• 2-year-old, Bradley McGee, died "of a massive brain hemorrhage after his head was repeatedly dunked in a toilet as punishment for soiling his diapers".
• "In the end, state welfare workers ignored the rules and tools that could have saved" a 2-year-old "from a terrible death at the hands of his abusive parents".
• "The 21-page report, by the agency's Inspector General's Office, shows that child welfare workers were more concerned with reuniting the family than protecting the Lakeland toddler's life".
• Four employees from Child Protection Agency and at least 10 other people knew he "was being abused and subjected to "bizarre punishment" before he died - including forcing feces into his mouth for soiling his bed.  Yet no one from the agency reported the incidents to the HRS child-abuse hot line".

• The 2-year-old "might be alive today if social workers had followed their policy for protecting abused children".  "Four state child-care workers knew the baby was subjected to physical abuse and "bizarre punishment" at home, didn't report it, and recommended the child be returned to his parents".
• The Child Protective Agency called it "an error in judgment and disciplined the workers, ranging from a written reprimand to 30 days' suspension".
• The 2-year-old spent 14 months in foster care after "his mother abandoned him malnourished and congested when he was 4 months old".  "Two months before his death he was returned to his parents."
• The foster parents and a child protection team advised against returning the child to his parents.  Reports of abuse received by the Child Protective Agency were not brought to the attention of a judge who approved the reunification."

• Family Bill of Rights filed by Orlando Legislator, Republican state Sen. John Ostalkiewicz
• "In this state, a murderer has more rights than a mother who is falsely accused of child abuse".  "We want to stop HRS (Child Protective Agency) from interfering in the lives of people who have not done anything wrong."
• Ostalkiewicz's bill would:  "Prohibit anonymous reports of abuse"; "Force HRS to get a court order before taking a child from a home, except in cases when emergency medical care is needed"; "Permit parents to hold HRS workers liable for mistakes and the agency responsible for harm to children while they are in HRS care.  Increase the standard of proof needed to terminate parental rights.  There now must be a "preponderance" of evidence of abuse or neglect.  The bill would raise that to "clear and convincing" evidence.  Authorize parents to record or videotape all meetings and conversations regarding an abuse investigation, even without the knowledge of HRS workers.  Allow suspected abusers to get the name of the person who reported them".

• Father confessed "he killed his daughter after losing his temper, hitting the little girl repeatedly and throwing her against a wall".
• "State social workers investigated Kayla's father on at least three occasions".  Mother stated "school officials reported on two occasions earlier this year that her daughter arrived for class with black eyes".
• Court records showed the father "has a history of violent behavior dating back to 1992".

• "State officials had received numerous reports of abuse concerning Kayla but did not remove the girl from her father's custody".
• A Circuit Judge "was incensed that he had released Kayla to her father's care at the urging of a Department of Children & Families' official, who failed to tell him about the extent of Kayla's injuries".

• "two teachers and two counselors who tried repeatedly to get child-welfare workers to save her from what they described as hellish abuse.  The women made several dozen insistent phone calls to officials, demanding that they help the first-grader who kept coming to school with bruises."  One of the counselors said "teachers and even other students sought her out, begging her to help."
• First sign of abuse came when Kayla was taken to a hospital in May with "two black eyes and bruises, a swollen hand and bloodshot eyes.  X-rays showed a broken nose and old fractures."
• In June "Kayla had two black eyes again" and after being absent from school for approximately a week, she returned to school battered.  Kayla was examined by a pediatrician, who "discovered multiple bruises on her chest and torso and a bruise and scratches on her buttocks."
• Calls by a physician to the "Department of Children & Families abuse hotline went ignored - even when she warned Kayla was in "imminent danger" and should be removed."

• "6-year-old Clermont girl police say was beaten to death by her father after being repeatedly returned to an abusive home."
• State Senator Cowin is qouted as saying "That agency murdered that child by their neglect".
• "Among the grand jury's findings was that as many as 10 caseworkers were involved in Kayla's case, yet not one of them saw Kayla more than once.  None of them sought to do a complete review of the entire history of supposedly accidental injuries this child suffered".  "Kayla had broken bones, black eyes, bruised and swollen body parts, and knots on her head."
• "The available facts, had anyone bothered to look at them, justified, indeed compelled, removal of the child from the home".
• "grand jury also learned that the Department of Children & Families hotline sometimes refused to take complaints.  This should never be allowed to happen again.  Every complaint, no matter how inconsequential it may appear over the telephone, should be referred to an investigator".
• "The grand jury said investigators should have picked up on danger signs, including failure by care-givers to get medical treatment for Kayla and absences from school from which the girl returned with new injuries."

