Hamilton County is struggling -- and the children are at risk

Child welfare agency in crisis
Levy or not, insiders say, kids 'at risk'
Cincinnati.com, Oct. 30, 2011

Five years of budget cuts, mass layoffs and millions set aside to pay a potential fine for bad bookkeeping has left the agency that cares for Hamilton County's abused and neglected children frayed and - according to its social workers - at the breaking point.

The county is asking voters to renew a Children's Services levy on Nov. 8 that would bring in $39.1 million a year. It would cost the owner of a $100,000 home about $50 a year, the same as the current levy.

Last week, the Job and Family Services agency found itself the target of two investigations into the beating death of 2-year-old Damarcus Jackson, who had recently been in the agency's care. He's the third toddler in 10 months and the 10th in eight years to die despite intervention from Hamilton County social workers.

No one is saying Job and Family Services' budget woes led to those deaths, but an Enquirer examination of the agency - based on ride-alongs with social workers, public records, and an interview with the agency's boss - revealed an overloaded system that lacks oversight, support staff and the technology that workers need to do their jobs.

Even before Damarcus' death, outsiders and the agency's workers acknowledged that children's safety could be at risk.

In the last three years, the Children's Services division has seen a 48 percent decrease in staff, from 460 employees in 2008 to 240 today.

In 2010, those 240 employees answered 66,207 calls to the county's emergency abuse hotline and served 15,839 children. At any one time the agency is helping one in 13 kids who live in the county. Those numbers have skyrocketed, and now each caseworker handles up to 20 kids - almost double the number that a national advocacy group has recommended as best practice.

"Basically, we're all doing twice as much work with half the resources," said county social worker Myra Wheeler. "Something has to go. It's mathematics.

"I can't imagine how it couldn't be," that children are at risk, Wheeler said. "There are not enough hours in the day."

The United Way of Greater Cincinnati has warned that giving the agency less money "would create significant risk for the children of Hamilton County."


"We believe that further funding cuts simply cannot be sustained without jeopardizing the safety of children in the community."

But Hamilton County commissioners authorized less money anyway. The previous levy brought in $40.8 million a year; the one on the Nov. 8 ballot will bring in slightly less: $39.1 million a year.

Job and Family Services director Moira Weir said she "hopes" children aren't at risk. But she's overseeing a Children's Services division that will have a 2012 budget of $71 million - $4 million less than last year and $30 million less than it had in 2007.

That's if the levy passes. If it doesn't, Board of Commissioners President Greg Hartmann said, "it would be a crisis for kids."

"It would be a huge challenge to come up with that money; we don't have $40 million just sitting around," Hartmann said.

JFS isn't the only agency suffering.

In the last four years, Hamilton County has slashed nearly 23 percent from its operating budget, bringing it to $208.4 million for 2012.

The county desperately needs more jail space, a new crime lab, and is struggling to pay for the upkeep of the county's two professional sports stadiums.

An Enquirer/SurveyUSA poll of 1,200 county residents found that 72 percent would vote for the levy. And about half of those willing to vote for it said they would have been willing to pay more. There's virtually no opposition to the levy; a series of levy hearings earlier this year attracted only supporters.

Weir said she'll work with what she's given. But, she said, "We've cut everywhere we can.

"We can never close our door," Weir said. "If a child needs placement, we will place that child."

The Enquirer spent time last month with three case workers - one who responds to emergency abuse calls, one who works with the kids immediately after being taken from their caregiver and another who works to reunite kids with their parents.

These long-time social workers offered a glimpse at a job where a routine work day might mean photographing horrific abuse, traipsing through filthy homes, and dealing with irate parents. They said recent cuts have made their job tougher.

Mother figure, friend and advocate
Joy Swing has a degree in mental health and human services and worked with kids in the welfare system for 20 years.

Her job title is Hamilton County JFS intake worker. But to the 15-year-old Elmwood Place teenager she's trying to find a home for this September morning, she's a mother figure, friend and advocate.

The teen boy was removed from his mother's care at age 13 after he was found living in a filthy home without working plumbing.

This day she picked him up from the Clifton group home where he's been living and headed to JFS's headquarters in downtown Cincinnati for a meeting of everyone involved in the teen's life.

The goal: find him a permanent home.

