So when Wells orders up another hearing on CFSA, it amounts to a real test of patience. Progress is incremental. Answers are evasive. There's a lot of lowering of expectations. And there's always a lot of sad stories, and really sad statistics. On Friday, Wells held a hearing on the issues District wards face as they age out of the child-welfare system. The hearing was full of strong testimony from kids, pointed testimony from advocates, and the councilmember's own glass-is-half-full optimism.

Toward the end of the hours of testimony, Wells was stuck congratulating agency director Roque Gerald for at least visiting all the agency's group homes. Talk about setting the bar pretty low.

Kids dominated much of the hearing. These were kids who had overcome group homes, fostercare, abusive parents, and, well, the Child and Family Services Agency. They testified in business clothes. They spoke eloquently. They tempered criticism with praise for a social worker or a confession about their own emotional problems. In other words, these kids represented the system's best and brightest outcomes.

And yet, here's a brief summary of their testimony:

*One boy admitted that if it weren't for a friend's family, he'd be homeless. He's currently unemployed. This is a kid who had worked at CFSA and said that he had been privately counseled by Gerald.

*Another, a young mother, testified about her multiple placements. Wells asked her: Why would you need to move from one placement? "The environment. I don't want my son growing up in a not so good neighborhood witht he drama, the fighting. It's just a lot.You all could have helped me by giving me moral support..It's actually on me. You all helped me..It was just me. I had just too much on my load. It was just me."

*Another young woman testified about the staff at her old group home. The counselors would yell at kids, make fun of them, share confidential information about other girls in the house, threaten to cut off their allowances. In another home, the staff spent a lot of time gossiping about the residents.

*In an independent living program, a woman tesetified: "I received a lot of services however it was really up and down," she said, explaining that her social worker had too big a caseload to give her much focused attention. She left the system at 21, a single mother. "I had no preparation," she said. "I currently live on my own and it's not easy."

*A teenager testified that he had several relatives that wanted to take him in and care for him. And yet, CFSA made it too difficult for his relatives to house him. He is now 19 and lives in a group-home type facility. He enrolled at UDC but couldn't attend classes due to finances. "I haven't had a transitional meeting with anyone," he says.

Wells took in this testimony with patience. He made sure that whatever the kids wanted to say, they had the time to say it even if they went over the time limit. He gave them words of encouragement. He seemed genuinely moved by their testimony. Gerald also seemed quite taken with the kids. He didn't just show up at the end of the hearing or sit there and play with a Blackberry. He sat through all their statements and appeared to actually be listening.

Early in Gerald's testimony he made it clear that he wants to set a high standard for his agency. Sending kids off to vocational training or college is his "baseline." He talked up a trip his agency had organized in which they would be sending 15 fostercare kids to South Africa. And he highlighted a new Office of Youth Empowerment that would be focused on addressing the needs of the city wards and helping their transition out of the system. "I know the value of Facebook," he boasted with his usual earnestness.He also stated that city wards could access his new youth-empowerment office online. Another CFSA worker stressed that they were working on developing a new Facebook page.

And yet, Gerald, when questioned by Wells, couldn't exactly say whether the city's contracted group homes and independent living facilities had working computers and an Internet connection. Nor could he say exactly how many teenagers 16 and up the agency had in its care.

What about employment for the kids that are aging out, Wells prodded. How many youth are employed between the ages of 18 to 21? "I'd like to say 100 percent," Gerald replied.

Not exactly a straight answer. The director added his own watered-down version of that goal: All the kids that are aging out must at least be aggressively moving toward employment.

Wells then praised the director for at least visiting all 33 group home and independent living facilities. "I don't believe your predecessor did that," Wells noted.

This morning in U.S. District Court, Judge Thomas F. Hogan took up the on-going legal battle over the District's Child and Family Services Agency. At issue was whether or not the agency could be held in contempt. Hogan devoted much of his consternation on the how the District went about picking Dr. Roque Gerald (pictured) to head up CFSA.

At the time of Dr. Gerald's selection, City Desk questioned whether the District violated Hogan's order. We wrote:

"Last fall, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas F. Hogan issued an order stipulating a series of directives. One of those stipulations involved the future selection of a permanent director at CFSA. On Tuesday, Fenty announced his selection of interim director Roque Gerald to take over in a permanent capacity. Hogan had stipulated that “the Court Monitor and Plaintiffs will be included in the selection process for the permanent Director.'...

The Plaintiffs–Children’s Rights–say they were never consulted during the selection process. “We were not included in the process and I think given the problems the agency has had over the last several years the choice of the director was critically important,” says Children’s Rights Executive Director Marcia Robinson Lowry. She adds that this violated the court order."

