Guest columnist: Family values aren't
high on DCF's priority list
By Janie Gould
guest columnist
November 20, 2005
Source: www.tcpalm.com
Picture
a little girl who is 7 or 8 years old. Give her a million freckles,
straight brown hair right out of Madeline and a smile that lights
up the world. Imagine her listening to Hilary Duff by day but
asking her mom to tell her Fluffy and Fido stories at bedtime.
Now imagine that the little girl has to leave her mom, who is
actually her foster mother, because the state Department of Children
and Families has decided to reunite the child with her older sister,
three years after the same agency decided the girls should NOT
live together. Imagine that DCF posted the girls' pictures on
the Internet in hopes of finding strangers willing to adopt both
children. Now imagine what a bureaucrat said when someone pointed
out that Lori had formed a strong bond with her foster mother:
"She can just learn to bond to someone else."
I'm
sure you've surmised that this is not fiction. It all started
four years ago, when Lori was 4 and Jessica was 8. Late at night
in September 2001, police officers and DCF workers were sent to
their home and woke Lori up. (Jessica was spending the night at
a friend's house.) Their mother and the mother's boyfriend had
been fighting again, and neighbors called police. Officers took
Lori to a foster home that night. Nobody told her why, so she
thought it was more punishment for riding her bike on the street
the day before.
DCF
later placed the girls with a relative in Fort Myers, and then
in two foster homes, before deciding to separate them. Jessica
was bounced from one place to another before ending up in what
DCF optimistically calls a therapeutic foster home. It was a dismal
private residence in a rough section of Fort Pierce, and Jessica
lived there for two years. DCF sent Lori to live with me in Indian
River County.
I had
just become a foster parent. The previous summer, at a meeting
of Hibiscus Children's Center new guild in Indian River County,
I learned that DCF had just awarded Hibiscus a contract to train
foster parents. I signed up for reasons that were partly altruistic
and partly selfish. I wanted to help a child, but also, as a 50-something
single woman, I was suffering the pangs of unfulfilled maternal
yearnings. So I took the 10-week course and received my foster-care
license.
1'll never forget the morning that two caseworkers brought Lori
to my home.It was Feb. 6, 2002. She was wearing her favorite green
dress (she wanted to impress me, the workers said), and had the
sweetest smile I had ever seen. Much later, she told me she smiled
to cover up being scared, because she didn't know whether I would
be "nice or mean."
Can you imagine being 5 years old (her birthday was in January)
and having two grownups take you to a stranger's house and tell
you this is where you are going to live ? I remember being surprised
at how quickly the case workers left. They took a look around,
handed me a file and were out the door.
During
that first year, Lori and Jessica visited their mother every week.
Their fathers were out of the picture,. I assumed the mother would
do what was necessary to regain custody, but she didn't. By late
2003, she had formally surrendered her parental rights, and I
was eager to adopt Lori. A DCF worker told me that it would probably
take six months.
Instead, it turned out to be a nightmare that dragged on unnecessarily
for 20 months. And all the while, Lori and Jessica languished
in the peculiar limbo that is foster care.
Because it has privatized many of its services, DCF gave the case
to Children's Home Society for pre-adoption work. A worker brought
me the voluminous application in January 2004, and I went to work
filling out forms. At our next meeting a month later, the worker
told me the "sibling issue" hadn't been resolved. So
I put the application aside, confident that the bureaucracy would
realize that Lori would be devastated if she had to leave me.
I knew also that a fully qualified former case worker wanted to
adopt Jessica and that she lived in Port St. Lucie, so the girls
could continue seeing each other regularly.
The bureaucrats started discussing the matter at- their interagency
"staffings." DCF's lead spinoff group, United for Families,
came to the table, as did Children's Home Society, Hibiscus Children's
Center, Family Preservation Services, the Guardian ad Litem and
others. They apparently talked about psychological reports and
spouted glowing generalities about sibling bonds. I say apparently
because no one encouraged me to attend, asked for my input or
sent me the minutes.
Most of the decision-makers had never met Lori , Jessica or me.If
they had talked to me, they would have learned a lot. For the
previous two years, Lori and Jessica saw each other only because
of my efforts. Lori and I picked up Jessica in Fort Pierce, and
the three of us went to lunch, the beach, or occasionally back
to my home in Indian River County for the day. I made sure the
girls celebrated their birthdays together and exchanged gifts
at Christmas. At the time, none of the salaried people in the
system gave a hoot whether Lori and Jessica ever saw each other.
But by August 2004, the bureaucrats had decided to reunite Lori
and Jessica and look for someone to adopt both of them. They assigned
a subordinate to monitor a series of short play dates between
the girls and come up with a report. They wanted something in
writing that would justify what they already planned to do.
I was terrified that I would lose Lori, and with good reason.
A case worker sitting in our living room told me that she probably
would have to do the unpleasant task, and that it would get ugly.