The teen, in black tennis shoes, a T-shirt and gym shorts, talked in staccato tones.

Alone with Swing, he spoke in a high staccato voice, telling her about school (it's going well), life in the group home (boring) and his need for a winter coat and bus pass (he walks to school).

In the meeting, it's clear: Swing knows everything about the teen and about the case.

She nixed the idea of a teacher mentor, because although the teacher is a good role model, he likely doesn't understand the commitment a mentor must make. And she chastised his sister for putting the needs of her former husband ahead of her children and brother.

She reminds everyone: "He can be a success."

The job has gotten harder, she said.

In the early 1990s she saw dirty homes, kids left alone, and parents drunk or using marijuana.

"Now, we have kids with mental health issues, parents doing drugs they can't get off of and just really bad abuse cases," Swing said.

Too many cases, and out of date technology
Ahead of having to set the amount of money the levy would bring in, county commissioners paid the Bethesda, Md.-based TATC consulting $89,000 to look at the agency.

It found:

• Caseloads have skyrocketed - from 12.7 children per staff member in 2008 to 20.1 children last year.
  One social worker showed The Enquirer a list of her 55 cases.
• One national advocacy group, the Washington-based Child Welfare League of America, says social workers should have no more than 12 active cases per month.
• Out-of-date technology. After criss-crossing the county helping kids, social workers have to head downtown to desktop computers.

They're using their own cellphones; the provided ones are so old they're flip phones without keyboards. And they share cheap digital cameras, despite having to take abuse pictures that might be used to prosecute a parent.

The consultant recommended buying laptop computers, iPads and netbooks - computers they can use during home visits for data entry, reports and email.

The report said those tools could increase productivity so much it would be the equivalent of having an extra 20 to 24 full-time employees. Based on that, the county's Tax Levy Review Committee recommended the agency spend up to $750,000 on technology to "increase productivity" in the Children's Services division.

• Until last year, a crew of workers took kids to parent meetings, court, doctor's appointments, and to get basic things like a winter coats. That service was eliminated last year. Now social workers make those trips themselves, time that could be spent checking on other kids.

• There have been no raises in four years.

Hamilton County Job and Family Services' budget has dropped from $105 million in 2007 to $57 million this year; its staff reduced from 1,638 two years ago to 797 today.

In 2010 the agency stopped recruiting and training its own foster families, instead contracting oversight of them to outside agencies. The workers who had been recruiting, training and running background checks on foster families were shifted to more urgent work - investigating abuse and neglect.

The Children's Services Program is just one of four divisions run by Hamilton County's JFS department.

It is funded by the levy and with matching state and federal money.

The county JFS was re-accredited in May by the New York-based Council on Accreditation

The levy was first passed in 1981 and comes up for renewal every five years.

It has never lost.

In 2006, it passed with 68 percent of the vote.

Hamilton County commissioners set the amount of money the levy brings in.

Last year homes were re-valued, resulting in an overall decrease in values. As a result, the same level of taxation next year will bring in $39.1 million, about $1.7 million less than the levy brought in this year.

That also means there are fewer dollars that can be used to seek matching government grants.

"It was appropriate not to raise property taxes in the difficult economy we're in," said Hartmann, who wants people to vote for the levy. "It's fiscal responsibility applied to the levy."

Complicating Children's Services finances: the county has been setting aside levy cash that's meant to help kids.

Through public records, The Enquirer has learned that by the end of the year, Job and Family Services will have socked away $28.6 million dollars from the levy.

The agency says some of it is so they have cash on hand, but that they are also saving ahead of a potential penalty for irregular bookkeeping between 2000 and 2004 over how it spent federal money intended to cover foster-care expenses, said JFS spokesman Brian Gregg.

An eventual settlement could exceed $60 million, according to one county estimate.

Three separate agency reviews have suggested the county set cash aside.

Both a county-paid expert hired to review the levy and the county's Tax Levy Review Committee say saving dollars for the potential repayment of money to the federal government is a good idea.

And a private forensic accounting firm hired by the county also suggested JFS start saving for the eventual payout.

Other Southwest Ohio counties have not cut their children's services divisions as much as Hamilton County.

Butler County cut its agency's budget by $2 million, or 7.3 percent over the last five years.

