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Letter to the editor

Foster system thwarts success

Caseworkers, foster parents and children all complain of a slow, chaotic system.

By MELANIE AVE, Times Staff Writer
Published November 10, 2007

Barbara Perlick became a foster care caseworker because she loved children.

But after struggling for four years to oversee 60 abused and neglected children in Pinellas County, Perlick quit in frustration and fear.

"I was scared I was going to have a child die," said Perlick, 54, who now works as a therapist. "It's horrible to have that feeling."

A recent state review concluded caseworkers in Pinellas County are overworked and turnover is too high. This week, the Florida Department of Children and Families dispatched a special team of experienced caseworkers to help Pinellas caseworkers get their workloads under control.

The DCF also is seeking a new agency to handle private foster care in Pinellas and Pasco counties after deciding not to renew its contract with the Sarasota Family YMCA.

Pinellas caseworkers routinely must manage 40 children at a time, double the recommended amount. Last year, turnover among caseworkers averaged 86 percent.

That affects the county's 3,500 foster children. Every time a child gets a new caseworker, studies have shown, the child's stay in the foster system grows.

"We value caseworkers," said Alan Abramowitz, a DCF administrator helping to get the Pinellas system back on track. "We need them to stay. The children need them to stay."

The Times asked several foster parents to describe their experiences with the system. The DCF could not comment on the individual cases because of confidentiality laws.

* * *

Candy White has been a foster parent for 36 years.

She's never seen morale among caseworkers so low, nor the manner with which children are handled to be so chaotic.

White, 60, is currently caring for a 12-year-old girl with cystic fibrosis who takes 16 medications a day. Because the disease is life-threatening, it is common for hospice workers to visit children to help them cope.

A hospice worker has been assigned to the girl, White said, but he can't meet with her until he gets paperwork approving his visit from the Sarasota Family YMCA, also known as the Safe Children Coalition.

"We've been trying to get this paper signed for two months now," said White of St. Petersburg.

The girl's brother lives in another foster home. He also wants to visit, to make sure she's okay. But White said his guardian ad litem has been unable to get his caseworker to approve the visit, despite 14 phone calls, all unanswered.

"Nobody knows what's happening because of the turnover," White said. "They don't know the kids. They don't stay around long enough to know the kids."

White said one of her former foster children, a 5-year-old boy, had seven caseworkers in two years, including three in the last two months he was with her.

"It just needs to be fixed desperately," she said. "If not, we need to go back to orphanages. Somebody needs to take care of these kids and somebody's got to oversee the care of these kids."

* * *

Kay Laurain, 59, agreed to care for a 5-year-old boy in June after his mother was accused of abuse. The mother was a high school friend of her daughter's.

The state considers Laurain a "nonrelative" caregiver, meaning she is not a licensed foster parent. She is not paid to care for the boy, who arrived with two shirts, two pairs of shorts and a pair of shoes.

"We thought it would be short term," said Laurain, a married St. Petersburg grandmother and mother of two grown children. "It's turned into a nightmare."

She said she's been trying to reunite the boy with his 21-year-old father in Missouri, who only recently found out the boy was his. Laurain said she and the boy's father have been dealing with missing paperwork, unanswered phone calls and much caseworker confusion.

When workers told her they could not find the father's mailed paperwork, Laurain asked him to fax it to her so she could get it to the right people.

"I had to fax it eight times to three different numbers before they received it," she said.

All the while, the boy lives in her home, she said, when he could be with his father, grandparents and extended family in Missouri. The boy's father, while young, is ready to care for the boy, she said.

"He said, 'Mrs. Laurain, I want my son,'" she recalled. "'If I would have known about him, I probably wouldn't have left Florida. He's my son, I don't want him in foster care.'"

* * *

In the last four years, about 30 children have moved through Nancy Avalone's North Pinellas home.

She's seen children lingering in foster care longer than they should and others who have been reunited with their birth families way too quickly.

Avalone, 41, faults the entire "antiquated" child welfare system, not just the Sarasota YMCA.

In the case of her adopted daughter, now 3, the girl came into her home as a foster child at age 1.

"She was very agitated," Avalone said. "She was crying, not sleeping through the night."

So Avalone called her caseworker and asked if the girl had been tested for HIV. She had not.

A test was positive. "I of course was devastated," Avalone said.

She followed through with the girl's adoption and pushed for the testing of all foster children of high-risk mothers.

The reply: It's not realistic because there would be too many children to test.

"I think one of the things that goes on," Avalone said, "is that people actually forget it's families and children that we're dealing with."

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

FAST FACTS

What's next

-In the next few weeks: The Florida Department of Children and Families will send out "an invitation to negotiate," asking agencies to submit proposals about how they would handle foster care services in Pinellas and Pasco counties. At least one group, Clearwater's Eckerd Youth Alternatives, has expressed interest.

- By February or March: The DCF will select a new agency to do the work.

- By July 1: The new agency will take over, the day after the Sarasota Family YMCA's contract expires.

[Last modified November 10, 2007, 00:13:25]