help
collapse
Press one of the expand buttons to see the full text of an article. Later press collapse to revert to the original form. The buttons below expand or collapse all articles.
expand
collapse
Tennessee Deaths in Care
September 22, 2012 permalink
Tennessee child protectors have complied with the law by releasing some data about child deaths in their care, but only after seven years of foot-dragging. A news article and comment by Robert Franklin are enclosed. Here is a local copy of the data mentioned in the article.
expand
collapse
31 Tennessee kids died in first 6 months of this year, DCS reports
State agency violated law by failing to report all deaths for 7 years
State Sen. Jim SummervilleGeorge Walker IV / File / The TennesseanTen children died in Tennessee during the first six months of 2012 while they were the subjects of ongoing investigations by the Department of Children’s Services. None was more than a year old.
An additional 17 children who died during the same time period had at some point been brought to the attention of DCS. At the time of their deaths, however, their case files had been closed.
And four children ages 18 and younger died in state custody during the same period of time.
The data on 31 children whose lives had at some point intersected with DCS workers before they died this year were released this week in response to requests by The Tennessean and by Democratic state lawmaker Sherry Jones. Jones had made repeated requests over the past two months for the information.
In releasing the data to Jones and the newspaper, DCS attorney Douglas Dimond acknowledged that the state agency charged with protecting children had been violating the law for seven years in its reporting of child deaths.
A 2005 law requires DCS to inform lawmakers of each child death or near-death in their district within 45 days.
“Although the statute was enacted in 2005, it does not appear that the Department has been generating individual notifications to legislators at any time or under any version of the statute since then, but the Department will certainly begin doing so immediately in compliance with the statute,” Dimond wrote.
DCS has come under fire in recent months for its inability to keep track of data it is required to by law after failures of a new computer tracking system known as TFACTS, which was installed for more than $37 million two years ago. All child death data must be entered into that system, according to official department policy.
On Tuesday, when DCS officials originally released child death data, they reported 40 deaths of children in the first six months of 2012.
On Thursday, DCS Executive Director for Child Safety Carla Aaron said that information was incorrectly generated and revised it downward to 31.
The 31 deaths this year bring to 233 the number of Tennessee children who have died in the past 2½ years who had some form of interaction with DCS staff before their deaths, according to newly released data from the agency.
They do not include, however, more recent cases such as the two children who died Aug. 2 in a hot car in Smyrna as their mother slept. A child neglect report had been filed against the mother, Samantha Harper, by La Vergne Police in September 2011, resulting in a referral to DCS, but it is unclear whether DCS began an investigation. Harper remains in custody.
Child welfare experts cautioned that the fatality numbers, without detailed explanation about the circumstances of each death from DCS, can’t provide a clear picture of how well the state agency is doing its job in intervening to protect the state’s children and whether any deaths could have been prevented in cases in which state officials already had been alerted to concerns about the children.
“Intuitively some of the numbers sound high, but you need to know all of the circumstances of the death,” said Linda Spears, vice president for policy and public affairs at the Washington, D.C.-based Child Welfare League of America.
The preliminary causes of death provided by DCS include asphyxia for a Montgomery County infant less than 2 months old, a home fire for a 2-year-old Lincoln County child, medical issues for four children and unknown causes of death for nine others. One 17-year-old Dickson County foster child died in a car crash, in which a foster parent was injured.
“Unsafe sleeping” is listed as a cause of death for five babies less than 6 months old. Spears said that interpreting such cases requires knowing whether the mother, for example, was so intoxicated that she rolled over and smothered the child in her sleep or whether she was simply uneducated about how to swaddle or put a baby to sleep properly.
'I really just want some answers'
Republican state Sen. Jim Summerville, who represents Dickson, Humphreys, Hickman, Cheatham and Robertson counties, said the numbers raise more questions than answers.
Summerville said he has already been concerned that DCS was prematurely ending investigations into cases of severe child abuse without interceding to protect children.
“What does this mean exactly?” Summerville said he plans to ask DCS Commissioner Kate O’Day. “What happens when a case is closed? We’re seeing cases in recent months that — in the past — would have been classified as severe child abuse that are now being called an assessment and are closed. Meanwhile, law enforcement isn’t in on it. Protective Services isn’t in on it. No one is assessing these children further. I really just want some answers.”
Summerville and child welfare advocates had already scheduled an Oct. 2 meeting with O’Day to discuss specific cases of children who they believe suffered severe abuse but whose cases weren’t classified that way by DCS.