The staff has dropped from 198 to 181 - an 8.5 percent drop. Most of the cuts were in administration; hiring has been frozen this year.

In Clermont County, the budget is actually up $1.2 million or 9.8 percent over the last five years.

They have 56 employees - two more than in 2007.

They do what she says, or don't get kids back

Don't let Myra Wheeler's 5-foot, 4-inch height fool you. When she confronts a pot-smoking mother or a mother who lets her boyfriend abuse her four kids, they're going to do what she says.

Or they won't get their kids back.

Wheeler, who has 24 years of experience, is a caseworker in the Children's Services division. That means she's the one who makes sure parents are doing what the court wants them to do. Getting kids back almost always hinges on her recommendation.

The day The Enquirer shadowed her, she had 21 cases. National guidelines suggest she should have no more than 17 cases at one time.

"I've never had that few," Wheeler said. "The lowest I ever had was 16, and that was for about five minutes."

The Child Welfare League of America recommends, depending on the type of case, that social workers handle anywhere from 10 to 17 families per one social worker.

"We can't decide not to help a child because we don't have enough workers; we do the best we can," Wheeler said.

One recent day she climbed into her Toyota Sienna with 201,000 miles on the odometer and a GPS stuck to the windshield - a make-shift office with coffee in the cup holder, her cellphone at her side.

She'll be in and out of it for the next nine hours.


She won't stop for lunch.

She drops in unexpectedly on a 27-year-old pregnant mom of four who had her kids taken away because she allowed her boyfriend to tie them to beds and beat them with sticks.

Groggy, having just woken up and wrapped in a blanket, she watches as Wheeler plays detective.

She looks in every room and closet, looking for clues the boyfriend is still around.

The woman admits the bad boyfriend has been giving her food and furniture, though she's quick to add she would never let him around her kids.

"You can make whatever choice you want. You're a grown woman," Wheeler says. "He still has access to your home, he's still a safety threat, and I will report that to the court. I'm just being honest with you."

The woman says nothing.

A child with black eyes, and a family living in filth...

Ground zero for most child-abuse complaints is 241-KIDS, named for the telephone number people are supposed to call when they suspect child abuse.

Budget cuts mean that these days, workers also respond to adult-abuse allegations.

Answering the phone: 10 social workers, who then follow up in person within 24 hours.

Jeff Fielman, an after-hours in-take worker, stops in at the 241-KIDS office Downtown at the beginning of his Friday night shift, then heads out with a list of allegations to investigate.

A Cleves 11-year-old with two black eyes; a Miami Township boy with cuts on his head; and a Northside family living in filth top his to-do list this warm evening.

Fielman has a college degree in criminal justice, worked with sex offenders at the county's juvenile detention home and served in the military. And, he's tall and muscular.

That's helpful when he's knocking on strangers' doors in the middle of the night. Or when a parent says, "No, you can't take my kid."

The first family isn't home - another worker will go back in the morning.

At the second home - where he finds Grandma baby-sitting the seven kids - he interviews the boy and his siblings.

He high-fives the boys and talks backyard football, all while asking important questions like where the cut came from and whether they felt comfortable with their mom and dad.

Turns out, it's just a football injury.

It grows dark, and addresses are difficult to read.

Fielman doesn't stop.

The father of the family accused of having a dirty home won't let him in.

But, at Fielman's insistence, the father does bring the three kids outside.

They are clean, talkative and report no problems.

Fielman confers by cellphone with a prosecutor, and the two agree: somebody can return in the morning when Dad was willing to show a social worker around.

"My only goal is to make kids safe who are currently in unsafe conditions," he said.

Governor's proposed budget cuts directly impact Ohio's most vulnerable citizens

Ohio Human Service Providers Speak Out Against Budget Cuts
McKee, Tom. WCPO-TV 9, July 2, 2009.

Human services providers in Southwestern Ohio went on the offensive Thursday, urging state leaders not to cut their funding any further.

The plea came as Ohio Governor Ted Strickland told reporters in Columbus that he has to trim another $2.4 billion in spending to balance the budget.

"My budget framework calls for resizing state government in line with the shrinking economy," the Governor said. "We’re doing that while minimizing the impact of our most vulnerable citizens – especially our children, the elderly and the disabled.”

Moira Weir, director of Hamilton County Job & Family Services, took issue with that statement. So did Job & Family Services directors in Butler and Clermont counties.

