Facing complaints, Family Continuity Programs will hand off responsibility for thousands of Pasco and Pinellas children.
By CURTIS KRUEGER
Published March 5, 2004
The troubled foster care agency for Pinellas and Pasco counties is quitting under pressure, dogged by complaints of overcrowded foster homes, sloppy case work and failure to connect with the community.
Starting next month, Family Continuity Programs will begin handing over its job - sheltering and counseling abused and neglected children - to another agency familiar with foster care work, the Sarasota Family YMCA.
Transferring the $37-million-per-year state contract will be a complicated undertaking, affecting nearly 400 employees, 4,100 children and 440 foster families.
Lee Johnson, executive vice president for the YMCA, said he would work to make sure individual caseworkers still will deal with the same children, parents and foster homes - even though some of those caseworkers may wind up employed by other agencies in the two counties.
"We really believe we can (create) a much more involved community system with good providers, good stakeholders, good governance, and we're all about making that happen," Johnson said.
The state Department of Children and Families hired Family Continuity in 2000 after Pinellas and Pasco counties were handpicked to test an ambitious plan to privatize Florida's child welfare programs. The idea - now being implemented statewide - is that small, community-based organizations can better care for local children than a large and unwieldy state bureaucracy.
But DCF regional administrator Lynn Richard said Thursday that Family Continuity failed to perform. "They were not making the kind of progress that was necessary as of our monitoring in September," Richard said.
Among the problems cited by DCF: Overcrowded foster homes, children being moved repeatedly from home to home, "a fundamental lack of supervisory oversight," and insufficient paperwork. One child was given new caseworkers 12 times in 11 months, a Pinellas social service agency director said.
Richard said DCF had closely monitored those shortcomings and threatened to revoke Family Continuity's license. Family Continuity racked up a $2-million deficit as it increased staff to respond to DCF's complaints. It later had to lay off dozens of caseworkers.
"We've heard many negative things about Family Continuity since the beginning," said Pinellas-Pasco Public Defender Bob Dillinger, a member of the Pinellas Juvenile Welfare Board.
Hiring nonprofits like Family Continuity to do child welfare work was supposed to improve community involvement, but many said this agency actually became isolated and inaccessible. Parents repeatedly complained they could not reach their caseworkers.
Linda Osmundson, executive director of Community Action Stops Abuse in Pinellas County, worked with Family Continuity on a program called the Emergency Response Team, but even she couldn't get through to the former executive director.
"We really didn't have any access to Family Continuity. They didn't return phone calls," she said.
Jim Souza, president of Family Continuity's parent company, Care Development of Maine, said his company recently decided it would be best for all concerned to bow out. He said the decision came after many discussions with DCF, but DCF did not ask him to quit.
Souza said Care Development decided early on to give Family Continuity a measure of autonomy which, in retrospect, was not the best approach. "We made a decision to stay in the background, and we would do that differently," Souza said.
Another thing he would do differently: Push Family Continuity to work more closely with other local agencies. "It was not our intention in the first place that FCP should be the sole provider of services," Souza said.
The Sarasota Family YMCA is not as far away as Maine, but it's not in Pinellas or Pasco counties, either. The agency supervises foster care services in Sarasota, Manatee and DeSoto counties. It actually began this work before Family Continuity, and is regarded as one of the most successful DCF-funded child welfare agencies.
Johnson said he understands his agency has much to learn about Pinellas and Pasco counties, and said his staff will do everything it can to gain that knowledge.
Although Johnson said he would keep seasoned caseworkers on the job, "it's certainly going to be a different culture." He said the YMCA would schedule town hall meetings for the public and brainstorming sessions with Pinellas and Pasco social service agencies, to learn how to provide better service tailored to the two counties. Caseworkers will be asked to adapt and respond to those suggestions.
For Johnson, this is a familiar position. He worked for years at DCF, where he developed a reputation as an in-house turnaround artist. His bosses sent him in to serve as interim director for DCF in Daytona Beach, Orlando and Broward County, usually stepping in shortly after a crisis. He also helped set up a regional administration for DCF in the Tampa Bay area.
"I would call him and say, "Get your bags packed,"' said Larry Pintacuda, a former DCF assistant secretary for operations. "He would say, "They were never unpacked."'
Johnson said he intends to appoint directors for Pinellas and Pasco counties, and spend a lot of time himself in the area.
