Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

DCF leader compliments Kids Central on progress

But the state agency wants the child welfare consortium to improve child placements.

By RAGHURAM VADAREVU and MARY SPICUZZA
Published August 11, 2005

WILDWOOD - The future of the troubled private consortium that oversees child welfare in Citrus, Hernando and three neighboring counties seems to have brightened.

Department of Children and Families Secretary Lucy Hadi said Wednesday that Kids Central Inc. of Ocala has shown "a lot of progress. We are very optimistic."

Making her first visit to District 13, Hadi said Kids Central still had to improve in such areas as adoptions and recruiting foster parents.

Kids Central has been under intense scrutiny since January, when Hadi told a Senate committee in Tallahassee the consortium had "significant performance deficiencies."

The consortium was one of many formed statewide as part of Gov. Jeb Bush's plan to privatize state social services. The thinking was that private groups based in communities could do a better job than government agencies.

Since it took over child welfare last July, the consortium has struggled with mounting caseloads, limited funds, falling adoption rates, filing required paperwork in the courts and submitting proper invoices.

DCF officials also criticized Kids Central in a Feb. 2 "cure letter" for failing to conduct the mandatory visits to abused and neglected children in its care. DCF had originally given the consortium a March 18 deadline to meet requirements in the letter, but it was later extended. DCF had warned KCI that it might terminate its $83.9-million contract with the consortium if it didn't meet the performance requirements.

Over the past few months, Kids Central has improved in those areas, DCF officials have said.

In April, Kids Central received top honors in the state for visiting children in its care. The month before, it had visited all of the roughly 4,400 children receiving services, with the exception of runaways.

DCF officials also said Kids Central had made significant progress in organizing data about its finances, as well as other requirements in the "cure letter," including changing its board membership to create a community board and submitting monthly invoices on time.

Hadi, who visited Kids Central in Ocala later Wednesday, said that district officials and the consortium may make an announcement as soon as Thursday about whether Kids Central had met the requirements of the "cure letter."

During her visit in Wildwood, Hadi toured the new processing center for applications from the state's Economic Self-Sufficiency program. ESS services include food stamps and temporary financial assistance for families. The district has pioneered cost-cutting efforts in its ESS programs by creating the processing center to handle applications for public assistance services.

It then equipped various sites where people can apply for assistance using computer kiosks at locations like senior services centers, hospitals, food pantries, health departments, churches and religious institutions.

The new centralized processing center has also attracted national attention from social service providers, who recently toured the Wildwood office.

Hadi praised DCF staffers and seemed equally impressed by Kids Central's progress.

"We're real optimistic about where you're headed," Hadi told its board members. "The light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter."

She said she expected the state to provide an additional $3.6-million to DCF's District 13, one of the lowest-funded districts in the state, to help improve child welfare services. In addition to Citrus and Hernando, District 13 covers Marion, Lake and Sumter counties.

"The good news is that you're moving in the right direction," Hadi said. "That's exciting."

Raghuram Vadarevu can be reached at rvadarevu@sptimes.com or 564-3627.

[Last modified August 11, 2005, 00:42:17]