More children missing from foster care

More children missing from foster care
BY CAROL MARBIN MILLER



When the disappearance of a 5-year-old girl from her Miami foster home
four years ago went unnoticed for months, the ensuing scandal that
engulfed Florida's child-welfare agency led to recriminations and
promises of beefed-up efforts to track down children who went missing
from state care.

A few months later, Gov. Jeb Bush and his social-services chief
declared ''success,'' saying the state had found all but 102 of about
400 foster children who had gone missing.

That was Dec. 17, 2002.

Yet as of Monday, the number of kids missing from the state's troubled
child-welfare system has skyrocketed to 652, most of them runaway
teens and youngsters snatched from foster care by their biological
parents. The number of missing kids has risen even as the number of
kids in state care has declined.

Child advocates say the state continues to fail miserably in efforts
to safeguard or return missing kids -- even neglecting to register the
children with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children,
the national clearinghouse for abducted and runaway kids.

''People look for their pets with greater concern,'' said Howard
Talenfeld, a Fort Lauderdale attorney who is president of Florida's
Children First. ``There's no urgency to finding these missing
children. But the kids are out on the streets. They are getting raped.
They are getting hurt. Some have been murdered. Yet the state still
doesn't pursue this with the kind of urgency that is necessary.''

Of the children currently missing from the custody of the state
Department of Children and Families, more than 170 are from South
Florida -- 72 from Miami-Dade, 67 from Broward, 31 from Palm Beach and
three from Monroe -- said Zoraya Suarez, DCF's spokeswoman in
Tallahassee.

The list includes children who are only infants or toddlers. Among
them: one-year-old Destiny Booth, one-year-old Geraldo Duarte,
two-year-old Angelica Rodriguez, 18-month-old Sheena Ruiz-Lopez-Meeks,
two-year-old Mackenzie Spears-Bennett, one-year-old Noah Samuel
Varble-Rhoads and one-year-old Louanne Wise.

'ENDANGERED' TEENS

The list also includes scores of ''endangered'' teenaged runaways,
such as 17-year-old Brandee A. Adams of Naples, 16-year-old Jessica
Dumas-Shore of Shalimar, 17-year-old Jennifer L. Gledhill of St.
Cloud, 17-year-old Bianca L. Peralta of Key West and
16-year-old Nikkia Shaver-Keefer of Bradenton.

Also on the list: 14-year-old Bryan Andrew Hayes, a freckle-faced
redhead with short-cropped hair who ran away from a Jacksonville
middle school Feb. 10, 2005, with a companion, 13-year-old Mark
Anthony Degner. Bryan, originally from the Port Orange area, had been
living in a Jacksonville group home.

''We've done everything we know how to do from a law enforcement
standpoint,'' said Jacksonville Sheriff's Office Assistant Chief of
Detectives Rick Graham. ``We've had bulletins, brochures, press
coverage, fliers. We haven't given up hope.''

RILYA WILSON

And the list still includes Rilya Wilson, who would be 10 in
September. Rilya's disappearance from her Miami caretaker's home when
she was five years old sparked national outrage, leading the governor
to appoint a blue-ribbon panel to investigate what was wrong with
Florida's foster-care system. Since then, Geralyn Graham, Rilya's
DCF-approved caregiver, has been charged with killing her.

Suarez, the DCF spokeswoman, said the agency has made great progress
in locating and serving runaways and other missing kids since Rilya
disappeared.

For example, she said, DCF now leads the nation in ensuring that
foster kids are visited by a caseworker at least once each month, with
a 99 percent compliance rate on the policy. DCF also has fingerprints
and birth certificates for nine out of 10 children in state care.

''It's sad that we live in a world where teens feel the need to run
away or to escape -- but rest assured that DCF diligently continues to
look for them,'' Suarez said. ``We have a process in place and work
hand-in-hand with law enforcement and take this matter very
seriously.''

DCF REFORMS

''DCF reformed its system to ensure the safety and well being of
children under its care,'' she added.

But the system remains badly flawed. State policy says DCF is supposed
to notify both the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about every missing
kid. The center, based in Alexandria, Va., was created by Congress as
a national clearinghouse for information on missing kids.

On Monday, DCF listed 652 children as missing from state care. Yet the
national center has open cases involving only 260 missing children for
all of Florida -- that includes all missing children in the state,
whether or not they were in state care.

CASES NOT LISTED

A Miami Herald search of the center's website, which lists the missing
kids for whom the center has posters with photographs, turned up only
about 25 who are on the DCF list as well.

Child advocates say it is important to keep the national center
informed.

''We work with the law enforcement agency responsible for finding''
children, said Larry Upchurch, the center's director of operations for
the missing-persons division.

The center prepares and distributes posters with recent pictures and
information that can help make an identification. It provides
investigative tools to police, and acts as a clearinghouse for tips
and information coming in through a 24-hour hot line.

ONE IN SIX

The posters have helped lead to the recovery of a missing child in
about one of every six cases that ended in a kid being found,
according to center research. The center, co-founded by John Walsh,
the father of a Hollywood child who was abducted from a mall, Adam
Walsh, has been active in finding missing kids for 21 years.

''You can't beat up an agency that does not have search-and-recovery
resources, and expect them to find every child who runs away, goes
missing or is abducted by parents,'' said Sara Herald, a former Miami
DCF district administrator who served on the 2002 blue-ribbon panel.
``The flip side is you have to make sure that for every child the
agency has in custody, they make every effort, as a parent would, to
try and find the child.''

Suarez, the DCF spokeswoman, said that the state notifies the national
center immediately in ''only those cases where circumstances
warrant,'' such as children considered ''endangered,'' or the victims
of parental abduction.

FEW ARE LOOKING

In some cases, virtually no one is looking for children reported
missing.

Last week, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Ellen Sue Venzer blasted DCF
officials for failing to locate a handful of missing kids. One of them
was known only as Baby Boy Gonzalez, who had been missing since 2002.

He was a second-generation missing child: His mother was a teenaged
runaway from a foster home when he was born. Yet his name did not
appear anywhere on DCF's online list of missing kids.

''Can you tell me where this child is? I'm concerned. I have a reason
to believe this child may be in danger,'' Venzer told the agency
Wednesday, noting that the boy's maternal grandmother, who was
reportedly hiding the youngster, had lost her three children to
verified reports of child abuse.

DCF had looked for the youngster everywhere, they told the judge.
Everywhere, apparently, but her courtroom, where Baby Boy had appeared
with his mother, using the surname of his biological father.

On Thursday, caseworkers found him at a Miami-Dade day care center. He
is now living with his biological dad.

State Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff, a Fort Lauderdale Republican who also
serves as a volunteer guardian-ad-litem in Broward juvenile court,
said child welfare administrators also must do more to improve the
lives of teenaged foster kids, giving them greater access to judges
and guardians, and providing opportunities for them to gain
independence.

GIRL RAN AWAY

Bogdanoff was appointed to the case of a 17-year-old on May 12, she
said, and was told in court that the teen was attending school,
working part-time and appeared to be happy and stable. Two days later,
the girl ran away.

''If we had greater communication and better services, the child would
not feel the need to run away,'' Bogdanoff said. ``We know one thing:
they are not running to something better.''
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/14749046.htm

DCF Missing Children List http://www.dcf.state.fl.us/missingkids/





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