Knowing threats when I hear them, I realized that I needed an
aggressive attorney. I was fortunate to get the services of Charlotte
Danciu, a highly-regarded South Florida lawyer who isn't afraid
of DCF and its vast array of taxpayer-funded resources. In August
2004, Danciu filed a petition asking the court to overrule DCF
and let me adopt Lori. That wouldn't have been possible a few
years ago, when the courts had little authority over DCF, but
the legal climate was changing. About two years ago, the Florida
Supreme Court ruled unanimously against DCF in a Palm Beach County
adoption case. An appeals court shot down DCF on another issue
related to adoptions. Both rulings were good news for us, I thought.
But DCF refused to budge in our case. Before a hearing last fall,
DCF's local attorney huffed to attorney Michael Danciu, Charlotte's
brother, that the agency was going to turn my requested adoption
of Lori into a test case and "bankrupt" me. The state's
lawyer treated me as if I were a sleazy plaintiff trying to get
rich from a bogus slip-and-fall.
No one disputed my qualifications to adopt. I am well-educated,
employed ,honest and healthy. I have never been arrested. I provide
Lori with a stable home, and I love her as much as if she had
been my daughter since birth. During three and a half years of
home visits and licensing inspections by umpteen different people,
I signed a pile of reports. Only one time did I see an adverse
comment. It was from an Indian River County health inspector,.who
reported that my :tap water was three degrees too high. To borrow
a phrase from Dave Barry, I am not making this up.
We were scheduled to have a full hearing in December. Numerous
witnesses, including Lori's teacher, her former therapist and
the last foster parent who had cared for Lori and Jessica together,
waited in the Indian River County courthouse to testify in our
behalf. I was in the courtroom with both Dancius and a third lawyer,
who would have filed an appeal if necessary. But the DCF lawyer
had a stroke of luck. She learned that I hadn't completed the
adoption application, so her agency never rejected it.
Circuit Judge Paul Kanarek gave me time to complete the application,
which I turned over to the case worker in mid-December.. The bureaucrats
were supposed to meet after Christmas and make their decision.
When we went back to court in January, Kanarek asked the DCF lawyer
to disclose the decision. Incredibly, or maybe not so incredibly,
she wouldn't give him a straight answer. The judge had to practically
step on her to get her to admit that DCF had decided not to let
me adopt Lori, because they wanted to place both children together.
That gave me the right to a full hearing, which Kanarek set for
April 8.
Three more months went by, and DCF remained intransigent. Then,
a psychological report surfaced that further bolstered our case.
And, on April 4, four days before our hearing date, we delivered
subpoenas to 18 employees of the involved agencies. A day or two
later, DCF gave in and agreed to let the girls be adopted separately.
Kanarek finalized my adoption of Lori on Sept. 29. Jessica's adoption
by her new mom was postponed because of Hurricane Wilma but probably
has been finalized by the time you read this.
So, our ordeal ended happily, but not because of DCF. Quite the
opposite. Bear in mind that this agency has a national reputation
for incompetence. Remember the little girl in Miami who DCF lost
track of? How about the sibling group whom DCF allowed an Inverness
couple to adopt? The couple was later charged with starving and
torturing five of the the seven children.. Investigators said
the couple pried off the children's fingernails and toenails with
pliers and locked them in a closet as punishment for taking food.
DCF's record in protecting children is abysmal, and yet the agency
expended an untold amount of time and money, your tax money, on
our case. Where are the priorities?
November
is National Adoption Month, but DCF's adoption record is nothing
to brag about. The agency states that no child should be in foster
care for more than one year. Lori and Jessica were in limbo for
nearly four years. DCF's own statistics show that 4,642 foster
children in Florida are waiting to be adopted. Like Lori and Jessica,
37 percent, or 1,717, have been waiting more than three years.
Child-welfare officials explain away such statistics by pointing
out that older children are unadoptable because adults want infants
or toddlers. But Lori was a preschooler when she entered the system.
Now that she finally has the permanent home that every child deserves,
she's in the third grade.
I know the outcome would have been different if Charlotte Dancui
hadn't taken the case, and if the Guardian ad Litem's office hadn't
supported us. That program assigns volunteers to serve as the
child's representative in court. Doris Plym has been helping Lori
and Jessica for nearly four years as their volunteer guardian.
She knows the children better, and has more compassion and common
sense, than any of the so-called professionals in the child-welfare
agencies.
I will always be grateful, also, to the kind souls at our wonderful
Trinity Episcopal Church, who offered prayers and support , to
family members and other friends, including all those who do so
much to support Hibiscus Children's Center; and to three individuals:
my mother, Jean Gould, and Lori's godparents, Bob and Elaine Hameister.
Lori and I are blessed to have such a strong support system.
Sadly, thousands of kids out there aren't as lucky as Lori or
Jessica. I grieve for all children in foster-care limbo, and I'll
never understand why DCF wasted so much time on us. With so many
children out there needing good homes, DCF's agenda needs a thorough
overhaul.
Janie Gould, a lifelong resident of Vero Beach, works at WQCS
radio as oral-history facilitator. She is a local pianist and
a member of the Indian River County board of Hibiscus Children's
Center.
By
the numbers
•
Percentage of children waiting up to two years to be adopted:
41
•
Percentage waiting up to three years: 22
•
Percentage waiting more than three years: 37
Source:
Department of Children and Families
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