Phoenix Homes refuses to absorb Lifeway's children

Lifeway fights to keep license
McLaughlin, Sheila. Cincinnati Enquirer, March 21, 2007, pg. A1.

In reversal, foster care agency appeals Ohio's actionThe private foster care agency that placed 3-year-old Marcus Fiesel with the foster parents who killed him has decided once again to try to stay open in Ohio.

Lifeway For Youth, a $15 million business that oversees more than 300 foster homes in Ohio and operates in five other states, filed an appeal with the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services Monday to challenge the recommendation to revoke its foster care license in Ohio.

In January, when Ohio started the revocation process, Lifeway founder and director Michael Berner vowed to resist. Then in February, he said the agency would not oppose the revocation.

But since then, Phoenix Homes Inc., a newly licensed nonprofit foster care company, has pulled out of negotiations to absorb Lifeway's Ohio foster homes.

If the appeal decision goes against the New Carlisle-based company, Lifeway can appeal again in court, said Dennis Evans, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.

For now, it's business as usual at Lifeway but with a depleted staff.

"We continue to serve the children that are placed with us in our homes and continue to give good service to those children," Lifeway spokeswoman Pearl Cline said Tuesday. About a third of Lifeway's staff has resigned since January, Lifeway officials said, leaving the company with about 100 employees in Ohio.

Lifeway's future has been iffy since Jan. 17, when the state said it would revoke its license following an investigation into Marcus' death at the hands of his foster parents Liz and David Carroll Jr. of Clermont County.

The state found 147 violations in 40 Lifeway foster care cases, 27 of them in the Marcus case.

Marcus, a developmentally delayed boy from Middletown, died after he was bound in a blanket and strapping tape and left in a closet for two days. The Carrolls are in prison after being convicted of murder.