Category Archives: Child Welfare News

Another Shining Example of Alabama’s Failed DHR

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Another Shining Example of Alabama’s Failed DHR

While Rob and Kathey Raskin are ongoing advocates in the fight for rooting out DHR corruption in the cases of foster home scams, the systemic issue of DHR incompetence and abuse runs deeper than this. Alabama is notorious for its various examples of incompetence and dereliction of duty when it comes to upholding its oath to protect the children of its state. In this article, we see yet another lawsuit that names specific officers of DHR as directly responsible for the death of eight-year-old Lebrawn Rankin back in 2018.

According to Attorney Tommy James, a multitude of complaints from the boy’s school and neighbors indicated that he was emaciated, wore dirty diapers, and had cockroaches crawling out of his clothes. This triggered an investigation by the DHR, who are responsible for following up on all child welfare cases at the state level, foster care or not. The investigation led to the child continuing to stay with his mother, now indicted for the child’s death less than two weeks after the visit.

While DHR said there was nothing out of the ordinary, the police investigation found the boy’s lifeless body in a dilapidated apartment that stunk of urine and feces, some of which was smeared on the wall. The mother’s indictment, while perplexing and counterintuitive, especially given the fact that she’s the boy’s natural mother, gives way to the sheer disbelief in the failure of legally bound, duly authorized representatives of the state to follow through on their investigations, whether out of the goodness of their heart or not. At the very least, this is how they pay their bills.

If the DHR cares so little about the welfare of its children across the board, whether foster or otherwise, it follows that each member will be subject to criminal and civil investigational and consequences until the nature of the problem is finally revealed. Unless and until that day comes, you can count on the dedication of Robert and Kathleen Raskin to follow up on these cases. Stay tuned for more stories like this and more ways to learn your rights to fight this problem in your state.

Whether you or someone you know, or have seen, or even have the remotest suspicion about, contact the Raskins to learn the quickest and most effective way to take action. These children need all the help they can get.

For more info about this case, click here.

https://www.al.com/news/2021/08/alabama-dhr-failed-disabled-starved-8-year-old-who-died-in-2018-attorney-says-children-are-dying-needlessly.html

A System in Disarray: The Child Welfare System in Nebraska

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Nebraska seems fine at putting their children at risk. Over ten years ago the state decided to privatize their child welfare services, but – surprise, surprise – the entire system fell apart. It took YEARS to fix what happened while the double-pronged approach also had them cleaning up their image in the public eye. As with children in the system, stability is vital to a successful, persistent, and constantly replenished system. But the goodwill they earned at cleaning up their mess didn’t seem to mean much to the State because now they’re shaking things up again to the detriment to the people they serve. We’re Robert and Kathey Raskin, and we’re here to tell you all about what we’ve learned.

If It Isn’t Broke, Don’t Fix It

The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has selected a new, out-of-state private child welfare provider for Douglas and Sarpy Counties. The current provider, PromiseShip, had high scores for service quality and management. Our research has found that HHS awarded the contract to St. Francis Ministries.

St. Francis’ history in Kansas has drawn ire from Nebraska lawmakers and child advocates. These concerned citizens cite concerns about foster placement stability, case manager workloads, and costs. They bid $196 million over five years, far lower than PromiseShip’s proposal of $341 million. That’s a big red flag to us, because you get what you pay for. Caveat emptor: one of the oldest clichés in the book, yet it always seems to be viable to the situation at hand.

 

The Debate

A spokeswoman for Saint Francis claims the organization “will meet all expectations outlined in our Nebraska contract and conform to all applicable state regulations and laws.”

Former CEO of the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services Kerry Winterer points out that “changing contractors at this time based only on cost and ignoring PromiseShip’s experience and success in providing these services, not to mention its scoring better on the substantive criteria, is a mistake and puts our children at risk.”

The state has an enormous responsibility to get this right. Child welfare service is complicated, as you know from the reporting that we’ve done over the years. It demands a high level of competence. The potential for corruption is high within the industry and the children lose.

KMTV gives you a rundown on the changes here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzj8bJjo_28

Indiana Foster Kids Fight Back: A Pending Class-Action Lawsuit Was Filed Against Indiana Department of Child Services, Governor Holcomb

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We’re Robert and Kathey Raskin, and we’re delighted to learn that the children in Indiana’s child welfare system are fighting back against the apathy that they’re in. We’re proud of these patriots standing up and claiming what’s theirs: a fair and just examination of the fouled-up system that they’re in here. Their allegations stem from their opinion that Indiana is failing in its duty to protect more than 22,000 children in the state’ child welfare system.

We’ve written about the state of affairs that makes up the welfare system for children in Indiana in the past. We always try and follow up on previously reported locations to provide timely updates on what’s happening out there. We’re not a one and done blog. We stay on top of everything that concerns what we see as the lethargy and corruption that plagues the system worldwide. The entirety of the child welfare system deserves a closer look. We reveal what we can here.

Failure to Protect the Kids

The lawsuit alleges that the nine children – unnamed for their privacy – felt that the state put them in inappropriate, unstable, or overly restrictive settings. They represent a class of 22,000 children who are in DCS custody, as well as an ADA subclass of thousands of children with disabilities who are wards. They didn’t receive the necessary support services and medical care. Their medical care, mental health, and physical needs are hampered by irregular DCS assessments and the lack of available resources.