"For us, locally, I would say I disagree," Weir said. "We are mandated to do food stamps, child support, children’s services and adult protective services, but we can’t staff ourselves currently to meet the demands that are there.”

Her budget has been cut by $30 million in the past two years – and a similar cut is anticipated in 2010 and 2011. More than 350 employees have been laid off.

Yet, the demand for services continues to increase. For example, the agency served more than 55,000 people in June.

Long lines are the rule, rather than the exception at the downtown office on East Central Parkway, and it’s taking longer to get benefits to clients.

"We typically, prior to this, were able to process an application in 10 days," Weir said. "It’s taking us up to 30 days now to process an application and people need their services right away."

At Lighthouse Youth Services in Walnut Hills, president Bob Mecum watched the Governor online and worried what future cuts would mean for his agency.

"I can tell you that core services at Lighthouse are at imminent risk," Mecum said.

Lighthouse gets $8.6 million a year in state funding right now for residential treatment of abused children, keeping boys and girls out of the juvenile court system, plus assisting young people as they “age out” of welfare and foster care.

Much of that is through service contracts with Hamilton County’s JFS.

Right now, that funding is intact. But, Mecum says there hasn’t been an increase in four years, so he’s leery of the future and who might be impacted.

"Children and families with mental illness, senior citizens, day care centers, abused and neglected children – young people coming into juvenile courts," he said.

Mecum added that as services are reduced, taxpayers would pay an even higher price down the road as children can’t complete school or they get involved in juvenile delinquency.

The maximum prison sentence for child endangering is only 8 years?

Shaken baby gets another chance: Foster family helps Destiny beat the odds
Curnutte, Mark. Cincinnati Enquirer, Feb. 22, 2009.

"For all intents and purposes, this mother murdered her. In terms of any quality of life, she took it. This case is the worst one I've seen in 25 years of any shaken baby who survived." -- Myra Wheeler, caseworker, Hamilton County Job & Family Services

Destiny Concepcion never will walk. She eats mostly through a feeding tube punched into her stomach.

At 18 months, she wears a patch 6-8 hours a day on her stronger left eye to stimulate her weaker right eye, one of the serious injuries she suffered when her mother shook her 15 months ago.

On Nov. 21, 2007, Halloran Carr fractured Destiny's skull when - frustrated with her daughter's crying - she shook the tiny child in their Colerain Township home. Destiny is cortically blind, which means her brain can not intellectually process what she sees.

Judge William Mallory of Hamilton County Common Pleas Court sentenced Carr on Jan. 22 to the maximum eight-year prison term for child endangering.

Destiny's injuries horrified even the most hardened officials charged with protecting children. They predicted a grim future for Destiny during her mother's sentencing hearing - words backed up by their decision to put the child with one of their top sets of foster parents.

Destiny's gloomy prognosis almost came true three days after she was placed with Robin and David Steele. The little girl suffered cardiac arrest when out shopping with the family. An emergency room nurse came into the store just at that time and kept her alive.

"Our angel that night," Robin Steele said in reference to the nurse.

Destiny has shown to be a fighter.

Born Aug. 21, 2007, she was 14 weeks premature. She survived the shaking Nov. 21, the three-month mark of her birth. She needed six weeks to recover in the hospital from her heart attack Dec. 7.

The little girl continues to surprise the team of people watching over her growth and development and she has achieved a series of minor victories nurtured through the attentive hands of her foster parents.

Life has indeed gone on for Destiny, just a month after her birth mother's case disappeared from the news.

The upstairs study of the towering Victorian in Winton Place was warm but airy - its yellow walls brightened more by the sunlight bouncing off the thick blanket of snow outside.

Five of the Steeles' 10 adopted children ran in and out of the house, the clomping of their boots echoing off hardwood floors below.

Destiny, dressed in pink corduroy pants and a long-sleeved shirt, rested on a small pink quilt.

Robin Steele sat at the girl's feet and with her left hand gently exercised Destiny's arm in a slow, up-and-down movement.

The foster mother then picked up the child and held her face close to hers. Destiny cooed and giggled when Robin Steele tickled her cheek with a kiss.

"It's not like she is completely out of it," Robin Steele said when asked about the comments made in court at her mother's sentencing. "She has awareness. Destiny's life was not over when she was shaken. There is a little girl with potential."