• “Social workers wanted to remove a 2-year-old Kissimmee girl from her home four months before she was beaten to death, but they failed to act after the girl’s mother broke her promise to leave the man now accused of killing the toddler”. 
• According to the article, state records indicated workers knew the mother moved back in with her boyfriend who had been abusing the 2-year-old.
• "Even when the agency got a call last month that the 2-year-old had a black eye and blood behind her ears”, the 2-year-old was not removed from the home and was not seen by a caseworker for 10 days.
• According to the article the 2-year-old was punched by her mother’s boyfriend so hard in the stomach that it killed her because the girl gave him a look he didn’t like.

• Department of Children & Families “alleges that both judges are prejudiced against the department and that this bias has placed children at risk.”
• Department “allegations are serious enough to make him (a circuit judge) wonder whether the agency is simply trying to shift the blame for troubles with the child-welfare system”.

• "The number of Lake County children removed from their homes because of abuse or neglect has increased a staggering 600 percent in the first six months of 2001".
• "Some parents say the agency is too quick to yank children".
• A 6 and 7 year old taken away from their mother, Ms. Torres, after police and child protection agency said they "discovered the children exposed to electrical cords in a roach-infested house."
• "Neglect charges were later dropped for insufficient evidence, but Torres still doesn't have her children back."  Torres "hopes to have her children back after completing a program that includes parenting classes and making her home more safe and sanitary."

• "State child-welfare workers listed in the wrongful death lawsuit of 6-year-old" want their names removed.
• "Most of the DCF workers lost their jobs amid allegations that they missed "red flags" that suggested they should have removed Kayla from an abusive home".
• "The lawsuit was in the federal courts for a time because it alleges violations of the 1983 Civil Rights Act, but it has since been turned over to the state court, where the suit was first filed".
• "The child-welfare workers failed to protect her, the suit says, adding that Kayla had a right to be free from "the infliction of unnecessary pain under the 5th and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, and the right to physical safety under the 14th Amendment".  The defendants fired back, saying there were no such constitutional rights, especially under the circumstances.  Kayla wasn't in state custody".
• "The workers also said that they were operating under a kind of immunity because they were merely exercising their "discretionary authority" while doing their jobs."

• "A 17-month-old foster child in Duval County is beaten and then drowned in the bathtub.  Her foster mother is arrested."
• "Four young children say they were sexually abused in a Lake Mary foster home.  Two people, including their foster mother, are arrested."
• "Is the Florida Department of Children & Families doing a good job monitoring foster homes?"
• "Staff sometimes skip out-of-state criminal checks, often leave safety concerns unaddressed and sometimes let experienced foster parents watch television talk shows and count that as continuing education."
• "Workers fail to talk to one another about common cases, they do not complete required paperwork and they do not respond to foster parents' requests for help."
• "Robert Morin Jr., district administrator, conceded that supervising foster parents is one area "where we fell apart.""
• "In the past 2 1/2 years, DCF investigators have confirmed four other cases of sexual abuse of foster children in the four-county area and have found evidence to suggest 12 more incidents."
• "The agency also has confirmed 29 local cases of children being physically abused and another 28 of neglect while in foster care during the same period."

• "Foster children as young as 3 are being held for months in a locked crisis unit for the mentally ill in Orange County, often because the state agency charged with their care has nowhere else to put them."
• "The average stay in a children's crisis unit should be seven to 10 days, a state standard developed through the years".  "But some children have been held for 100 days or more."
• "Can you place a child in a locked crisis center without due process?"  "DCF routinely dumps kids in foster care in locked facilities" without a court hearing.
• "clients who don't have a mental illness are put with other children who do."  "In Orange County, about three dozen children have been in the crisis unit at Lakeside from 39 to 105 days at a time since July 1999."  This included a 5-year-old who stayed more than three months and four 6-year-olds stayed in the crisis unit from 39 to 103 days.
• "Why are these children locked up?"  "A 5-year-old who was "aggressive toward a DCF worker" stayed 105 days."  "A 6-year-old who kicked a DCF caseworker stayed 103 days."
• "In another report, DCF found the children's crisis unit at Lakeside failed to meet state standards in 18 of 20 categories.  One of the more-serious violations: All of the 24 children reviewed had voluntarily signed themselves into the crisis unit without the signature of a parent or guardian, as required by law."
• "report found several examples of children who were committed even though they did not meet the admission criteria in the Baker Act, the state's mental-health law."
• "What's frightening is a young child institutionalized without a parent's signature".