Furthermore, they weren’t given meaningful case management resulting in delayed or no services and little oversight of a child. All these factors – among many others – allowed children to languish in foster care for years. Eventually, they were reunified with their primary caretakers, adopted, or aged out of the system.

Statistics Mean Nothing Without Tangible Results

The Child Welfare Consulting Group criticized the agency’s disorganization in a 2018 audit. The agency claimed to have made changes – too little, too late, we say – including a 17 percent decrease in total cases since January 2018 and a 14 percent decrease in out-of-home placements. They claim staff turnover is down 18 percent, and attorney caseloads are lessened as well. They added 25 positions since January 2019.

But the kids are smart. Their lawsuit points this out by alleging DCS appears to focus more on improving statistics. They still failed to properly investigate allegations, or they would send children home too quickly and without necessary services and aftercare. They demand that Indiana transform its foster care system, including acquiring properly trained caseworkers to meet the needs of foster children.

Here’s more information about the lawsuit below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVao03k2dmM

When Will People Stand Up for the Kids in Arizona?

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There’s a foster bed shortage in Arizona. We’re Robert and Kathey Raskin and we want to tell you more about this alarming development. There aren’t enough cribs for infants either. There are over 21 private agencies operating in central Arizona. While it’s true that foster beds are always in demand, the shortage is more prominent because they’re simply unable to find foster families. There are checks and balances in place. For example, Child Crisis Arizona is one shelter in Mesa that handles the overflow of intakes when the Department of Child Safety can’t locate a foster bed. Yet, there was no room in their facilities to handle the multitude of children coming through the system. Strangely enough, of 200 foster homes that agency gives licenses to, none of them had open beds.

Drop in Applications

Something’s wrong statewide when there’s a significant drop in new foster-home applications. DCS has been offering $200 gift cards to current foster parents who send referrals their way. All they must do is complete foster-care training and get their license. A private agency named HRT offers a $75 bounty for successful referrals. It’s sad that you have to incentivize the life of a child to get people interested.

There are more than 1,200 foster homes with on hold licenses, meaning they’re unable to continue being foster locations. This is offered when families want to take a break, go on an extended vacation, or dealing with other extenuating circumstances that prevent them from being fully committed to their duties. While understandable, DCS should stay aggressive and on top of their game, knowing that lulls in availability are possible. We implore the State of Arizona to take a deeper look at their current system.

Streamline the Process

It’s been said that it typically takes four to six months for prospective foster parents to complete the needed training, background checks, and home inspections. So why wouldn’t they have done their research and realized that the DCS preference for moving older children out of group homes and into foster placements is more than likely what caused the kink in the pipeline? They should have had the foresight to know that when you focus on one area, another becomes lax. We should always account for bumps in the road when it comes to our children. Arizona has let them down.

Arizona is making plans to fix the system but let’s see how far they get. Stop DHR is on the lookout for improvement and once we see results, we’ll tell you more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKjfZAk5SFo

A Different Way of Doing Things: Big Data is Coming for Child Welfare

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We’re Robert and Kathey Raskin, and if this is your first time here, then you’re probably intrigued about what we are trying to do here. We try to write daily, so come back in the next few days for a fresh post. Now, we’re continually talking about the overhaul of the child welfare system across the United States. There’s systemic abuse of the order by its workers, the people utilizing the service, and local governments. It needs a complete and total overhaul. A lot of the methods can be part of the 21st century by embracing the resources provided by the so-called big data niche of tech.

But First, the Facts

Roughly 7 million children come to the attention of child welfare authorities every year in the United States; one in three will be the subject of maltreatment investigations in their lifetimes. This data is what we shed light on every time we hear about another new case. Emily Putnam-Hornstein – a USC professor of social work – thought that there had to be a better way to protect kids. Frequently there are fraudulent or non-emergency issues submitted to the child welfare system.

She noted that the system has lots of calls of potential abuse and neglect, but the investigators find it was a misunderstanding. We are wasting resources that could be on the kids who get lost in the system. Since we don’t have the people power to sift through the noise, she hit on the way to identify and protect children more efficiently.

Pennsylvania is Onboard

Allegheny County, Pennsylvania connected with Putnam-Hornstein to develop a predictive analytics tool for the Office of Children, Youth and Families to help screen allegations of child abuse and neglect. That Pittsburgh-based agency is under scrutiny for failing to investigate kids who died from maltreatment.

Thousands of child maltreatment referrals were studied to help create an algorithm that would assign a “risk” score to every family reported to Allegheny County child protective services. The process eliminates the biases and randomness of human decision-making. The algorithm considers a handful of factors and computes the family’s risk based on dozens of determinants from public databases: use of mental health and drug treatment services, criminal histories, receipt of government benefits, and so on. The human screeners get a say, and there are checks and balances to make sure nothing falls through the cracks.

American Enterprise Institute has further insight into how big data could work to revolutionize the dated system in place and to help remove the corruption that exists that we’ve reported on for so long.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iYNb5UvMP0