Emotional arrival
Even before her heart attack, Destiny's first few nights with her foster parents put Robin and David Steele on an emotional edge.

He slept on the floor in the study beside Destiny, who was in an infant seat. He wanted to make sure he could hear her.

"She was so quiet," he said.

Robin Steele shook her head.

"How she got so frustrated with the baby crying," she said, her voice trailed off to silence before she could finish her thought about Carr.

Michael, 7, the Steeles' youngest adopted child, ran up the stairs to check on his parents. David Steele sat on the office chair at the computer. Michael hugged his father and turned to run back outside.

"Michael's twin brother was killed by his foster parents," Robin Steele said. "He had a lot of issues that needed caring. By the time everything sorted itself out and he was free for adoption, he had been with us for a long time. We are getting older and out of the range of adoption."

The unspoken question is would they adopt Destiny.

"If we were 10 years younger, no question we would keep her," said Robin Steele, who, like her husband, is 59. "Destiny deserves somebody who's younger than we are to ensure she's going to have longevity."

Destiny's needs are great.

Specialists galore
She sees a team of nutritionists at Children's Hospital Medical Center. Twice a week she visits the Perlman Center at Children's, a division of United Cerebral Palsy of Greater Cincinnati, where she receives more treatment. She also has appointments with an ophthalmologist and at the Cincinnati Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired. She has a pediatrician and an ear, nose and throat specialist. Her treatment team includes a speech teacher and an occupational therapist. Her foster parents administer three drugs each day: Keppra to prevent seizures; a second, Prevacid, to reduce the dangerous effects of reflux; and the third, Baclofen, to improve muscle tone.

Caring for Destiny is a round-the-clock job. She receives her first medication at 5:30 a.m., the last at 10:30 p.m. She receives an eight-hour feeding of PediaSure - a milky liquid that meets all of her nutritional needs - overnight through her gastronomy tube. Although she now can eat some baby food - strained meat, vegetables, fruit - she cannot swallow efficiently enough to stay alive.

Just 5 pounds at 4 months
Destiny weighed less than 5 pounds when she entered foster care at four months old.

She now weighs 17 pounds, 6 ounces - close to normal.

She could take only one ounce of formula at a time. "And you had to catch her awake, or she wouldn't eat," said David Steele, a former special education teacher.

She likes ice cream and suckers and can make it known when she wants more. The couple took a push-button device and recorded Robin Steele's voice saying, "More please." When Destiny wants another small helping she bangs the button: "More please."

Destiny will slump in her wheelchair or stroller. David Steele will encourage her, "Get your head up, please," he will say. And the little girl will struggle to look up.

"Communication," David Steele said. "We want to help her work a mouse at a computer. She might not be able to walk, but she can be mobile. She might be able to only eat baby food ..."

"One day at a time," said Robin Steele, interrupting her husband. Though a realist, the woman refuses to place limits on Destiny.

Destiny requires all of the Steeles' experience and savvy as foster parents. The couple coordinates communication between the medical specialists.

Destiny is the Steeles' 57th foster child. They have two now, in addition to their birth son and 10 adopted children.

"We always wanted a baker's dozen," said Robin Steele, who, like David, has an undergraduate degree in education. "We've reached it a couple of times."

Destiny is not the couple's most physically or mentally injured foster child.

"We had a little girl who was a drowning victim of her parents," Robin Steele said. "She was totally unresponsive. That was hard. She eventually was returned to her birth family." (why?)

No waiting for help
Destiny probably has more long-term physical and developmental challenges, David Steele said.

Robin Steele doesn't wait for social workers or doctors to make treatment arrangements. She aggressively worked the phones to set up appointments to get Destiny what's known as early-intervention treatment.

She is also a flesh-and-bone mother who bonds with the children in her care, including each of her 57 foster children. A year has been more than enough time to tighten her bond with Destiny.

"It's not very different between how I feel about her or any of the foster children or adopted children or birth child we have had," she said. "When we know a foster child is going back to their birth family or to an adoptive home, I can feel myself pulling back. It is a day-to-day commitment. And as long as she is with us, we will love her like she is ours.

"You know there is another child around the corner who is going to need you enough."