While Gerald has gotten high praise from child advocates and has definitively saved the agency from the fallout over the Jacks case, Hogan suggested today that the city had indeed violated his order. Hogan dubbed the city's following of his order a "blatant" failure. Maybe he too doesn't like Fenty's secretive m.o.

The bulk of the nearly two hour proceedings over the contempt motion did not center on Gerald's selection. Instead, Children's Rights and the city's attorneys debated whether or not CFSA had made significant progress in helping kids in care. No kids testified. It was all lawyers debating the whether or not the agency had cleared various benchmarks.

Children's Rights' Lowry showed charts proving that the agency had failed to meet the majority of those benchmarks which covered everything from staff training to placing kids in foster homes. She told the court that the agency had "not yet reached a level where they are protecting children."

Lowry provided a staggering timeline of accepted benchmarks and the agency's slow and often negligent response dating back several years. She stated that CFSA had only met 15 out of the 68 benchmarks. This was just a mere snapshot of the agency's problems which were detailed in a recent court monitor's report.

Lowry's testimony touched on the court monitor's findings that fewer and fewer kids are leaving the system through adoption. The monitor also reported that a huge number of children and youth are living in unlicensed foster homes or facilities.

"As of January 31, 2009, there were 1575 children in foster home placements. Of the 1574 children, 74 (5 percent) children were placed in foster homes that exceeded their licensed capacity. Additionally, there were 178 children placed in group homes as of January 31, 2009. Of the 178 children, 39 (22%) children were placed in group homes that exceeded their licensed capacity of 8 children...."

The monitor also reported that of the 1007 foster homes where children were placed, 10 percent of those homes did not have current and valid licenses. Prior to the hearing, Children's Rights had flagged other aspects of the monitor's report---chief among them was the agency's alleged overuse of group homes and residential treatment facilities as housing options for children in care as well as how quick the agency investigated neglect/abuse allegations.

Again, this was a short hearing. City Attorney Ellen Efros kept her points short. She emphasized that the agency had made progress but that the benchmarks were too old and too tough to actually meet. She argued that the standards are lower in other cities---in other words, why can't we just lower our standards? Efros, though, could not cite any other jurisdiction's standards.

At one point early on in Efros' testimony, Hogan interrupted her and sounded an exasperated note: "We've been at this since 1989."

Hogan was referring to the agency's rollercoaster history---the inception of the class-action case, subsequent receivership and bumpy road since the city agency shedded court oversight in 2003. Hogan did not at all seemed pleased with Efros' attempts to jettison benchmarks that didn't fit her theory of a fit agency and denounce other benchmarks as too harsh.

"It seems...oversight by the judiciary is important," Hogan later stated.

Still, Hogan declined to rule on the contempt motion. He says he is keeping it under consideration. The next hearing is set for July 20.

As he left the courtroom, Gerald had no comment.

Prior to the hearing, Lowry talked about the problems with the city warehousing kids. "The placement process in the District is extremely hit or miss," she said. "There is not a real effort to develop the kinds of resources that the kids need and certainly there’s a very slipshod process about where the kids should go. There’s no question, there are too few appropriate foster homes and too few foster homes all together."

Lowry says the city needs to invest in a real plan. "I don't think there's anything approaching long-term planning," she explains. "One thing that's so alarming about the course that they are now on---they don't have any long term plans for the agency and certainly their aspirations for the agency are very insufficient."

In a youth conference today at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, Gerald said that his staff was "the wind beneath my wings."

That wind, indeed, has generated some altitude for Gerald. Via the hard work of CFSA employees, Gerald cut the backlog of CFSA cases from 1,800 ten months ago to zero by December 2008. His agency also had a 25 percent staff vacancy rate, which he has slashed to four percent---more wind beneath his wings!

Gerald made clear that his agency still has some tough numbers to fight. Sixty percent of the kids in CFSA's care are 13 and up. Though clients have complex problems, Gerald insists they "have a right to a future." One of his primary objectives is to reduce the amount of home-hopping that the kids do. "Too many children are shuffled around in too many placements," he said. "Every time they move, we injure their future."

Reporting by Jason Cherkis

Last fall, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas F. Hogan issued an order stipulating a series of directives. One of those stipulations involved the future selection of a permanent director at CFSA. On Tuesday, Fenty announced his selection of interim director Roque Gerald to take over in a permanent capacity. Hogan had stipulated that "the Court Monitor and Plaintiffs will be included in the selection process for the permanent Director."

