Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

State outdoes most in foster child visits

TALLAHASSEE - Florida does better than most states at making regular visits to foster families to check on children's welfare, a federal report says.

The report by the inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services, set for release today, found that while Florida caseworkers regularly check up on foster kids, those in many other states don't.

Florida is one of 43 states that aim for monthly visitation of foster children - but one of only a few that come close.

In 2003, during nine months that federal officials studied Florida's visitation rate, state Department of Children and Families caseworkers made a monthly visit 95 percent of the time on average.

California made the monthly goal 86 percent of the time, and Texas, 75 percent. Some states did much more poorly. In West Virginia, caseworkers made the prescribed monthly visits 42 percent of the time on average.

Many states couldn't provide data on how well they were doing.

Linda Spears, vice president of communication at the Child Welfare League of America, said Florida's record improved in the wake of some high-profile cases where children fell through the cracks.

The most infamous was that of Rilya Wilson, who disappeared when she was 5. Her body was never found, but investigators think she was killed in late 2000, about 15 months before DCF officials realized she was missing.

Because of the issues they had to deal with in the Rilya case, Spears said, "This was one of those things where I think the agency said we are not performing at our best" and made changes.

[Last modified January 5, 2006, 01:17:09]