Told too often - Robin Steele said - that Destiny has insurmountable physical and developmental challenges, she offered a pull toy as evidence of a skill that experts once thought was out of her reach.

A plastic frog rests on blue-and-red wheels. Red-and-yellow balls pop inside a clear dome when pulled. The Steeles were told Destiny could not learn enough fine motor skill or hand-eye coordination to pull the plastic string.

David Steele placed the toy beside Destiny on the quilt. Robin directed the girl's attention to the toy.

She needed repeated attempts to grasp the drawstring in her left hand, but Destiny finally manipulated it into her fist. She tugged it. The balls snapped loudly.

Destiny grunted and giggled. And then she smiled at Robin Steele.

"I cry for Destiny. I will spend the rest of my life thinking about her and crying for her." -William Mallory, judge, Hamilton County Common Pleas Court.

Concern about negative stigma attached to foster parenting

Boy's Death Attaches Stigma To Foster Parenting
Area Agencies Struggle To Recruit Prospective Parents
WLWT, March 24, 2008.

CINCINNATI -- Efforts to recruit foster parents in three southwest Ohio counties have foundered since the death of a child who was bound and left in a closet.

Tough background checks were instituted to weed out bad risks, but the increased scrutiny also led good prospective foster parents to walk away.

"There's been a negative stigma attached to foster parenting," said Brian Gregg, spokesman for the Hamilton County Department of Job and Family Services. "A lot of people have gotten out of it because of that; they don't want the extra scrutiny."
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Some background checks have uncovered serious offenses, such as child endangering or felonious assault; others show minor traffic violations. The checks have spooked people with any sort of record, Gregg said.

Hamilton County has contracts with about 260 private foster homes, about one-third fewer than two years ago, Gregg said.

Background checks came about after the August 2006 death of Marcus Fiesel, a 3-year-old developmentally delayed boy who was placed by Butler County with a couple in Clermont County. Both counties border Hamilton County.

The boy died when he was bound and left in a closet while his foster parents, who were convicted of his murder, attended a weekend family reunion in Kentucky. Investigators later found the couple's background should have raised numerous red flags about their fitness to be foster parents.

A year ago, Hamilton County created a system to compare the names of foster parents, and those who applied to be foster parents, with police and court records. The system was expanded last fall to include national databases.

To make up for its shortfall, Hamilton County kicked off a $1 million campaign in January to recruit 100 new foster homes. The TV ads show ordinary people in tights and a cape performing everyday functions, like washing dishes or taking out the trash. It calls them "Everyday Heroes" whose status is confirmed by their willingness to take foster children into their homes.

The agency also is setting up recruiting events at libraries, coffee shops and adoption fairs, and is doing some direct mailing.

So far, 157 people have responded to the ads, Gregg said. But it takes four to six months to get through the process of becoming a foster parent, so it's too early to say how many will end up being certified.

The Clermont County Department of Job and Family Services has scheduled a series of public presentations through May to attract foster parent prospects.

"We know many people in Clermont County have thought about becoming foster parents but are concerned about how it will affect their lives and families," said department Director Tom McCartney.

Butler County Children Services is running television spots and a mail-in campaign aimed at prospective foster parents, hoping to reduce the number of children sent to other counties.

"Our first priority is the kids, and staying close to home is what's best for them," said Director Mike Fox. "It enables us to serve them better."

Fox said the shortage of local placements predates the death of Marcus Fiesel, and that about 70 percent of Butler County children living in foster care are sent out of the county.

Gregg said Hamilton County has about 850 children in foster care on any given day, and that about 30 percent of them must be sent outside the county.

Recruiting foster parents is a statewide problem, he said.

"Everybody's having trouble recruiting," said Karen Jorgenson, executive director of the National Foster Parent Association based in Gig Harbor, Wash. She said reimbursement is a problem, particularly in Ohio.

"It's not just because of the scrutiny," she said. "It's the cost of living, of two parents working, although, indeed, negative press does have an impact."

She said Ohio's reimbursement rate is way below the national average of $501 a month for a school-age child. Ohio's basic rate of $275 a month, regardless of the child's age, she said, while the true cost of care is $727 – and more for a teenager.

"We are working with Ohio, advocating a change there," Jorgenson said.

"We're not in it for the money. But we at least want our cost covered."