Who's Watching The Watchers

by capper

What's it going to take before people start worrying about the abused and neglected children in Milwaukee County?

I have pointed out before that the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare isn't doing their job in protecting these kids that have already been maltreated.

Now we see that the Milwaukee Child Welfare Partnership Council, which was formed to oversee the BMCW, can't even oversee themselves.

I can't imagine why a County Board Supervisor, or a private citizen couldn't make any of the meetings, but even if they had a valid reason, then they should resign and let someone who gives a darn take their place. Without oversight, the BMCW will continue to try to get away with murder, sometimes literally.

And for the conservatives that might be worried that the gubmint is only trying to take away their God-given rights to abuse children, let me point out that this Council is part of an agreement to settle a huge class action suit, and failure to follow through could end up costing the taxpayers millions of dollars, like Sheriff Valvoline Clarke is costing us with his failure to live up to his end of the bargain, regarding the overcrowding at the Milwaukee County Jail.

But it should be enough just to want to keep kids from further abuses.

Milwaukee Children Are Still Not Being Protected

by capper

Ironically, at the end of Child Abuse Prevention Month, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported today that the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare still isn't doing its job. Today's article focused on the Bureau's inability to provide services to families in which one or both of the parents have mental health issues. This is not surprising, as that the Bureau has a long history of not providing services to families, which needs to be done for the children to be reunited with their families, or to find a permanent alternative home. These services are required by state and federal laws, to protect everyone's rights.

The Bureau has historically done such a poor job of protecting our children, and an even worse record of responding to these problems, that three years ago they created the Office of the Milwaukee Ombudsman for Child Welfare, which was to oversee their performance. But they aren't even doing their job, and shuffle the majority of the cases that they're supposed to review back to the Bureau.

The sad part is that the system is so fouled up that I don't know if there is an easy fix anymore. I used to advocate that the system should be returned to Milwaukee County, which, while not perfect, did a much better job than what's been happening the last ten years. Unfortunately, I can no longer advocate for such an action, and still remain ethical. Given how badly Walker has destroyed the transit system, the parks, mental health services, corrections and the courts, I would be even more afraid for the children's well being if Walker would have control of the system. And I would be remiss if I did not point out that Walker was part of the legislature when this fiasco was slipped into the 1996-7 state budget.

The only realistic solution to start solving things would be to finally fire Denise Revels Robinson. She came to Wisconsin, after ruining Minnesota's child welfare system, and has been in charge for the entire ten years of the Bureau's existence. And despite repeated reports of failures to protect her wards, and just running a totally ineffective system, she issues a statement that she is aware of the problems, but feels that the Bureau has improved and continues to work to improve. But it never does.

It should also be noted that another person who has had her finger in the mix, from introducing the whole ill-planned fiasco to the budget, to being on the "advisory panel" that is supposed to be monitoring things, is Senator Alberta Darling. But she has already admitted that she has done a lousy job of things. She should be sent packing as well.

BMCW Enables Sex Offenders

by capper

I've already spoken about how the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare has let down the children of Milwaukee County, and that I put the blame with the fact that it is privatized. I still stand by the position that by privatizing the foster care system, it has increased the cost to taxpayers, decreased services to the children and their families, and have made the situation worse.

In an article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel this past Saturday, we find that the Bureau is now allowing sexual predators to continue preying on children. They are doing this by not doing their job:

In November, the girl said she was tired of the abuse and reported it again, to someone who is not identified in records. This time it was reported to police, who reported it to the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare. The criminal complaint alleges Lee-Kendrick had sexually abused two of the girls for years. The third said she was sexually assaulted when she was at a sleepover at one of the other teens' homes in January.

The social worker in the April case told authorities that a supervisor directed her to close the investigation several months before the recent charges without contacting police.

She said the supervisor told her that the closure was "in accordance with the administrative decision to close this case, as well as numerous other cases, during a time when (child welfare) investigations of referrals were purged due to overload," according to records filed in Milwaukee County Children's Court.

