paperwork that can help decide whether children continue to live with their parents. In some of the cases, the worker clearly was accused of deliberately providing false information; in others, it's not clear whether the misinformation was intentional.

In the southwest Florida DCF district, a worker was accused of having "misused the abuse hotline by calling in a false abuse report involving a child she was trying to adopt."

In another case, a family safety counselor in the Tampa Bay area was accused of falsely stating that an individual had been arrested and charged with child abuse. In another, an employee falsely stated the circumstances of an individual's previous drug arrest. In a Central Florida county, a counselor resigned after having "falsified records regarding visits with clients."

Each of the 14 cases involved falsifications in child welfare work.

Fourteen falsifications among tens of thousands of cases since 1999 are not enough to indict an entire department. But they show that falsifying records is a recurring issue. New child welfare workers are given ethics training that urges them to honestly and accurately document all their visits, said John Mullins, director of the Professional Development Center in Tampa, which trains workers hired by DCF and other agencies.

Child experts say it's important to visit foster kids monthly, but it isn't always done. University of Pennsylvania professor Richard Gelles said large states such as Florida often see only 50 percent of the children under their supervision.

Local DCF officials say the figure is much higher. "We've been running in the neighborhood of 90-plus percent," said Ron Zychowski, deputy regional director of a six-county DCF district that includes Hillsborough, Pinellas and Pasco counties.

Family Continuity says it has improved its visitation rate since the audit. "It's something we stress very highly. Children have to be seen," said spokeswoman Elaine Fulton-Jones.

In Brandon this week, Bush visited the offices of Hillsborough Kids Inc., which is taking over DCF's foster care work in the county in phases. In a meeting with Bush and other officials, Eva Horner of the Children's Home Society, a partner in the effort, said no one should think a monthly visit is the standard to shoot for. Children should be seen more often, she said.

"At least twice a month," she said. "That's kind of the standard that we're trying to set here."

-- Information from the Associated Press was included in this report. Times staff writer Curtis Krueger can be reached at krueger@sptimes.com or by calling (727) 893-8232.