It is that order that is now being seriously questioned. When appointing top posts, Fenty isn't known as a big outreach guy. His appointment of Chief Cathy Lanier is exhibit A. Now his selection of Gerald is coming under scrutiny.

The Plaintiffs--Children's Rights--say they were never consulted during the selection process. "We were not included in the process and I think given the problems the agency has had over the last several years the choice of the director was critically important," says Children's Rights Executive Director Marcia Robinson Lowry. She adds that this violated the court order.

This point may be brought up in the next round at U.S. District Court, Lowry says. "We have an open contempt motion that is going to be briefed to the court...This is another violation," Lowry adds.

Attorney General Peter Nickles has a different take.

Nickles says Fenty and Co. did an exhaustive search for the CFSA director slot. "I'm not going to get into numbers," he says. "We both interviewed and called people...Dr. Gerald put his name in the hat and he was interviewed."

Yesterday, we reported that Councilmember Tommy Wells, who chairs the Committee on Human Services which covers CFSA, was left out of the loop. Charles Allen, Wells' chief of staff, was not aware of anyone being interviewed for the position.

Lowry says Nickles only notified her on Monday that Gerald had been selected. Nickles says there was a reason why Children's Rights wasn't consulted during the vetting process.

"It didn't seem at least to us to have them interview people who weren't going to be seriously considered," Nickles says. "It's tough to get people to come in if they think they are going to be answerable to the mayor but also to the court monitors and advocates."

Nickles goes on to sharpen his point. "We have a terrible problem in getting people interested in being considered because of the buzz saw they see themselves getting into," Nickles explains i.e. heading an agency with a court monitor. "As far as I know the plaintiffs haven't liked any of our directors."

I asked Nickles if there was any reason to have liked the previous directors? He stated that the previous directors at least tried to make the agency better. And that, well, they now have a great director in Gerald.

Lowry is skeptical with the Gerald selection. "Leadership is absolutely critical," she says. "The previous director was from inside the agency. The person they just appointed was from inside the agency."

]]> http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2009/02/12/did-cfsa-director-search-violate-court-order/feed/ 1 http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2009/02/11/the-one-and-only-roque-gerald/ http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2009/02/11/the-one-and-only-roque-gerald/#comments Wed, 11 Feb 2009 20:38:48 +0000 Jason Cherkis http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/?p=15789 Yesterday, Mayor Adrian Fenty announced his nomination of Roque Gerald to become the permanent director of Child and Family Services at a press conference. Gerald had served as the agency's interim director since this past July. Fenty called his nomination a "shot in the arm" and touted Gerald as an old-hand within the troubled agency which apparently is a net plus.

What may be troubling is the possibility that Fenty's people did not interview anyone else for the position. Even before the Banita Jacks case, the agency faced serious questions about its case management and the thoroughness of its investigative work. The agency is currently in the midst of a huge court battle. And its problems are vast.

Charles Allen, Councilmember Tommy Wells' chief of staff, says his office is not aware of any other candidates being vetted for CFSA's top job. I asked him if anyone else was interviewed. "We're not aware of one," Allen says. Calls to the mayor's office have not yet been returned.

Allen says this may be a concern that there were no other candidates. "We expect that to come out in the confirmation hearing," Allen says.

Allen does add that the agency has made some improvements. In particular, the agency's notorious backlog has been cut. "[Gerald] certainly has the ability to tout some accomplishments and hear if there are any concerns," Allen says. "We'd be looking to hold a confirmation hearing in the near future. Budget hearings start next week. It will probably take a month or two before we get to a confirmation hearing."

Allen adds: "There are still several concerns about the agency. There's clearly more work that has to get done. The folks who feel that they are not happy with the progress can come to the confirmation hearing."

Gerald certainly came into the job with some controversy. There was the news that he had sex with a female patient years ago. We chronicled one messy CFSA case.

One CFSA staffer says that Gerald may have trouble touting the closing of the backlog as a major accomplishment. The staffer points to a relaxation of standards in getting it closed:

Gerald's appointment was not unexpected by people here....It's true that more needs to be accomplished, and it would not be correct to give him the credit for the end of the backlog.  That credit is more due to the independent advisers and what actually happened was the severe relaxation of the original standards for case investigations.

When that happened in early November, then the number of case closings rose dramatically.  From what I can gather, the court monitors did not have Gerald as their choice and this led to conflict with the mayor.  Probably his appointment, therefore, is a result of a negotiated settlement that will be reflected in the upcoming court hearings on the show cause and motion to be removed from federal control by the respective parties.

So far calls to the court monitor have not been returned. I have been told that the monitor has been traveling and is not in D.C.