"The District's child abuse and neglect system requires dramatic reform at all stages. On the front end, the government does not adequately prevent abuse and neglect. Nor does CFSA do a good enough job keeping children safely with their birth families. Once CFSA removes children, it does not serve them well in foster care—and they state in foster care too long because CFSA fails to reunify them with their parents or find alternative permanent families."

Even more troubling than Sandalow's assessment is the fact that her assessment has been made nearly every year for the past two decades.  It is by now cliche to refer to the District's Child and Family Services Agency as "troubled" or "horrible" or "under court monitor."

In one of the latest twists in the 20-year-old class-action case against CFSA, a U.S. District Court judge recently ordered the agency to stick to a court-approved plan. The plan pretty much included everything from how the agency must investigate alleged abuses to how they should hold meetings [PDF]. That was just the latest in the drip, drip, drip, drip, drip of bad news concerning CFSA. Recently, Gray's transition team issued its own stinging critique of the agency.

Although CFSA has a court-appointed monitor, much of the agency's business—the family-court hearings, investigations, foster-care placements, etc.—are done in secret. Should District residents allow an agency like CFSA to conduct its business in secret?

California is considering opening up its child-welfare cases to public scrutiny. And one of the biggest backers of the plan is LA County's own child-welfare agency.

The L.A. Times reported this week:

"Children's advocates, judges and government officials told state legislators Tuesday that opening proceedings for dependency court would improve accountability and transparency for a key branch of the legal system that handles cases of child abuse, child neglect and foster care placements.‬

'There is a lot that is not good [in the dependency courts], and that's an understatement,' Michael Nash, presiding judge of the juvenile courts for Los Angeles County, said at an oversight hearing before the Assembly Judiciary Committee in Sacramento. 'Too many families do not get reunified ... too many children and families languish in the system for far too long. Someone might want to know why this is the case.'"

Of course, some California's social workers and public defenders are against the pending legislation citing concerns for minors and the possibility that families would be reluctant to participate if they knew the hearings were open to the public. But what family is excited to be a part of a child-welfare case? And I have yet to meet a minor who didn't want his story told or to be listened too.

The L.A. Times notes that more and more jurisdictions are opening up child-welfare cases to the public:

"The Assembly committee has a bill, AB 73, which proposes to open the dependency courts but allows judges the discretion to close certain hearings. A number of other states have moved to make their dependency courts more accessible to the public.

The proposal is supported by Los Angeles County's Department of Children and Family Services. Deputy Director Maryam Fatemi told the committee Tuesday that increased access would shed light on systemic problems and make the public better aware of issues involved with protecting children.

Assemblyman Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles), who introduced the bill, said that based on the comments at the hearing, he would probably introduce a bill proposing a pilot program for open court proceedings."

Last week, the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless reported that a D.C. Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) social worker had attempted to force a homeless mother to make a brutal choice: Either get on a bus out of town or risk having your three children put in fostercare. City Desk followed up on the story and interviewed the mother's Legal Clinic attorney who said she directly heard the ultimatum from the social worker:

Julie Broas [the Legal Clinic attorney]  recalls the social worker explaining: "Because she is not being placed in a shelter, therefore she is unable to provide a safe place for her children to stay. If she does not agree to accept the arrangement that has been made for her [the bus out of town], we will be forced to take her children away from her."

City workers put "tremendous pressure" on her to get on the bus, the lawyer explains. "The social worker was pacing saying 'we've got to go right now. She has to make this choice.'" This was at 4:30 p.m. The bus wasn't leaving until roughly 11 that night.

Broas requested an emergency hearing on the city's refusal to provide this District family shelter during hypothermic conditions. Based on the mother's original documents that she had been trying to show the intake workers for days, the Department of Human Services finally agreed that the family had a right to shelter.

The mother's plight suggested the District workers had sunk to a new low in how they treat homeless families. Last year, families suffered through massive overcrowding and horrible conditions at D.C. General. I wanted to hear from CFSA. Did they in fact offer this mother a bus ride out of town or the loss of her children?