Closing the case without completing the investigation and by willfully failing to contact the police is in direct violation of BMCW policy and the law. Not only should have the worker contacted police, the child should have been interviewed by a trained professional (the Bureau had a contract with Children's Hospital to do these, and they were very good), but the worker should have made the effort to contact the alleged perpetrator, not just wait for him to call him or her. Even if he refused to speak with the worker, the other two things should have been done, at a minimum.

When I worked for Milwaukee County in the foster care system, and their was a large influx of referrals regarding the possible neglect or abuse of children, we were not allowed to close cases or screen them out. All workers would be assigned to do the investigations, not just the intake workers, regardless of their job classification.

When the State took over and privatized the system, this option of bringing in extra workers to help with the overflow of referrals was also removed. Now, only state workers can handle the investigations, and if there are too many referrals, as we can see from the article, they just close them.

Who knows how many children are being left in neglectful and/or abusive situations? We do know that there has been a massive audit of these cases, but now we must wonder if we can even trust the results of the audit.

I still encourage people to contact their State Senator and State Representative and encourage them to either deprivatize child welfare in the county, or better yet, just give it back to Milwaukee County, with sufficient funding this time, so that we can take care of our own children.

Why Aren't We Doing This?

by capper

In an article in yesterday's paper, there is a report about a study comparing the differences between foster care systems in the Midwest. Specifically about kids aging out of the system.

In most states, including Wisconsin, kids that are in foster care are cut loose on their 18th birthday. If they haven't graduated from high school by then, the foster care order can be extended for up to a year or until they graduate, whichever comes first.

Illinois takes a different approach. They provide support for their foster kids until the age of 21 years, which is closer to the norm of a child that was raised in their natural parents' home. The study found this:

According to the report, youths who remain in state care until age 21 are 3 1/2 times more likely to attend college and more than twice as likely to complete at least one year of college than those who leave care at 18.

Each additional year in state care is associated with increased earnings of about 17%, the study says, and remaining in state care until age 21 is associated with a 38% reduction in the risk of becoming pregnant during late adolescence.

In other words, for spending a little money now, taxpayers can save a lot of money later on not having to pay for incarcerations, additional insurance for the kids of foster kids, and other associated costs to society. It also helps these foster kids have a better chance of succeeding and becoming more productive members of society, not to mention that it keeps from totally abandoning kids that have already been abandoned, emotionally, if not physically, by their natural parents.

And for the conservative readers, yes, this type of support can be and is offered by private agencies. Off the top of my head, I can think of Pathfinders and Walker's Point Youth & Family Center, which already offer similar programs, with wonderful success rates.

Yet besides what would seem like a no-brainer for politicians from either party, nothing is being done about this. It helps children who have already been abused and/or neglected, it saves money for the taxpayers, and it makes the community a better place. The only reason I can think of for our leaders' failure to act is two-fold. One, social services are rarely popular among the conservatives, no matter how much they may actually save. Second, foster kids usually don't have enough money to be politically influential.

So, why isn't the state-operated Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare providing these services? And if Governor Jim Doyle and his state agency can't see past their noses and campaign coffers, why isn't Scott Walker taking action on this? After all, it would benefit Milwaukee County citizens and taxpayers as well.

When Will They Fix Foster Care?

by capper

The Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare, the privatized foster care system overseen by the State, has been in the news a lot lately, and not for good things. Now in today's JSOnline is this story:

UPDATE: Infant death possible homicide

The death of a 5-month-old boy, who was left unsupervised with his mentally ill mother by a visitation worker employed by the state-run Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare, is being investigated as a homicide, police said today.

The child died about half an hour after the visitation worker left the infant without supervision, police said. An autopsy was being performed Saturday to determine the cause of death.

The death is the latest in a series involving child welfare workers and comes on the heels of a state report released last month that accompanied a plan to beef up programs to keep children at risk of abuse or neglect safe, after a review of more than 600 active Milwaukee child welfare cases.

The review was ordered in May after the Journal Sentinel reported the suffocation death of a toddler, Alicia Burgess, who was left in her home by child welfare workers despite warnings by two doctors that the child and her brother were in danger. Raul Arteaga, 34, the boyfriend of Alicia's mother, is charged with first-degree reckless homicide.

