Carole Deleon is getting off easy after pleading guilty to criminal mistreatment of a little boy she adopted out of foster care, then starved to death. She also mistreated at least one other foster child.

Tyler was starved, bruised, had teeth knocked out, drugged with various medications, and denied water. He died on his seventh birthday.

Deleon was originally charged with murder, but a plea bargain has reduced her sentence to what will probably be only six years.

Florence Moyle’s nephew, Steven, also lived with Deleon. They believe Deleon should have been tried for murder, and Steven was willing to testify. Moyle is planning protests outside the Stevens County Courthouse and a Seattle law firm is preparing a lawsuit against the state of Washington.

Six months before Tyler’s death there was a CPS report stating that “the children in the Deleon home were at high risk for future abuse and neglect” yet the caseworkers left Tyler and four other children there, and placed a three-month-old baby in her home. This is another case of CPS choosing to ignore evidence of abuse in a foster home.

Source: DeLeon faces sentencing Friday, published July 20, 2007.

CPS caseworkers in Washington apparently failed to follow up on fifteen reports of child abuse, but when a neighbor told police a teenage foster child was locked in the closet, the girl was finally rescued from what appears to be a horrific foster care abuse situation. Detectives said the first fifteen complaints weren’t acted on because the foster parent moved from apartment to apartment, and they couldn’t find her, yet at the same time this woman collected foster parent benefits for housing the young girl.

My theory is different. I believe that cases of child abuse in foster homes are ignored because CPS doesn’t get any money for taking children from one foster home and putting them in another. They only get an increase in funding when they take a child from their natural families, then place them in a foster home. Therefore foster child abuse isn’t a priority for busy CPS caseworkers.

Fight CPS hopes to shed light on the problem of abuse in foster homes. Statistics have shown that child abuse of all types is about ten times more likely to happen in a foster home than in a natural family home.

The child, who is now sixteen, lived with foster parent Chornice Lewis, 33, for ten years. Acquaintances said Lewis was very polite and made a good impression on them.

Police allege that if the foster child caused any problems, Lewis put the child’s hand on a hot stove. And if she didn’t listen she had to stand next to her foster parent’s bed all night long. If she slept, a 10-lb weight was dropped on her feet. And once, when she wasn’t packing properly, an insulin needle was plunged into her eye, so the girl is now blind in one eye.

According to a KOMOTV.Com article, Cheryl Stephani, an employee of the Washington Department of Social and Health Services, DSHS, said “We missed it. . . . As a child welfare system. It’s all of us, the courts, the department, the children’s administration. We should hold each other accountable; we need to hold each other accountable.”

Holding CPS caseworkers accountable = Good Idea. When?

Source: Mother accused of abusing foster daughter for years by Bryan Johnson, for KOMOTV.Com, published June 26, 2007.

Spokane City Councilman Bob Apple launched an outspoken attack on a CPS social worker he claimed submitted false court documents in a child welfare case involving a former employee and campaign volunteer, Daniel Morgan. The City Councilman stated that CPS kidnapped a 2-year-old child, and that the assistant attorney general should be jailed.

From the article:

“It’s a sham… If this is how the court system operates, then it’s broken.” - Bob Apple

Of course CPS said that the charges were “ridiculous” because they go to court and state that the child is “at risk of imminent harm”.

In this case the ex-husband of Morgan’s wife has made accusations against Morgan in a custody dispute.

From the article:

Since 2002, the state agency has received a “number of referrals related to parental neglect of the children and alleged physical abuse of the children by Mr. Morgan,” according to the court documents. A state spokeswoman said she could not disclose how many of the complaints were made by Allen…..The Morgans said Allen has used the referrals “as payback” and to gain custody of the two children he had with Robin Morgan.

Now, this next part hits home with me:

“Unfortunately, in this field, when the custody of children is involved, everyone involved is willing to lie,” said Dave Wood, a lobbyist for Washington Families United, a nonprofit group seeking reforms to the child-welfare system. “You don’t know what the truth is. Something has to change.”

