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The agency asks a court to end restrictions keeping it from publicizing information on missing children.
©Associated Press
August 30, 2002
ORLANDO -- Gov. Jeb Bush gave the troubled Department of Children and Families approval Thursday to try loosening confidentiality restrictions that hinder finding missing children.
The governor directed the agency to file a request in state court seeking an end to restrictions that forbid the state's child welfare agency from publicizing information about youths missing from its care.
"We should provide all the information that will help the children be found," Bush said at the Dependency Court Improvement Summit in Orlando. "It is important to regain the confidence of the people of the state, and one of the ways to do it is to be much more transparent."
The request, which was filed in Leon Circuit Court, will hasten the search for about 500 children missing statewide while in the agency's care, Bush said.
According to the DCF petition, information for release would include names, dates of birth, physical descriptions, photographs (where available), dates last seen, circumstances surrounding the disappearances and department efforts to locate the children.
"Beyond that, all other information in the dependency file would remain confidential," said John Slye, deputy general counsel for the DCF.
Some missing DCF children already are posted on a Florida Department of Law Enforcement Web site, along with other missing youths. DCF officials maintain the postings do not violate confidentiality because the children are not identified as being in state care.
Slye said a hearing before Judge Nikki Ann Clark could be as early as next week.
Bush also asked DCF Secretary-designate Jerry Regier to work with the governor's and attorney general's offices and the FDLE to review and make recommendations on current confidentiality laws by Oct. 1.
Bush, outgoing DCF Secretary Kathleen Kearney and Regier attended the conference.