• Child protection agency officials insisted "they didn't have enough evidence to take action" despite "five hotline complaints claiming the baby was in danger" and a "documented string of injuries" suffered by his 2-year-old sister including: "a broken arm"; "four days after she came home from the hospital after being born" she "choked while being fed and was rushed to an emergency room.  There, medical personnel found bruises on her bottom and back"; "shortly before her brother's death" she "suffered a gash over her eye, and while her brother was in a coma in the hospital, investigators discovered that her wrist had been broken".
• "Caseworkers investigated about a dozen child-abuse complaints involving both children" and removed the 2 year-old from the family three times before the baby was born.  At 4-months old the baby laid in a coma for three days before dieing from brain and spinal-cord injuries due to being allegedly shook by his father "Shaken Baby Syndrome".

• The Child Protection Agency (DCF) notified the 23-month-old toddler's mother a week after his limp body was pulled from a swimming pool behind a foster home.  The toddler had died after spending two days in critical condition at a hospital.
• DCF officials advised that the mother's parental rights had been terminated and they were under no obligation to tell her.  The mother was also told she could not attend the child's funeral.
• The mother advised that a final court hearing to terminate her rights was not scheduled until May 14.

• According to the article, child-welfare workers placed a healthy 5-month-old baby in a shelter after her father nearly killed her sister.  "A year later, she left the home partly paralyzed and brain-damaged and now, at age 6, cannot walk unassisted, feed herself or say more than a few words."  Article further states she is "among hundreds of children who are harmed more in the state's protective custody every year than they were by the parents who first failed them".
• Article further tells of two children kept in isolation "by adoptive parents who beat, bound and caged girls for 10 years."  A U.S. District Judge "rejected federal intervention, ruling there were sufficient remedies for children in state courts". 
• Article also tells about a 17-month-old who "was deliberately drowned in her foster home last year after refusing to eat pizza.  Her 3-year-old brother, also placed in the same home, was hospitalized the night his sister died with severely swollen genitals."  The article states that the foster home guardians had surrendered their foster-care license in another state after two complaints.  The child protection agency requested some of the prior records, but not the complaints before issuing them a license in Florida.

• "Four Central Florida child-protection workers were fired or have resigned in the past three weeks after being accused of negligence and falsifying records to hide that they had failed to check on some abused and abandoned children".
• "The Department of Children & Families supervisor in charge of the four, all from the Pine Hills office, was also fired for not catching the sham reports".
• "Longest period that a child went unchecked by a caseworker from the office was nine months."
• "Elsewhere around the state, two child-welfare workers in Palm Beach County were fired recently for failing to visit and keep track of children in foster care, and an investigator was dismissed for leaving a child in an abusive situation.  In Polk County, two foster-care workers lost their jobs after being accused of delaying an investigation into an abuse allegation at the home of a police officer."

• "A boy with birth defects died when his breathing tube became clogged at a medical foster home, weeks after he was taken from his grandmother".
• "I kept him alive for four years," said the grandmother.  "They killed him in a month and six days."

• "Central Florida abuse investigators are juggling some of the heaviest caseloads in the state, making it impossible for them to protect children from harm".
• "Statewide, investigators were responsible for an average of 44 cases in April.  But in Orange, Seminole, Osceola and Brevard counties, investigators were slammed by an aveage of 122 cases apiece.  Only the district encompassing Indian River, Martin, Okeechobee and St. Lucie counties was worse, with 131 cases."
• "Experts say abuse investigators can't keep kids safe if they're assigned more than 12 cases."
• "We need real reform where a law-enforcement-caliber investigator goes out there to gather the evidence, but the need to do it in concert with a social worker," stated Rep. Cindy Lerner, D-Miami.  "Right now they're hiring people with a four-year degree in music or anything".

"Allegations that six Palm Beach County girls partied with adult men at a Residence Inn by Marriott has prompted the state's child welfare agency to halt the placement of child in hotels".  The girls ages 11 to 17 "were seen at the pool numerous times with men in the evening, drinking alcohol and possibly smoking marijuana".  "The children may be involved in sexual activity as well".
"The crisis: An extreme shortage of placements for a deluge of children streaming into state care".

