Foster parents react to the Carrolls

Locals react to foster child who died while locked in closet
News Journal (Mansfield, OH)
August 30, 2006
Linda Martz

MANSFIELD -- Richland County foster parents said they were appalled to learn that a 3-year-old developmentally delayed boy died in Cincinnati allegedly after his foster parents left him locked in a closet while they attended a family reunion in Kentucky.

Liz and David Carroll Jr. were indicted by a Hamilton County grand jury Monday on charges of involuntary manslaughter and two charges of child endangering.

Authorities believe the child, left in a crib in a small closet with no food or water, just an electric fan, died Aug. 4 or 5 after temperatures rose to dangerous levels.

Deanna Livingston, of Mansfield, a 2006 Richland County nominee along with her husband Dave for Foster Family of the Year, said she can't see many mitigating circumstances, even if the couple was ignorant of how to work with a handicapped child.

"I'm sorry, but I can't understand somebody that would lock a child in a closet. To me, that's evil. You can't even think that way," she said. "I thought probably that's happened many times in that family, and they've just now gotten caught."

In Richland County, respite care for foster parents who temporarily need to arrange for someone else to take care of a child can be provided by other foster families -- either by calling children services or another foster family, she said.

And "tons of classes" are offered to foster parents on how to improve their skills in dealing with issues that come up with special needs children, Livingston said.

"You don't take a kid if you don't know how to work with them," she said.

Livingston and her husband regard foster parenting as important work. "If we can't take the children (to something) we usually don't go," she said.

Barbara Scott, a foster mother from Lexington who has had 61 children placed in her home, often on an emergency basis, said she believes that children service agencies need to work particularly closely with foster parents who take in special-needs children, to provide help and
support when challenging issues come up.

Many people enter into foster parenting believing that if they give love and a stable home, the children will thrive, Scott said. They don't realize some children need intensive levels of help and attention, she added.

Scott said she'd be cautious of judging others before she knows why something occurred. But the Cincinnati couple may not have realized, going in, how difficult it might be to deal with issues that come up with a child with severe developmental delays, she said.

"Obviously, it's disgusting that they did what they did -- and didn't just call somebody and say 'This is too much for us to handle," she said. "It's very obvious that they were overwhelmed."

Scott said she hopes the Cincinnati child's death won't put an unfair black mark on other foster parents who don't get enough credit for the positive work they do.

"There isn't a lot of positive portrayal of foster parents," she said. And despite public perception, "the money doesn't begin to cover the needs."

Melissa Gray, 18, "aged out" of the foster care system this year, but is still getting help from Richland County Children Services on her goal of going to college to get a degree in counseling.

Gray stayed in eight foster homes. While some of her former foster parents clashed with her over issues of control, she said she couldn't see anything nearly as bad as the Cincinnati incident happening with any family she lived with.

It could be that the Carrolls weren't equipped to take care of a special needs child, or "didn't have the patience" to deal with a challenging 3-year-old, she said.