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Records show child deaths despite warnings
©Associated Press
November 5, 2002
MIAMI -- At least 37 children died of abuse or neglect over the past five years despite warnings to Florida's child welfare agency that they could be in danger, a newspaper reported.
All 37 died after their cases, or cases involving another at-risk child in the same family, had been opened 30 days or more previously by caseworkers at the Department of Children and Families, the Miami Herald reported Sunday.
Some cases had been open a year or longer, according to the newspaper's analysis of DCF records.
"This is a terribly broken system, and no action is being taken," Charles Mahan, a University of South Florida child policy professor, told the newspaper. "If nobody intervenes within 30 days, the problem will get worse and worse."
Administrators at the agency acknowledged mistakes in the handling of the cases. But Jim Spencer, who oversees the DCF's death review process, said the errors were "isolated."
Child welfare investigators have heavy caseloads, with urgent, new reports reaching their desks all the time, Spencer said, and if a case remains unresolved, it's not because it's being ignored by investigators.
The documents showed that in several DCF abuse or neglect investigations, caseworkers did little in the weeks before a child died. The assigned caseworker never found the family in some of the cases, the newspaper said.
DCF workers were disciplined or fired in five of the death cases.
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