In February the Journal Sentinel reported that a 7-month-old baby starved to death as child welfare workers regularly stopped by her Milwaukee home to check on an older child who had been abused. The bureau had been warned of concerns about the baby's health, but caseworkers reported that the parents refused to let them check on her conditions.

In the latest case, police said the 29-year-old mother lost custody of the infant in July because her mental illness interfered with her ability to care for the child. The baby was then placed in foster care. On October 19th, a niece of the woman was granted custody of the infant by Milwaukee County Children's court and the mother was granted visitation rights, police said. They said they did not know if the visits were supposed to be supervised or unsupervised.

Police gave this account of the events leading up to the baby's death:

The 24-year-old visitation worker picked the infant up from the niece's house at
9:45 a.m. Friday for a visit at the mother's apartment in the 2500 block of W. Wells St. that was to last from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. She told police that she was only supposed to supervise the mother's visit with the infant for the first half hour and the last half hour of the visit and left at 10:30 a.m.

At 10:45 a.m. a mental health social worker who knew the mother was having a visit with the child called to make sure it was going well and was told by the mother that everything was fine. That worker told police that she could hear the baby "cooing" in the background and that the mother was coherent.

At 11:10 a.m. the mother called the mental health worker back and said something
was wrong with the baby and the worker called 911.

Police said they did not know where the baby was when the fire department rescue
squad arrived, but that there was some water in the bathtub.

The mother told police that she overdosed on medications, passed out and indicated that she had left the baby in the bathtub.The mother, who police said suffers from an undisclosed mental illness, was being held at the Milwaukee Mental Health complex.

I understand, even though I disagree with, the right's desire to privatize anything and everything. The thought is that it would save money, although I have not seen any credible proof of this.

But even if this argument, some things should not be done with the bottom line being the driving concern. Some things, like taking care of our children. There is no way this child should have been left alone with this mother without knowing whether she was stable enough to care for the child. Apparently they knew she wasn't, or they would have someone staying for parts of the visits, or checking up on her.

UPDATE: In an update story, MSJ is reporting that the court ordered unsupervised visits. The still does not absolve the Bureau, as that the article also states that the workers never spoke with neighbors, who were aware of the situation. If they had done so, they would have been able to suspend visits and take the issue back to court.

At least there are some reason to hope. When I see stories like this one, I know not all is lost, and that some people still get it.

Alberta Darling: Even I Don't Like The Job I've Done

by capper


As I had noted previously, in 1996, Alberta Darling, along with her fellow Republicans, at the marching orders of then-Governor Tommy Thompson added a clause to the budget bill, taking over the child welfare system in Milwaukee County. Their rationale was that, even though independent audits had shown the foster care system to be grossly underfunded, that they could do a better job at running the system than Milwaukee County had.

In 1998, the state took over, creating the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare (BMCW) and began to privatize the system. By the end of 2001, they had it all but completely privatized, with contracts to no less than five different agencies. They also increased the budget for Milwaukee County's child welfare system by some $35 million. At that time, the standard payment to a foster parent of a child less than three years old was $292 per month.

In this morning's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, there is an article that reports the payment to foster parents has skyrocketed up to $317 per month. That is $25 per month, or a .o9% increase, in six years. Not exactly a great big lot of help.

Now, I will admit that I don't have children myself, but I did work in the child welfare system. I know that the cost to raise a child is pretty high. It becomes higher when the child has been abused and neglected, as that child will have some serious emotional and sometimes physical issues that need to be contended with. There is the need for special medical equipment, extra time is needed for meetings with social workers, attorneys, advocates, doctors and other professionals that would not be in the life of a healthy child, and there is the damage that can occur when an emotionally scarred child acts out.

And, based on conversations that I have had with people that are still working in the system, foster parents are not getting a lot of support from BMCW. Their requests for extra services are ignored, their complaints fall on deaf ears, and they are often left with an inexperienced worker, or no worker at all.

