| Releases & Statements
Demands Administration for Children’s Services Stop Under-Reporting Child Fatalities
(January 8, 2003) Following up on a report about the child welfare system issued by the Office of Public Advocate in December, today Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum announced a City Council hearing to be held on February 5 that will investigate how to prevent deaths in the child welfare system; reduce abuse and neglect; and improve the case work practices of the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) and its contract agencies. The Public Advocate is soliciting testimony at the hearing from ACS administrators, elected officials, parents, foster parents, child welfare experts, and representatives of agencies that provide foster care services.
On December 9, 2002, the Office of the Public Advocate’s Child Welfare Project released the report Children at Risk analyzing deaths in the year 2001 of children known to the city’s welfare system. The study, based on child fatality reports prepared the New York State Office of Children and Family Services, shows that 52 children known to the welfare system died in 2001, more than double the number two years ago. The report also shows that fully half the deaths—26—could have been avoided by better monitoring of foster homes, better intervention with families and more education about the appropriate care of young children.
When the Public Advocate released her report, the New York City Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) disputed the figures, claiming only 32 children known to the system had died in 2001. The Office of Public Advocate responded by sending the attached chart to ACS identifying each of the 52 cases. In the subsequent Accountability Review Panel Report 2001 and 2002, completed by the ACS in mid-December, ACS again claims only 32 fatalities for 2001, fully 20 less than the number of such deaths that the Public Advocate finds in New York State Office of Children and Family Services fatality reports.
Meanwhile deaths of children in the welfare system continue. On New Year’s Eve, infant Kyreese Foster was killed in a foster home by a friend of the foster mother. The mother of the child claims that shortly before the death she asked that the child be removed from the home.
The difference in the reported numbers of fatalities of children “known” to the system may be explained by the fact that ACS Review Panel investigates only deaths reported to the New York State Central Register (SCR ) as allegedly due to neglect or abuse. The Public Advocate’s report looked at all the deaths of children “known to the system,” including those with no associated report of neglect or abuse.
Fatalities not reported to the SCR for abuse and neglect may also be preventable or avoidable. Some of the New York State reports clearly demonstrate this. ACS’s accounting system obscures the full extent of the problem. While a number of these uncounted children died of natural causes and terminal illnesses, there were others that could have been avoided. These include:
An 18-year-old who was a homicide victim while residing in an ACS group home.
A one month old who died of “positional asphyxia” in a foster home. The State report indicated that the foster parents may not have been educated about safe sleeping positions for infants.
A teenager who committed suicide while AWOL from a residential foster care program. He had been in eight different foster care placements.
A medically fragile infant who died from SIDS. The foster parent had recently missed an appointment with a neurologist.
A four-year-old foster child who died because he was hit by a car driven by the foster mother: the State report revealed that the foster mother was caring for too many young children simultaneously.
Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum said, “If we are going to stop the rise in deaths and improve the city’s child welfare system, the Administration for Children’s services must first admit to the full scale of the problem. It does not help children or families to omit telling the stories of some 20 children who died in 2001. It’s time to acknowledge the actual size of the problem and address solutions.”
The Public Advocate’s December report identifies a one-size-fits-all as the main reason behind New York City’s shortfall in protecting our most vulnerable children. Under the current system, nearly every case is treated as though it were a crisis or high-risk case. In fact, most cares are investigated for neglect, not abuse. Preventive services can resolve these cases instead of the costly and time-consuming court and custody interventions that ACS currently employs.
The report concluded with the following recommendations to reduce child fatalities:
1. Expand the array of preventive services to help more families prior to a crisis.
2. Reform child protective services so that the system can respond with greater flexibility, offering support to low-risk families and prompt intervention and removal in high-risk situations.
3. Expand pilot projects in the courts to reduce congestion and delays.
4. Create incentives for foster care agencies to resolve children’s placements earlier.
5. Revised training for front-line staff and their superiors.
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