DCF revokes license, closing adoption agency
A judge had already ordered that KidzFirst Adoptions cease operations in the state because of complaints about not fulfilling contracts or returning fees.
By MARY SPICUZZA
Published September 19, 2005
KidzFirst Adoptions Inc. of Tavares has been ordered to shut down.
The Department of Children and Families revoked the license of the Lake County child placement agency after questions were raised about the way KidzFirst conducted business.
"If you don't follow the rules, and you don't follow the guidelines, we're not going to let you operate," DCF District 13 spokesman Al Zimmerman said. "Plain and simple."
DCF's District 13 serves Citrus, Hernando, Lake, Marion and Sumter counties.
The DCF's administrative complaint for revocation of license listed a series of concerns about the agency.
The complaint said that KidzFirst was entering into contracts with a prospective parent for placement and adoption of a child, taking the prospective adoptive parent's money but not placing a child in the home, and failing to return the fees, costs and expenses.
The DCF also cited multiple concerns, such as failures to complete monthly post-placement visits and provide post-placement services to adoptive parents, failure to maintain adoptive home records and failure to provide the department with the agency's audit.
Those are all violations of Florida law.
Last month, Lake County Circuit Judge Mark J. Hill granted a permanent injunction that "Kidz First Adoptions, Inc. is hereby permanently enjoined from any further operation as a licensed child-placing agency in the state of Florida."
The Aug. 17 court order said that KidzFirst executive director Diane Rosenthal must transfer all open case files to two other child-placing agencies as designated by the court within 24 hours, and turn over all open and closed case file records to the DCF by 5 p.m. that day.
The court had first issued an emergency temporary injunction against KidzFirst in July.
The phone number listed for KidzFirst on Alfred Street in Tavares was not in service, and Rosenthal could not be reached for comment.
Jerri A. Blair, the former lawyer for KidzFirst, did not return calls from the Times. It's unclear how many successful adoptions the agency performed.
The DCF canceled its contracts with another Lake County private child welfare agency, the Lake County Boys Ranch, several years ago.
That was after state reviews found that Lake County Boys Ranch and DCF had both failed to protect 6-year-old Kayla McKean, a first-grader who was killed in an abusive home in 1998 and inspired a wave of child protection reform.
-- Times researcher Carolyn Edds contributed to this article.
Mary Spicuzza can be reached at mspicuzza@sptimes.com or 352 848-1432.