Mindy Good, CFSA's spokesperson, sent back a lengthy reply essentially denying the Legal Clinic's overall representation of events. But Good doesn't explicitly state that the social worker never threatened to place the mother's children in fostercare.

Good writes:

"CFSA is well aware of the child abuse/neglect laws since they guide our daily work. Neither poverty nor homelessness alone is grounds for removal of children. Parents have rights. At the same time, neither poverty nor homelessness eliminates parental responsibility to protect, shelter, feed, and clothe children and to fulfill their educational and health needs. This may mean parents need to draw on whatever personal means they have while also seeking public, charitable, or other services. That’s O.K. as long as parents continue to act in the best interests of their children—for example, taking advantage of services available and doing everything necessary to receive the services.

The perspective in the blog came from someone who came into the situation after other services providers had been working with the family for many weeks and CFSA had been involved for several hours. It is our understanding that the family had gotten help from the District. Remarks attributed to CFSA are an overly strong and misleading interpretation taken out of context. In fact, our social worker discussed with the parent several options other service providers had offered. The parent needed to choose one in order to take care of her children.

Most child welfare cases involve multiple service providers, so CFSA social workers are used to collaborating with others. Finger pointing and animosity waste time better spent on working together to help children and families in need."

Do you see in this any denial that the social worker offered the bus ride out of town or the removal of the mother's children? The agency seems more rankled by the tone of the Legal Clinic—and our—blog posts.

Patricia Mullahy Fugere, Executive Director of the Legal Clinic, stands by her staff's representations, and issues her own harsh assessment of CFSA's explanation. Fugere writes via e-mail:

"While we can not speak to what other services may have been offered to our client before the Legal Clinic got involved, by the time that Julie connected with the client at VWFRC, the only option presented was to accept the bus tickets to another state, or lose her children to the CFSA worker.  Given that there was a hypothermic alert that night and the right to shelter was in effect, Julie was incredulous that this ultimatum was on the table.  She specifically repeated these options to the CFSA worker, who confirmed her understanding.

If 'taking advantage of services available and doing everything necessary to receive the services' requires getting on a bus and traveling 1,000 miles away to get into shelter, then we have a very broken child welfare system."

Photo of a Greyhound bus used with an Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons license

Among the five issues highlighted, the team noted the agency must address its "weak management and top-heavy agency structure." Ouch.

The other points the team stressed:

* "Shift focus to preventing abuse and maintaining children in families, to address the expensive and harmful current practice of unnecessarily removing children from their birth families."

* "Implement key policy and practice changes to improve use of kinship care."

*Review performance of Collaboratives and chart course forward—either reengineering investment in prevention entirely; keep some dispense with others; or retain Collaboratives but require them to measure and report outcomes publicly."

*"Contract out services for older youth to providers with strong track records in youth education and development (agency currently receives $1M in federal funding to assist youth aging out of the system and reports only serving 30 youth)."

Today we come to you with more proof that Gerald is wrong.

We wrote:

"Unless his number of kids in RTCs has dramatically dropped in the last few months, he's wrong. According to CFSA documents submitted to its long-standing court monitor, the agency had more than 70 children in residential placements as of Aug. 31.

I had asked Gerald and others at CFSA about this discrepancy a few months ago. What I got was a bunch of nonsense. It basically amounted to this bizarre logic: Some residential placements were counted as residential placements for the court monitor and not for their own in-house stats. It was also clear that some facilities that were considered RTCs by our own juvenile-justice system got no such designation by our own child-welfare agency."

New documents obtained by Washington City Paper show that as of September 31, the agency had 70 children placed in residential treatment centers. A month later, it had 67 children in RTCs. So unless the agency really started discharging kids at a faster rate in the last two months of 2010, Gerald is just mistaken. Or worse.

*check out our recent cover story on RTCs.

