DCF chief: 'We failed Courtney'

Key fault was delay in reporting her missing, he says.

By MELANIE AVE
Published June 27, 2007

Very little went right for Courtney Clark inside Florida's child protection system.

From the time the former Pinellas County girl entered foster care Feb. 21, 2006, through the nine months she went missing until she was found safe in Wisconsin on June 14, 2007, one foulup followed another and another.

And another.

Florida Department of Children and Families Secretary Bob Butterworth on Tuesday blamed his agency and its private subcontractor, the Sarasota Family YMCA, among other agencies, for numerous "unconscionable" errors in the case.

The hunt for the missing toddler triggered a murder investigation in Wisconsin and a call for child welfare changes in Florida.

On Tuesday, Butterworth released his agency's 33-page internal review.

The most critical mistake: A caseworker waited four months to report the 2-year-old missing to local law enforcement.

The girl was taken from foster care in September by her birth mother, but her caseworker did not report her missing to the Lake County Sheriff's Office until January.

The report noted problems in five main areas and revealed for the first time that unnamed caregivers in the foster home where the girl was kidnapped had received two past allegations of sexual abuse.

The review also found that top DCF and YMCA officials knew of her disappearance for months yet did little.

"There was no sense of urgency, " said Butterworth, at a news conference in Tallahassee. "We failed Courtney Clark."

The report calls for:

- A zero tolerance policy for failing to follow missing children procedures.

- A DCF review of cases where in-state children have not been visited by a social worker every 30 days as required. If a child is identified as missing, the child will be reported to law enforcement immediately.

- A requirement by the YMCA to "specifically address" problems highlighted by the case.

- The creation of legislation to force law enforcement to immediately take reports of missing children even in cases in which a parent is suspected of taking a child.

Lee Johnson, executive vice president of the YMCA, said his agency is putting together a plan that addresses problems and ways to fix them.

The review paints a disturbing picture of the state's handling of Courtney Clark, where workers and administrators failed to follow numerous rules, overlooked warning signs of abuse, relied on e-mail communications and got stumped by bureaucratic red tape.

The report says the child bounced among four foster homes between February and April. It also questions why the child was reunited with her mother in April without a proper assessment of risk to Courtney. After they were reunited, a caseworker observed cuts and bruises on the girl and caught the mother lying about her care.

It also faults the YMCA for failing to place Courtney's newborn sister under state supervision.

An alarming mistake in the report revolves around the placement of the girl in foster care the second time.

In July, the Seminole County Sheriff's Office placed the girl with family friends, Cynthia and Mark Martell, upon her mother's second Florida arrest for fraud in July.

Sheriff's investigators did a home study on the Martells, who are not licensed foster parents, that showed a 1995 and 2003 allegation of sexual abuse in the home.

No abuse was substantiated in 1995, but in 2003 there were "some indicators." The report did not provide many details of the allegations and did not identify the alleged perpetrator.

Because the Sheriff's Office did not address some information about the abuse allegations, the YMCA and a Pinellas County judge okayed the girl's continued stay with the Martells and was unable to "accurately assess whether this was an appropriate placement, " the report states.

The Martells could not be reached for comment.

The YMCA also failed to ask the agency closest to Courtney in Lake County to supervise her care, the report states.

The report cites mistakes by two different caseworkers, Judith McInerney and Carmen Caballero, who were employed by YMCA subcontractor Directions for Mental Health in Clearwater.

McInerney quit the agency but Directions president Tom Riggs said Caballero is an experienced caseworker who continues to work for the agency. Caballero, who delayed reporting the girl missing, declined to comment through Riggs.

Riggs said he is undecided about punishing Caballero, but believes mistakes in the Courtney Clark case "will result in "substantial opportunity for system improvement."

DCF contacted the YMCA nine times from October to December asking why Courtney had not been visited every 30 days as required by a caseworker, the report says.

"Documentation does not reflect that ... DCF e-mails prompted the Sarasota Family YMCA to take appropriate action, " the report says.

The search to find the girl resulted in the arrest of the girl's mother, Candice Farris, 23, also known as Candace Clark, two other adults and a 15-year-old girl.

The four are being held in the Columbia County, Wis., jail on charges of first-degree murder and child abuse after police discovered the 15-year-old girl's dead mother buried in the backyard and her severely abused 11-year-old brother hiding in a closet of the home where they all lived.

Courtney and two younger sisters were unharmed and are now in the care of Wisconsin child welfare.

DCF's internal review of the case is the second so far. Last week, the Sarasota Family YMCA released its own review of the case that placed much of the fault with two caseworkers, called for more training and increased efforts to find missing children.

Butterworth said even though 20 nonprofit agencies directly oversee foster children since privatization began in 1997, DCF is ultimately responsible.

"We're saying to everybody involved in the system that we are not going to tolerate children going missing, " he said. "We are not pleased with how the system is working."

Melanie Ave can be reached at (727) 893-8813 or mave@sptimes.com.

Fast Facts:

What's next

Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Chief Judge David Demers will hear a petition by the St. Petersburg Times and the Florida Department of Children and Families at 3:30 p.m. Monday requesting all child welfare records in the Courtney Clark case be opened.

The DCF Inspector General's Office is expected to complete its own review of the case in the next two weeks.

DCF contractor, the Sarasota Family YMCA, will write a plan to address problems that occurred with the girl's case in the coming weeks.

[Last modified June 27, 2007, 00:21:52]