Review team warns YMCA

Improve foster care or lose contracts, agency is told.

By CURTIS KRUEGER and MELANIE AVE, Times Staff Writers
Published October 31, 2007

SARASOTA - Pinellas County needs to call in a "SWAT team" of caseworkers and managers to help its troubled foster care system, members of a state review team said Tuesday.

And Department of Children and Families Secretary Bob Butterworth said in an interview he is deciding whether to seek new bids for foster care work in Pinellas and four other counties.

That means the Sarasota Family YMCA now faces this: improve or lose $72-million in state contracts.

The state review team said the Sarasota YMCA - which oversees foster care in Pinellas, Pasco, Manatee, DeSoto and Sarasota counties - needs to quickly improve its performance in several areas or the panel could not recommend the contracts' renewal.

"We need some help ... and I don't mean a bunch of people standing around telling your staff what to do. I mean people who can come in and help," review team chairwoman Melissa Jaacks said in the meeting with the Sarasota YMCA's board of directors.

The review team's report says the Pinellas foster care system suffers from high turnover, high caseloads and a sense of crisis among workers.

Sarasota YMCA board members listened during the meeting and did not dispute the conclusions. YMCA board chairman Ronald Gelbman admitted that reading the report had been painful. But, he said, "This is not about us. It's about kids and families."

Butterworth established the review team because of a perception that the Sarasota YMCA had become a highly paid but poorly performing agency that recently made serious mistakes in its handling of two foster children - one who died and another who disappeared.

"I do want to make this clear," said Lee Haworth, chief judge of Florida's 12th Judicial Circuit and a member of the review team. "There needs to be a serious change."

Ed McBride, senior program manager for the YMCA in Pinellas and Pasco, said he's not exactly sure where the DCF would find additional workers but, "I'd love it if we could make it work."

Melanie Ave can be reached at mave@sptimes.com or 727893-8813. Curtis Krueger can be reached at ckrueger@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8232.

Fast facts

Sarasota Family YMCA key players

Carl Weinrich: president and chief executive.

Lee Johnson: executive vice president - social services division.

Christy Kane: senior vice president community-based care operations - Sarasota, Manatee, DeSoto, Pasco and Pinellas counties.

Ed McBride: senior community based care program manager - Pasco and Pinellas counties.

[Last modified October 31, 2007, 00:18:27]