I found at least one noticeable issue. Early on, Gerald claims: "A reduction of the number of children placed in residential treatment centers, from an all-time high of 148 in 2007 to a historic low of 44 in 2010." Unless his number of kids in RTCs has dramatically dropped in the last few months, he's wrong. According to CFSA documents submitted to its long-standing court monitor, the agency had more than 70 children in residential placements as of Aug. 31.

I had asked Gerald and others at CFSA about this discrepancy a few months ago. What I got was a bunch of nonsense. It basically amounted to this bizarre logic: Some residential placements were counted as residential placements for the court monitor and not for their own in-house stats. It was also clear that some facilities that were considered RTCs by our own juvenile-justice system got no such designation by our own child-welfare agency.

What is clear: CFSA's numbers game is a horrible way to monitor residential placements.

Recently, Gerald was told that he would have to re-apply for his job as agency director. This may or not be a concern for Gerald. I know at least one other agency head who received such a letter from Mayor Vincent Gray. It all could just be standard. Still, it might account for Gerald adopting Gray's rhetoric and alluding to the events in Tuscon to make his case:

"But we know we must push for continued improvement, and Mayor Vincent Gray’s vision of “One City” provides an excellent framework for open discourse and development of lasting solutions that strengthen the local safety net. At the CFSA, we must do our part by deepening our commitment to address these issues, in collaboration with our partners. Constructive discussion that identifies system strengths and seeks solutions to the deeply rooted social ills that place children at risk has never been more necessary than at this critical economic time.

True community development includes investments in infrastructure and human capital. A return to civility in our discourse can help in avoiding complacency and feelings of defeat stemming from the challenges. The child welfare system will benefit most by accepting valid criticism that also acknowledges the social challenges and systemic improvements that form the real-world context for further growth."

What is so startling about this last graph is Gerald's implication that criticisms of his agency haven't been civil. Nor are they valid unless loaded down with "real-world" caveats. Is there another agency head who every time he screws up gets to say "but life is hard?"

Does Gerald actually think Carl Foster, who runs a non-profit and wrote a recent piece critical of CFSA, is not civil? Foster was being incredibly brave when he wrote that piece. Few non-profits ever go on the record for fear of losing funding. His account of trying to get help for one child and one family through the hotline was a harrowing example of social-worker indifference.

Does Gerald actually think Jumiya Crump, the 17-year-old in my story, was being impolite when she pleaded with her social worker to live with her own family?

Actually, if you think about it, when it comes to serious questions concerning child neglect and a city's lackluster response, we should be anything but civil.

Ellington, a Department of Mental Health administrator, suggested the city may in fact be hurting Jumiya. On August 20, 2009, she seemed to sum up Jumiya's dilemma:

"The effort to get her to a residential has placed her at risk in the community and not helped with engaging her in the treatment process. She has decreased her trust in the public system and the belief that we can help meet her needs. We have an opportunity to meet her where she is and truly provide her with a team that will persist in supporting her and her family until things bet better."

Every child-welfare worker might agree on the sentiment. But that doesn't mean they are willing to follow it. A few weeks ago, Ellington resigned from her post at the Department of Mental Health. Now, who does Jumiya have that will get her needs?

You can read the city's first on-the-record response to Jumiya's story here.

This security footage was shot at KidsPeace Mesabi Academy in 2007. I uncovered it as part of my research on the District's costly use of residential treatment centers. The restraints that you see on this video caused the youth's arm to break. Minnesota officials investigated the incident and cleared the orderlies, arguing that the restrain procedures had been followed properly.

But as one former District administrator pointed out to me: The youth is just sitting in a chair when he is seized by the orderlies.

The incident did have consequences. The administrator and another source say that DYRS had placed a moratorium on using Mesabi, which calls itself a juvenile corrections facility. While the city's juvenile justice agency had stopped sending kids, the city's child-welfare agency sent at least one foster child to Mesabi in 2010.

Updated: 5 p.m.