Foster parents do one of the hardest jobs in the world. They take in someone else's child that has been neglected, physically abused, and/or sexually abused, and they give it a loving home, nurturing and an affection that is totally alien to what they have had previously experienced. They don't do it for accolades, or money, or any reason other than they love children.

So, where is all that extra money going? Well, there is the administration of all these different agencies, and their own spending issues, including $9,000 for a conference table. There is also a faulty computer system, the lawsuits, and the ongoing internal audits done by the state to tell itself there are no problems, even though everyone else can see them. Oh, and there is the inefficiencies of the private agencies.

The article goes on to report that State Senator Alberta Darling, the same person who helped give birth to this monster, and is on the advisory board, which is supposed to be overseeing BMCW, due to all of its problems, takes this position:

Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) says she supports that increase - and more in the future. "We are really significantly behind," she said. "We are spending millions and millions of dollars on foster care, and some of that needs to be directed toward foster parent reimbursement."

Darling, who is a member of the advisory group to the state-run Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare, added that the state needs to come up with a 10-year plan to "redirect some of the money going to the bureaucracy into direct service on the line to foster parents and kinship parents."

She admits that there are serious flaws that are ongoing in BMCW, which she helped to create, and is supposed to be overseeing. In other words, she admits that even she doesn't like the job she has been doing. It should only be a matter of time before she is wearing a "Sheldon Wasserman for State Senate" button.

Abusing The Abused

by capper

In the early 1990's, a group of child rights advocates groups filed a federal law suit against Milwaukee County and the State of Wisconsin, stating that the rights of children in foster care in Milwaukee were being violated. The state tried to get out of the lawsuit, but wasn't allowed to. Then the county, the state and the advocacy groups agreed to have a private audit done of the child welfare system. The audit showed that Milwaukee County was not being fully funded in the state.

The state denied this finding and stated that Milwaukee was getting enough money, but that it was being mismanaged. In 1996, Tommy Thompson and some of his puppets (including Margaret Farrow and Alberta Darling) in the state legislature added an earmark to the state budget. This earmark stated that, effective January 1, 1998, the state would take over the child welfare system in any county with a population of more that 500,000. There was only one county that fit into that parameter-Milwaukee. Thus, the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare was formed. It had a starting budget that was more than $30 million dollars than what they allotted Milwaukee County when it ran the system.

The Bureau took over and immediately divided the county into five sections, and put up each section for bidding, as well as the adoptions and foster home licensing sections of the system. The county was able to win contracts for adoptions, licensing and two of the five sites. The other three sites went to three private agencies.

Over the course of the next three and a half years, Milwaukee County was slowly, but surely, forced out of the system, and it was entirely privatized. This is in despite of an audit that showed that the county was able to provide better care more efficiently and for less money. Many of the private agencies folded and/or merged with others to create new agencies.

Ever since the state took over, the same problems continue, and new ones have arisen. The only positive is that children are being adopted at a faster pace, but that is mostly due to compliance with a federal mandate passed by the Clinton administration. Otherwise, the children who have been abused and/or neglected continue to be bounced from home to home, abused in the foster homes they are placed in, don't receive needed services, and having their lives put on hold due to high staff turnover rates.

Now, in today's paper, there is a story of this continuing. The most alarming part of the article is that the number of foster homes available to these children have dropped by 78%. The article fails to mention why the drop in available homes, but common complaints from the past include the extremely low rate of reimbursement (just over $300 per month to feed, clothe and provide all other necessities) and the fact that the Bureau is not receptive or supportive when they are trying to deal with these troubled children. The lack of homes results in children being placed in unsafe homes, or in being bounced from home to home. These results only further traumatize the child, making him or her more difficult to care for.

These poor showings, without any real or substantive shows of improvement, continue year after year. Every year, after every more report, the state says that it is unacceptable and is going to change, but never does. It is time that we demand that the state either put forth a more serious effort to help our children who have already been failed by their own parents, or better yet, get out of the system and give it back to Milwaukee County, and let us take care of our own.


This demand should be bipartisan. Not only will it provide better protection for our children, it would put control back on a local level, and make more efficient use of our tax dollars.