A comparison to overall death numbers for Tennessee children shows that about one in 10 children who died in the state last year had some interaction with DCS while they were alive.
Of the 964 deaths of children 18 and younger reported by the Department of Health in 2011, 100 had come to the attention of or were in the physical custody of DCS before they died.
Of the 1,040 child deaths in Tennessee in 2010, 102 children had some interactions with DCS while they lived.
A comparison to nearby states puts Tennessee child death figures statistically above some of its neighbors.
In Alabama, for example, which has 1.1 million children versus Tennessee’s 1.4 million, between January and June this year, one child died who was the subject of an open case file and one child died who was in state custody, according to the Alabama Department of Human Resources.
In Arkansas, where 710,000 children live, there were four children in custody or subject to a DCS investigation at the time of their deaths during the first six months of this year, according to the Arkansas Department of Human Services.
Source: Tennessean
TN: DCS Violated Disclosure Law on Child Deaths for Seven Years
Yet another state’s child welfare agency has been violating state law by refusing to report information on the deaths of children who were being or had been investigated by the agency. Read about it here (The Tennessean, 9/21/12). This time it’s Tennessee. In the past I’ve written the same thing about Arizona, California and New York. In California, Los Angeles County is simply refusing to comply with orders by the legislature to provide information about children’s deaths to the investigator hired specifically for that purpose. In New York the agency refuses to provide information on child death and injury, and periodically lobbies the legislature to change the law requiring that it do so. The legislature always refuses, but the agency goes on its merry way, violating the law. It’s not as bad in Arizona where newspapers complain only of limited access to information that’s required by statute.
In Tennessee, it’s the members of the legislature themselves who are getting stiffed. Back in 2005, they passed a law requiring the Department of Children’s Services to inform a legislator of each child death “or near death” that occurs in his/her district within 45 days.
…DCS attorney Douglas Dimond acknowledged that the state agency charged with protecting children had been violating the law for seven years in its reporting of child deaths…
“Although the statute was enacted in 2005, it does not appear that the Department has been generating individual notifications to legislators at any time or under any version of the statute since then, but the Department will certainly begin doing so immediately in compliance with the statute,” Dimond wrote.
In short, for seven years, the Department ignored the law. And when legislator Sherry Jones and The Tennessean newspaper finally demanded that DCS turn over information on all children who died in the first six months of this year, they were stonewalled for two months.
The figures aren’t good. In the first six months of this year, 31 Tennessee children died who were either the subject of a DCS investigation at the time, had been recently or were in “state custody,” i.e. foster care, I assume.
Worse, this is shaping up to be a good year for DCS. That’s because, in the previous 2 1/2 years, 233 such children have died, so 2012′s average of 62 child deaths is a marked improvement.
Now, it’s true, as state officials say, that not every death is one that DCS should have or could have prevented. The alcoholic mother who passes out and rolls over on her newborn, smothering him, is not the same as the well-meaning mother who swaddles the child too tightly. Fair enough, but if all the deaths fell into the latter category, i.e. regrettable but not DCS’s fault, you’d expect to see the same type of figures in states with similar populations. To its credit, the article gives some examples and Tennessee DCS doesn’t stack up well.
A comparison to overall death numbers for Tennessee children shows that about one in 10 children who died in the state last year had some interaction with DCS while they were alive.
Of the 964 deaths of children 18 and younger reported by the Department of Health in 2011, 100 had come to the attention of or were in the physical custody of DCS before they died.
Of the 1,040 child deaths in Tennessee in 2010, 102 children had some interactions with DCS while they lived.
A comparison to nearby states puts Tennessee child death figures statistically above some of its neighbors.
In Alabama, for example, which has 1.1 million children versus Tennessee’s 1.4 million, between January and June this year, one child died who was the subject of an open case file and one child died who was in state custody, according to the Alabama Department of Human Resources.
In Arkansas, where 710,000 children live, there were four children in custody or subject to a DCS investigation at the time of their deaths during the first six months of this year, according to the Arkansas Department of Human Services.
That probably explains a lot about why Tennessee DCS failed for seven years to comply with the law on reporting children’s deaths. And that lack of transparency on the part of the agency in turn probably contributed its share to the children’s deaths. It’s one of the important points about transparency – it serves to limit governmental errors, malfeasance and corruption. Everyone, public or private, behaves a little more carefully when they know others are watching than they do when they act in secrecy. So the refusal by DCS to report children’s deaths to state legislatures results not only in a lack of information, it increases risk for Tennessee’s children. It’s the mission of DCS to reduce that risk, not increase it.
Source: Fathers and Families.
