This is the second in a two part series concerning the self-admitted failure of the Arkansas Department of Human Services to deal effectively with the case of a 15-year-old male who was kept locked in a bathroom at a local apartment complex naked and unfed. Members of the Arkansas General Assembly are pushing to get answers from the agency about what happened in the local case and others around the state and to urge changes in the system so similar situations will not happen again.
Another aspect related to DHS’ self-admitted failure to act even in the face of almost 30 abuse reports being called into the Child Abuse Hotine, is that members of the State House and Senate are also asking for answers from DHS.
A local state senator Scott Flippo, who is chair of the Senate Committee on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs, the Joint Budget Committee and the Senate Human Services Subcommittee has already been in touch with DHS officials to ask questions about the Baxter County case and what is being done to correct the mistakes made by DHS that allowed the abuse of the teen to continue for more than a decade.
Flippo told KTLO, Classic Hits and the Boot News that he is pushing to have DHS be more forthcoming in providing specifics on its failure in this case and on the fixes being made to avoid such a failure in the future.
A joint meeting of several House and Senate committees was held September 19 in Little Rock. The only item on the agenda was a presentation on Child Abuse Hotline Procedures.
The Child Abuse Hotline is operated and managed by the Arkansas State Police Crimes Against Children Division (CACD) in partnership with DHS. Investigations into serious abuse allegations are generally handled by CACD and lesser cases by DHS .
The legislators attending the joint meeting were said to have “peppered” officials with DHS and and the state police as to what is broken in the system to allow multiple abuse reports to come in with little, if any, action taken on those reports.
From the questions asked at the hearing, the problem with repeated reports of abuse seemingly going unanswered is occurring statewide.
One state representative said she had heard from “many teachers” in her district about concerns that abuse calls to the hotline are apparently not being investigated. She said she had heard similar reports for several years. Official attempted to answer the question by saying, for example, teachers, who are mandated reporters, might not have been informed about the progress in a case because of confidentiality rules. The state representative replied, “the frustration I have heard expressed is that they don’t see anything changing in the situation that caused them to make the report in the first place.”
A DHS official is reported to have asked for a “second to come up with some ideas” to better the system and improve the flow of information to those who report abuse. The state representative is reported to have replied, “we don’t have a second.”
A hearing was also held in June in which legislators focused on why multiple reports of abuse did not prompt more aggressive and timely action on the part of the agency and how DHS tracks the history of a case. The agency admitted in the letter to Prosecutor David Ethredge that the number of reports coming in on the Mountain
Home teen should have triggered a more proactive approach.
DHS Officials say as a result of the local case, more emphasis will be placed on the history of a case so patterns of abuse reports can be more easily detected as opposed to only being viewed as single reports.
ETHREDGE SAYS CASE FAR FROM CLOSED
In a September 15 letter from DHS official Tiffany Wright to Prosecutor David Ethredge, Wright concluded “if we fail one child of the thousands we serve every year, it’s one too many, and we will do everything in our power to prevent this from ever happening again.”
Ethredge said the letter “goes a long way toward DHS fully accepting the fact that the agency totally failed this 15-year-old boy.” He also said the remedial steps the agency says it has taken to prevent a reoccurrence of the situation “is reassuring, but it will be more reassuring to see concrete examples of those steps, to see results.”
Ethredge said he is far from finished with the issue and is anxious to see what steps the legislature takes in helping
ensure no child is failed by the system as completely as was the Baxter County teen.
The legislature provides the funds for these agencies meaning agencies tend to listen to what legislators have to say including any recommended changes in operating procedures.
Ethredge said the situation will be monitored carefully and expect to be asked about progress in making the changes that need to be made. Ethredge said he will continue to study any material provided to him by DHS or CACD concerning changes in how the hotline operates.
The legislature has also asked a number of questions regarding the criteria used to screen calls to the Child Abuse Hotline after it was discovered that only about 55 percent of reports made to the hotline between January and March this year were assigned for actual investigation.
It was further pointed out that complaints had been received concerning investigations of suspected child abuse not being properly or timely conducted due to a shortage of investigative workers.
After negotiations with the state broke down over these same type problems, a class action federal lawsuit was filed in 1991 to address shortcomings in the child welfare system in Arkansas.
The suit contained information on one case after another where DHS had failed children in its custody. One of the plaintiffs was a 16-year-old girl who had been shuttled between 40 different placements during her first four years in DHS custody. Many of those placements were with foster parents who were unable to care for her epilepsy and mental health needs.
Another plaintiff, a 13-year-old girl, had no case plan in place even after several months in foster care and the plan DHS finally came up with called for the girl to be placed with her father who had been convicted of sexually molesting her.
The lawsuit also pointed out that there was often a failure to investigate reports of child abuse or neglect – basically the
same complaint being raised in the Baxter County case some 34 years later.
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