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UPDATE: CA - Teen Sues L.A. (county) After Decade in Foster Care
Los Angeles Foster Care Outrage--Father, Daughter Separated for 10 Years
According to Long-Separated Father, Daughter Sue L.A. County Foster Care Agency (Los Angeles Times, 7/17/06): "There were plaudits all around last fall when a troubled teenager who spent 10 years in foster care was reunited with the father she had hardly known, thanks to what Los Angeles County supervisors described as a 'groundbreaking effort' at family unification. "But the genesis of that heartwarming story is now the basis of a lawsuit alleging that Los Angeles County officials condemned Melinda Smith, now 17, to a decade of foster homes and institutions by failing to take the most basic steps to find her father. "Melinda's parents were not married when she was born in 1988, but her father, Thomas Marion Smith, agreed to pay child support in 1989. He saw Melinda often, he said, but when she was about 4, her mother moved and left no forwarding address. Two years later, in 1995, after the county had received two complaints of suspected child abuse, Melinda's mother turned the girl over to foster care officials. "Meanwhile, Thomas Smith continued to receive monthly bills and make support payments to the county for several years, while Melinda was -- unbeknownst to him -- being shuffled through a series of institutions and foster homes. "The Department of Children and Family Services -- required by law to use 'due diligence' to locate a foster child's noncustodial parent -- never notified Smith that Melinda was in foster care and never gave him a chance to claim her, the lawsuit alleges. "The department listed Smith's whereabouts as unknown in court documents filed a decade ago, even though department records indicate that Melinda's caseworker knew that Smith was paying child support through a separate county agency and his address was on file there. "'He's a registered voter with a valid driver's license and an open child support case,' said his attorney, L. Wallace Pate. 'All they had to do, at any time during those 10 years, was pick up the phone and ask the L.A. County Child Support Services Department, 'Do you have a contact on this man?' "Ultimately, Smith was located last spring by retired social worker Peggy Crist, who was brought in to help the Department of Children and Family Services launch a program to find permanent placements for teenagers who had spent years in foster care. "After meeting Melinda -- who told Crist 'the most important thing she could think of...was that she wanted to find her father' -- it took the social worker one day to find Thomas Smith, who was living with his wife in a comfortable two-bedroom home in Pine Valley, east of San Diego. "Last July, the father and daughter saw each other for the first time in more than 10 years. In November, Melinda left foster care and moved into her father's home...[for years] social workers misled Melinda and family court officials by portraying Smith as a 'deadbeat dad,' the lawsuit said, even though they knew he was paying child support and had received 'no notice that his daughter was being detained.' "Melinda grew up in seven different foster care placements. For five years, beginning at the age of 7, she lived in a residential treatment center alongside older children convicted of criminal activity because social workers decided her emotional issues ruled out placement with foster parents. "Agency records cited in the lawsuit detail a litany of behavior problems: She threw toys, punched windows and walls, and was frequently restrained by staff members when her tantrums escalated into kicking and biting attacks. "When Melinda was 8, her social worker reported that she refused to speak, suffered from extreme depression and was so 'oppositional and defiant' that she was 'not appropriate for adoptive placement'... "...Crist initiated her search [for Melinda's father on] May 16, 2005. By May 17, she had Thomas Smith's current address, along with his addresses for the last 15 years, the lawsuit said. "She enlisted a San Diego social worker to visit Smith, who called Crist and said that he had tried unsuccessfully to find his daughter for years. All that time, he said, he thought she was living with her mother." |
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UPDATE: CA - Teen Sues L.A. (county) After Decade in Foster Care
Strange the link didn't come through the first time.. Here's the link
again. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la...=la-home-local |
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