The proposed budget cuts to D.C.'s Child and Family Services Agency do not just include the laying off of 54 employees and the cutting of the Rapid Housing Program. It became quite clear at yesterday's D.C. Council hearing that more cuts have been proposed to the troubled agency.

Judith Sandalow, executive director of the Children's Law Center, which represents some 1,200 children and families every year, addressed several more proposed cuts in her prepared remarks.

But in an interview with City Desk, CFSA Director Roque Gerald suggested that the cuts are simply addressing a simple fact: the agency has dramatically reduced the number of kids in its care.

Sandalow stated the cuts include a 44 percent cut to the Grandparent Caregiver Program which "financially supports grandparents who are raising children." In other words, this program prevents these kids from going into foster care. Mayor Adrian Fenty also proposed dropping the amount of subsidies given to grandparents in the program. Sandalow states in her testimony:

"This proposal will lead to hundreds of children and their grandparents losing the financial support on which they have depended or see the amount of their benefits cut nearly in half."

The total amount the D.C. Council would need to prevent cuts to this program: a mere $2.76 million.

The mayor's budget, according to Sandalow, would also cut into family-based foster care. The agency recently cut subsidy rates for therapeutic foster parents. These are parents who specialize in handling the most troubled of the District's wards—the ones with extreme mental-health and emotional issues. The agency now proposes to cut rates for traditional foster parents by 10 percent.

Sandalow writes: "CFSA simply cannot afford to take this step—CFSA needs all of its existing foster parents and more."

The mayor also proposes to reduce the number of group homes by a third. This would mean the city would need to beef up its foster parent roster. But Fenty offers no explanation or plan on how to increase the number of foster parents.

Fenty has also proposed cutting $1.19 million in funding to community-based prevention services and cuts to several other services to foster parents.

Sandalow believes that the funds can be restored through millions of federal dollars available to CFSA.

Gerald says the agency has changed dramatically in terms of the number of kids in care. In 2003, he says, the agency was staffed to handle more than 7,000 children. Those numbers have gone down dramatically every year since. In 2009, Gerald says, the agency reduced the number children by 14 percent. They now have just over 2,000 kids in care.***

Gerald says the cuts to the agency's labor force simply address the reality that CFSA has a significantly lighter case load. "It’s essentially retooling the agency given the reduction in the number of kids we serve," he explains.

Gerald adds: "The agency is overall, despite the hyperbole out there, doing a better job across the board."

But there's still this question. Did D.C. parents all of the sudden just get better or has the city ignored neglectful families to keep its numbers down? I've talked to a number of social workers who can recount call after call to the CFSA hotline that went ignored. Or investigations that ended abruptly with neglected kids not getting the services they needed.

Update: Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, calls in to say that Gerald's stats are "flat wrong." In FY 2003, there were 3, 092 children in care.  In FY 2008, there were 2,217 children in care. "There has been a decline but hardly the decline that Mr. Gerald says there is," Wexler says.

Wexler says his numbers are CFSA's own numbers it reported to the Feds. Those numbers he found in the Feds' Department of Health and Human Services' database. The other issue, Wexler says, is how many kids are they removing from allegedly neglectful homes. CFSA took away 719 in 2003. In 2008, CFSA removed 712 kids.

Wexler says Gerald's claims of a diminished workload is bunk. The workload is the same. Only now with fewer resources.

"Of course the cuts give me pause," Wexler says. But he adds that CFSA often makes snap judgements both ways—that in some cases they remove children without cause. And in others, truly neglected children are ignored. "You take away too many kids needlessly—that overloads the workers so they don't have time to find children in real danger," Wexler says.

*file photo by Darrow Montgomery.

The Rapid Housing Program provides emergency funds to families who are in danger of losing their children—or have lost their children—due to homelessness. The program also helps youths who are aging out of the system attain housing. The cuts come at a difficult time; there are currently 125 families  D.C. General's emergency shelter, according to the last census count.

Gerald tells City Desk that he considered the rapid housing initiative a "good program." He adds that he is looking for other ways to fund the program.