I find that so true - that too many people are willing to lie to get custody. That includes social workers, ex-spouses, girlfriends of ex-spouses, etc. And I plead with each one of you that if you’re in this situation, stay with the truth. Lies lead only to confusion. If you tell the truth, at least when it is all over, you still have your integrity.

City Councilman Bob Apple will advocate for any citizen that contacts him. Perhaps you might want to print out this article and take it to your city councilman (or woman) to see if that person is willing to go to bat for you. I’ve contacted my county supervisor several times, including for an issue involving CPS, and every time she’s been a great help and everything turned out perfectly.

Source: Apple puts spotlight on CPS by Benjamin Shors for the Spokane Spokesman Review, published June 23, 2007

Arizona CPS social workers are now using a “new” risk assessment tool that the state spent a lot of money to develop. Apparently the goal of the risk assessment is for investigations to be more thorough and comprehensive.

A sample risk assessment distributed to employees had 81 pages, which astounded CPS social workers who are expected to complete this process each time they do an investigation. It could be that caseworkers will spend more time doing paperwork and less time detaining children.

According to one child welfare expert, the risk assessment tool is based on 20-year-old standards and will do nothing to make children safer. However state officials say the assessment is used in other states and that Arizona CPS staff contributed feedback for development of the project.

From the June 4, 2007 article in the Arizona Daily Star:

Without the changes, “we weren’t able to see how they (investigators) made their decisions,” said Janice Mickens, an administrator with CPS. “We need to have something that guides us throughout this process.”

Risk assessment tools have been used by CPS agencies for years. The “new” Arizona risk assessment is based on a Washington risk assessment developed in 1986, and some experts consider it antiquated. The state of Washington also considers it out of date and is working on developing new methods.

From the article:

The general philosophy behind it and the Arizona model is what is known as a “consensus-based” approach, meaning the case manager assesses risk from a number of areas like the child’s behavior and development, severity of abuse and the qualities of the caretaker, among others.

Such an approach has been criticized in social work academic journals for being subjective, overly broad and using the same variables to predict different types of abuse and neglect.

Using a risk assessment, CPS social workers can detain children based on what might happen, even when nothing has happened. Questions on the risk assessment may include questions such as “are the parents legally married?” and “how many children are in the home?”.

Rep. Jonathan Paton of Tucson said “81 pages seems excessive. I can envision a lot of frustration from workers who have too many cases as it is.” But Mickens, the CPS administrator, said she didn’t think the risk assessment will add much time to the investigation process because social workers are already filling out some of the same forms.

The agency didn’t study the time factor so they don’t know how long it will take Arizona CPS social workers to fill out the form, but they feel this risk assessment is a “critical tool” as it will force CPS caseworkers to “ask the right questions”.

Arizona CPS has been responsible for several recent high-profile deaths of children who had open CPS cases: Tyler Payne, 5; his sister Ariana, 4; and Brandon Williams, 5.

Source: CPS assessment tool raises criticism
Long paperwork said to be thorough, but system is based on 1986 model by Josh Brodesky of the Arizona Daily Star

Here’s more proof that some CPS social workers don’t care at all about the children they pretend to protect.

According to the lawsuit:

Three girls were placed with a man known to CPS social workers as a cocaine addict. He was allowed to adopt one of the three girls. For ten years there were complaints of abuse. The girls say he hit and/or raped them, and gave them drugs.

After the two foster children were transfered out of his home it took CPS another year and a half to rescue the adopted daughter. It looks like they just didn’t care.

According to the article by Susannah Frame:

This is what finally got Monica to safety: Redmond police confiscated hundreds of photos and videos of child pornography, and obscene images of Fabregas posing in women’s lingerie, some with guns. Police identified him having sex with two of his daughters in the evidence.

CPS, it looks like your true colors are shining through. If you cared about kids, you would leave them with family members who cared enough to try to protect them from this kind of abuse. I hope the kids win their lawsuit. Nobody deserves to be treated that way.

Source: Multi-million-dollar lawsuit filed by three foster children