Nearly two years after the publication of Innocents Lost,
Florida is losing more innocents than at any time since the state adopted the
current method of keeping track.
In 2015, the Department of Children and Families reports, there were 472
child deaths in Florida, an increase of 28 over 2014 and the highest total
since at least 2011.
DCF now uses three different categories to determine if a
death was “known to the system.” In two
of those categories deaths went up compared with 2014, in the third they stayed
the same:
● Prior involvement with family in last five years: Number of deaths increased.
● Prior involvement with the child who died: Number of deaths stayed the same.
● Verified prior [report of child maltreatment] in the past 12 months: Number of deaths increased.
But, of course, that isn’t the only harm done by the Miami Herald: As
noted in a previous post, entries into foster care have skyrocketed, with
thousands more children needlessly torn from everyone loving and familiar.
The Herald
reporters, especially Carol Marbin Miller, had to know that would happen –
because she reported on it the last time it happened, when disgraced former DCF
Secretary Kathleen Kearney instigated the same sort of foster-care panic in
1999. Presumably Miller somehow
convinced herself that another panic would be worth it since, she apparently
believed, it would save lives.
But, as the new data make clear, it didn’t save lives. It may well have cost lives. All that additional suffering inflicted on
all those children needlessly taken from their homes was for nothing.
The Herald should
admit it got Florida child welfare all wrong.
DCF needs to admit it got the response to Innocents Lost wrong – before
any more children suffer needlessly.
