State Rep. Linda Stewart (D-Orlando) said Thursday, she applauds State Senator Eleanor Sobel’s (D-Hollywood) call for hearings on the recent spate of child deaths and other developments in the Department of Children and Families, when the Legislature convenes in September.
Sobel, who heads the Senate Children, Families and Elder Affairs Committee, issued the call in light of the tragic and preventable deaths of five children since May 16, ranging in ages from five months to four years. DCF was aware of all the cases and is in the middle of launching a new child safety initiative.
“No child should die because of abuse and neglect,” Sobel said. “Especially if the state goes in and investigates. That’s unacceptable.”
Stewart said she has high hopes the hearings will give the state’s policymakers and the public a “better understanding of some of the Department’s shortcomings and ongoing disputes with the community based health providers.”
“Time and again in Governor Scott’s administration, the philosophies of ‘saving time’ and ‘increasing accountability’ have been poor excuses for cutting corners and passing on responsibility for failed policies – often by gutting the very ‘regulations’ developed to stop just these sorts of tragic deaths,” Stewart added.
Stewart continued: “Just earlier this month, DCF moved to eliminate what is known as a ‘second-party review,’ a long-standing procedure in child-protection cases. Previously, investigators had to complete safety assessments after their first contacts with children, followed by supervisor and second-party reviews when certain risk-factors were involved. Now, after the tragic death of another child, a circuit judge has mercifully called for DCF to transfer that authority elsewhere.
“How eliminating the risk-based model investigators have used for years in favor of a checklist amid all the turmoil and controversy within their department is almost impossible to understand, but it does show us there must be commonsense, bipartisan ways we can improve our state’s child safety system. I look forward to working with my colleagues to that end.”
DCF Secretary David Wilkins said, through spokeswoman Alexis Lambert, he welcomes the scrutiny.