“I’ve taken the rapid housing out of the local dollars. But I’m exploring other options for rapid housing," Gerald says.  "We didn’t want to carry any other budget pressures—that required us to look across the board. We are centralizing our focus on our core mandates:  front-end investigations, in-home services, and out-of-home services.  I don’t want any budget cut for services for those kids.”

Gerald hopes that the youths aging out of the system will no longer be in need of housing supports. He says his agency is committed to helping youths better prepare for aging out. Youths age out of the system at 21. Gerald cites his agency's partnering with the Department of Employment Services as a key example in the ways the agency is helping its wards find support as they begin aging out.

Gerald says that more than 200 of the city's wards have gotten jobs through DOES. “If we are preparing our youth much earlier on, it is less likely they will need that as safety net," Gerald says of the Rapid Housing Program.

But advocates aren't as optimistic as Gerald. Sharra Greer, the Children's Law Center's policy director, calls the proposed cut a "huge deal."

“We are certainly doing everything we can to advocate that funding be restored," Greer says. "This is a cost effective and inexpensive program. We’re working with the council to try and reinstate the funding.”

Greer doesn't know why the Fenty administration would cut the program. "I have no answer for that," she says. "We just don't have a good answer. It would be one thing if their reports showed this is an inefficient program. But every report shows this is a successful program that everyone in the community supports.”

According to a Children's Law Center's research, the number of children entering foster care due to "inadequate housing" rose by more than 50 percent in the past year FY2008. The Center projects that the housing program would help 150 families and 110 emancipating youth in FY 2010.

Councilmember Tommy Wells will be holding a hearing on CFSA and the proposed budget this Thursday. Wells will surely be asking questions related to the rapid housing program cuts.

”We’re concerned about this as well as many other cuts to services to vulnerable residents,” says Charles Allen, Wells' chief of staff.

D.C. Child and Family Services Agency Director Roque Gerald announced in a staff meeting last week that 54 agency employees will soon be getting pink slips. Mayor Adrian Fenty had stipulated in his proposed budget that the cuts be made.

One CFSA employee confirms the cuts to City Desk: "He did bring it up and told people. He told the agency that’s what he had to do. He’s going to make sure to keep people who provide direct services to families." So it may be unlikely that Gerald will have to fire social workers. It is still a blow to an agency that has been the subject of intense federal court scrutiny. Recently, a judge held Fenty and the District in contempt over his administration's handling of CFSA.

Another CFSA staffer, who was at the meeting, says Gerald was asked directly if  social workers would be protected from the layoffs. Gerald said they would not be protected.  "People are scared," the staffer says. "People just want to know. He said we would have some information within the next 30 to 60 days. People do seem nervous, generally it's a fearful environment. It's a fearful environment anyway but it's escalated in the last two weeks."

CFSA employees are not pleased with the imminent firings.

The DC Union Power blog reported its own react story on the Gerald announcement:

"In an all-staff meeting this morning, DC Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) Director Dr. Roque Gerald announced that more layoffs were coming to the agency.

Repeating over and over that CFSA was a 'family' that everyone had to 'share the burden,' Dr. Gerald explained that the purpose of the meeting was to be 'transparent' about the cuts forced on CFSA by Mayor Fenty’s budget proposal for the next fiscal year. Although emphasizing the agency’s commitment to the children and families of DC, Gerald began by reading off laundry list of services cuts that would effect the neediest families most, including the elimination of funds for the Rapid Housing program (which helps to prevent families with children from becoming homeless), and a pay cut to families caring for abused and neglected children in foster care.

This is our commitment to DC’s children and families?

Dr. Gerald then dropped the bombshell that everyone was waiting for: the announcement that CFSA would need to eliminate 54 full time positions. He gave no specific information about who would be affected by the Reduction in Force (RIF), only that employees will be notified in 30-60 days. One worker asked if any positions would be protected from the RIFs. The answer was 'No.'"

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."

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 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."

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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."

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]]> 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.