Despite Recent Deaths DYFS Showing Improvements

NEWARK— Although two recent deaths of children in South Jersey this year have left many in the community asking questions to the effectiveness of the massive child welfare reform effort, an independent monitor says, New Jersey has successfully completed the first phase of that reform effort mandated by the settlement of a federal class action civil suit brought by Children’s Rights, according to a report released on Monday, April 27 by the court monitor.
Children’s Rights a watchdog group dedicated to reforming government child welfare services across the United States filed the class action in 1999 on behalf of the more than 11,000 children dependent upon New Jersey’s child welfare system. In 2006, after a previous settlement agreement with the state failed to yield improvements, Children’s Rights and co-counsel Drinker Biddle & Reath reached a new agreement with the Corzine administration, mandating top-to-bottom reform of New Jersey’s long-failing child welfare system and resulting in the creation of a separate Department of Children and Families.
Operating under court order, the state has thoroughly reformed the structure, management, and workforce of its child welfare system, creating the cabinet-level Department of Children and Families (DCF), hiring hundreds of additional caseworkers, reducing caseloads for workers throughout the state, and implementing more comprehensive training for its staff. With the help of national and local child welfare experts, DCF has also developed and is implementing a new statewide model of child welfare practice that emphasizes keeping children with families, preferably their own, and engaging children and families in critical decision-making, the report says.
Amid the substantial progress, the report notes some challenges that remain as New Jersey enters the second phase of the reforms, which began in January 2009. DCF is still placing some children inappropriately in shelters rather than foster homes, including five children under the age of 13 for whom such placements are completely prohibited under the court order. Of the 421 children over 13 who were placed in shelters in the second half of 2008, 46 were placed there inappropriately, according to the report. Additionally, despite an increase in the total number of foster and adoptive homes licensed, the state fell short of the requirement to complete the licensing process within 150 days.
At the same time, the report says, the state has substantially increased the number of children adopted out of foster care annually and expanded its pool of available foster families, reduced the number of children it places in foster homes out of state and in shelters rather than with foster families, and expanded health care, family preservation, and other services for children in need.
Although the report notes some areas of concern as the state moves into the second phase of the reform effort, during which the emphasis of the court-ordered benchmarks for improvement shifts even more heavily toward ensuring better outcomes for children and families, it commends Governor Jon S. Corzine and DCF’s leadership for their continued commitment to progress, and calls on state officials to remain focused as they confront the challenges ahead.
“New Jersey’s child welfare system is being transformed by this court-ordered reform effort in ways that are producing increasingly clear and significant improvements in the lives of the state’s abused and neglected children and their families,” said Susan Lambiase, associate director of Children’s Rights. “Now DCF must not only maintain the reforms it has made, but also translate them into still better results for the kids and families who depend on it, and Children’s Rights will continue to monitor its progress closely.”
On March 31, of this year 26 year-old Vincent Williams of Camden was a charged in the beating death of 9-year-old Jamarr Cruz.
Williams was ordered to get help by the Division of Youth and Family Services After admitting he beat his girlfriend’s son with a belt in December 2007.
Williams finished parenting classes, and 17 weeks of family therapy and anger management counseling.
DYFS closed its books on the case in November of 2008, even after investigating Williams, again two months earlier for using “excessive force” to discipline the fourth-grade boy, according to the Star Ledger.
Locally 2 year-old Caden Rivera was allegedly beat to death on April 23 in Woodbine, by his mother’s boyfriend 31 year-old Damian Garcia, of Wildwood. Juan Rivera, Caden’s father said he warned the Division of Youth and Family Services his son was being abused and holds DYFS partially responsible for his death.
Chris Iseli a spokesperson for Child’s Rights says “they are keeping a close eye on both deaths. The overall progress that the NJ child welfare system has made over the past few years in a huge statewide reform effort. It doesn’t offset the tragedy of Caden Rivera’s case by any means or Jamarr Cruz’s, or anyone else’s, but the object of these reforms is to get DCF/DYFS to the point where it’s better able to protect and care for the kids who depend on it — and they do appear to be having an effect.”
View full report here (PDF).
Related Report:
View 2008 Office of the Child Advocate Child Fatality Report here (PDF).
Contact Scheeler at 609-404-6515 or hscheeler@cmcherald.com