• "Somehow this child (Rilya Wilson) vanished from the household where she was placed more than a year ago.  Her disappearance went unreported until April, even though a DCF caseworker submitted fraudulent paperwork indicating that the girl was visited on a regular basis."
• "At one point some staffers at DCF hoped that Rilya had been placed with another family and the paperwork trail documenting the transfer had become lost.  That now seems highly unlikely."
• "Rilya is DCF's poster child, an icon for everything wrong with that agency and its leadership."
• "They're quick to point out the steps they have taken in response to Rilya's disappearance, such as the exhaustive campaign to check and re-check other children under DCF supervision to make sure they are where they're supposed to be.  But knowing the whereabouts and condition of all the neglected and abused children under state supervision isn't a new standard.  It's a basic requirement for child-protection.  How that standard had slipped in some Florida cases is a much more critical issue for the public, the department, the governor and lawmakers."

• "A 14-year-old Florida girl taken from her parents and later placed in a residential psychiatric center in Massachusetts hasn't seen a state caseworker in more than a year".
• "In April 2001, a Massachusetts caseworker informed Florida's Department of Children & Families that her agency would no longer monitor out-of-state children living in residential treatment centers.  Despite the notice, DCF made no provision for anyone else to check on the young girl".  "A court-appointed guardian for the girl, testified that DCF promised at that time that a worker would visit the child every three months."
• "Last week, DCF revealed that 711, or 42 percent of the 1, 669 children living outside Florida with relatives or in group homes , had not been visited by social workers in other states in June.  Florida rules require caseworkers to meet face-to-face with each child under state supervision at least monthly."
• "The rule took on a special urgency in May, when it was revealed that 5-year-old Rilya Wilson of Miami had vanished.  She had not been visited by her caseworker since January 2001.  Her caregiver said a DCF worker took her, but the agency has no record of the child's being moved."
• Of the approximate 45, 000 children in DCF care, in June, the agency could not account for 1,841.

• “An investigator with Florida’s child-welfare agency was charged Friday with falsifying records in the case of a 2-year-old boy who authorities say was fatally beaten for soiling his pants”.
• A Department of Children & Families child abuse investigator reported she visited the 2-year-old boy, Alfredo Montes', on the same day police think the boy was slain.
• "toddler's body was found on the side of a road in west-central Florida".
• "According to agency documents, five calls were made to its abuse hot line in a 23-month period ending July 1 concerning the welfare" of the 2-year-old and his sister.
• "Among the charges made in those calls were that their mother abused drugs and that the children often had welts and bruises".

• "caseworker erroneously reported that she visited -- and found in good health -- a little boy whose battered body later was discovered along Interstate 275."
• Head of agency "has done little to improve the agency's flagging morale, high turnover, poor pay, long hours, staggering caseloads and abysmal resources.  That all but invites employees to take shortcuts."

• "The National Coalition For Child Protection Reform believes that the first step is to understand the simple fact that is at the root of the current crisis:  Florida is taking away too many children."
• "There are a wide variety of proven programs that can keep these children in their own homes and do it with a far better track record for safety than foster care.  But as we see it, DCF Secretary Kathleen Kearney's answer to every child welfare problem comes down to "take the child and run"."
• "In just six months during 1999, Kearney's first year in office, the Florida foster-care population soared more than 37 percent, the largest such increase in the nation."
• "Kearney and her allies seek to justify the misery and trauma inflicted on children needlessly taken from their homes by saying it's necessary to keep children safe.  But deaths of children previously known to DCF have increased on Kearney's watch."

• "DCF counselor, was found passed out in her car while on the job with a bottle of rum next to her."
• "A 7-month-old foster child, whom the state worker had taken to visit her birth mother, was in the back seat."
• The DCF counselor "had a drunken-driving conviction before last week's incident.  If DCF regularly checked the driving records of workers, as is the practice in many companies, officials would have known about her 1993 conviction."

• "Florida's child welfare agency conducted three separate abuse investigations into the home of a young boy but took no action to remove the child, who was later fatally beaten."
• In April 2000, the 4-year-old boy was taken to a hospital with bruises and a limp.  The doctor told the child protective investigator the injuries were "classic signs of abuse."
• In August 2001, the stepfather was accused of assaulting the boy's mother and using cocaine.  Less than two weeks later the mother stabbed the step-father while he held their baby in his arms, however the DCF investigator reported the children to be at low risk.
• August 07, 2002, the 4-year-old was taken to a hospital with "multiple abrasions and bruises to his face, body and limbs, a fractured rib, damage to his pacreas, hemorrhaging in his intestines, brain swelling and hemorrhaging in both eyes."  On August 09, 2002, the boy was removed from life support and "died of head and body trauma".

