Opinion: The death of a DCF runaway

The nightmare scenario everyone hoped to avoid has now played out with the worst possible result: A teen runaway, missing from the state's child-welfare system for months, has turned up dead, the apparent victim of a homicide. The tragedy should steel state authorities in their resolve to track down all children supposedly under state care -- no matter their age or technical status -- and motivate lawmakers to improve services and placements for Florida's troubled youth.

Police this week identified a body, found floating in an Everglades canal, as that of a 17-year-old Pompano Beach girl on the Department of Children and Families' list of missing foster children. The girl, in and out of state care for years, was last seen in April, when she ran away from a DCF office as her caseworker was trying to find her a new foster home. She was apparently shot to death.

The girl was not the first runaway from foster care to meet her fate on Florida's streets. But the timing puts her death in a brighter spotlight than might otherwise be the case. Just last month, Gov. Jeb Bush created a law-enforcement task force, following intense criticism that DCF has lost track of hundreds of kids who have run from foster care or been taken from it by relatives or friends. Though Bush's move was applauded, advocates have criticized the task force for classifications that assign too little value to finding older runaways.

The girl's death is a sad reminder that even older runaways are vulnerable. State officials this week took a good step by posting on the Web the names and more details of many runaways. Finding them should continue to be a state priority.

That's not always an easy task, especially where, as in this case, the teen had severe emotional problems and a chronic tendency to flee. This girl had been arrested for battering her elderly grandmother and had a long history of flight. While DCF did not ignore its duties entirely -- it found and returned her to foster care at least once before and took many steps this last time to locate her -- it unfortunately failed to file the appropriate paperwork to have the girl's profile posted on the Web, according to the state's Missing Children's Information Clearinghouse.

As important as the state's tracking efforts are, the sad reality is that teens will continue to run from foster care until foster placements become more attractive than life on the street. Therapeutic slots for troubled teens are minimal, and older foster kids who need mental-health and other services often go lacking, as a private consultant to DCF recently confirmed. Fixing the state's "missing kids" problem will take a concerted effort to help foster children while they are in the system, not merely post their pictures once they are gone.

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