• "State child welfare workers who are given information on the whereabouts of runaways do not always follow through and pick up the children, guardians ad litem say.  Each month, hundreds of children statewide are listed as runaways by the Department of Children & Families.  The agency reports to the courts and to the public that it cannot find these children."
• "courtroom advocates for children -- known as guardians ad litem -- say they periodically tell DCF where a runaway is staying or is likely to stay, only to encounter bureaucratic delays, hassles and poor follow-through in recovering the children."  "Because of liability concerns, guardians are not permitted to transport children anywhere.  They must rely on police or DCF workers to pick up children who run away."
• "The failure of DCF workers to act on the guardians' reports is another indication that the state agency makes little effort to find children in its care who are runaways or have been abducted by parents."
• "On Sunday, the Sun-Sentinel reported that it had found nine of 24 South Florida children under DCF supervision who are listed as missing, some for years.  In a matter of weeks, the paper found the youngsters simply by using public records and interviewing relatives. In one case, a family was found in the phone book."

• There are "more than 500 children missing from Florida's child-protection system".
• "The Department of Children & Families contends that confidentiality, intended to protect the identity of abused and neglected children, also applies when they are missing.  The agency has repeatedly denied requests to identify children missing from its care.  That means the state loses a valuable tool in finding children: help from the public. Photos of missing children on billboards and postcards often generate tips that lead to the recovery of youngsters, but DCF doesn't use those methods."
• "DCF has the authority to waive confidentiality in order to place the names and photos of children on the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's missing-children Web site.  But as of last month, fewer than half of the 532 missing DCF children were included on the site, and many of them lack photos."
• A DCF district administrator said "high turnover and caseloads among caseworkers hamper the agency's ability to focus on missing children."
• "The state's handling of children missing from the child-welfare agency came under national scrutiny recently after the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported that it found nine of 24 South Florida children DCF had been unable to locate for as long as eight years.  By using public records and interviewing relatives, the newspaper found some of the children in as little as three hours."
• "DCF does not issue public appeals for help in finding its missing youngsters" and "the gency does not even report them to police, despite a policy requiring immediate notification of law enforcement.  In six of the 24 cases examined by the newspaper, DCF waited five to seven years to file police reports on the missing children."
• "In the case of 4-year-old Keylan Golden of Hollywood, missing since he was 2, DCF waited eight months to report him missing to police.  Another 11 months passed before the agency sent an outdated photo and necessary paperwork to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children." 

• "Florida's child-protection agency has failed to meet the Sept. 1 deadline set by a governor's commission to find missing children, create computer
• records and fingerprint all foster children in state care.  Three months ago, the highly publicized governor's blue-ribbon commission report listed all three items as "immediate priorities" for the state Department of Children & Families".
• Fingerprints and photographs are critical in helping identify missing children.
• "The agency also has not met the Bush commission's Sept. 1 deadline to put basic records for each foster child in the state's new computer system, known as
• HomeSafenet."

• "The state's child welfare agency employs at least 183 people with criminal pasts, including felonies such as child molestation, child abuse, sex crimes and drug dealing, according to a newspaper probe."
• "Among the Department of Children & Families employees with criminal records, three were punished for child abuse, 22 for grand theft, seven for aggravated battery, two for DUI manslaughter, three for dealing drugs, 10 for aggravated assault with a weapon and nine for welfare fraud, The Miami Herald reported Sunday.  Three of those employees submitted their resignations after the newspaper exposed that they had not disclosed their criminal record."
• "DCF officials said the agency was aware in most cases of the charges and thoroughly reviewed the backgrounds of the employees to make sure their lives were back on track and that DCF clients would not be imperiled."
• "One employee, the head of the agency's data-security team in Tallahassee, is listed on the state's list of sexual predators for molesting a 5-year-old boy."
• "Now, if employees in caretaker positions -- those who spend more than 15 hours a week in direct contact with DCF clients -- are convicted or plead no contest to most felonies and first-degree misdemeanors, they will be fired unless they apply for and are granted an exemption."