Gone Without a Trace
(People Magazine, 2024)
“When Oakley Carlson was reported missing, her parents reportedly told police they’d “lost track” of their 5-year-old daughter. For Jamie Jo Hiles, 36, Oakley’s former foster mother, not knowing what happened to the little girl who loved to dance and swim is almost too much to bear.
"My daughter is missing and DCYF played a part in failing to protect her," she said.
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Hiles was Oakley’s foster mom from the time she was 7 months old until a week before her third birthday, when her biological parents regained custody despite a series of red flags the foster mother said she raised with state officials.
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Foster Child Taken From Only Family She's Known as Thousands Linger in System
(NBC Boston, 2023)
"This child was safe, she was in a permanent placement, she was obviously thriving," Flatley told the NBC10 Boston Investigators. "This is a dangerous decision, and we've seen over and over again in the commonwealth that decisions like this were made and children didn't just suffer, they died."
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“It breaks my heart,’ Boy’s Foster Mom Speaks Out, Wants Justice
(NBC Dallas-Forth Worth, 2023)
"He didn't deserve what happened to him. You know, she could have given him back to us. We would have taken him,” Paris said. “My prayer is that they find him so we can put him to rest. Noel was my baby. I didn't have him, but he was part of our family. We want justice for Noel."
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(Des Moines Register, 2023)
"Washington County attorney and wife say the state pushed too hard to reunite the baby they cared for with a neglectful, low-functioning mother."
Foster family of 4-year-old killed after reunion with birth parents demand answers
(WTHR Indiana, 2022)
"Judah Morgan, 4, was found dead in his birth parents' home in October. His foster family said they tried to report potential abuse inside that home for years."
Investigators search Massachusetts wetlands for missing girl
(News Nation, 2023)
"Harmony had been surrendered to the child welfare system in Massachusetts by her biological mother while her father was previously in prison. After jumping from foster home to foster home, Harmony was again placed in her father’s care. He was arrested in October in connection with her disappearance."
Five-year-old could have been saved from beating death if DCFS workers had asked for help
(Chicago Tribune, 2023)
"A.J. Freund’s life could have been saved if child welfare workers had alerted other specialists about his case. The woman who raised him for much of his life testified that she took AJ in as a foster parent when he was 4 weeks old, until she had to give him back after 18 months."
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‘System failure’ allowed NH girl’s disappearance
(Boston 25 News, 2022)
“When custody of little Harmony Montgomery was given to her father, an out-of-state resident with a long criminal history, an Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children (ICPC) was not in place.
An ICPC is an agreement between states to ensure that a child placed in care across state lines is safe and requires certain safeguards and regular check-ins. Once 7-year old Harmony left Massachusetts with no ICPC in place, there is no legal mechanism for DCF to monitor a transfer of custody to a parent in another state."
‘Was he just a case number?’ Foster parents say court’s decision cost 4-year-old his life
(Fox2Now St. Louis, 2022)
"The foster parents of Zaydian Dopirak said a St. Louis County commissioner ignored warnings from social workers, a guardian ad litem, and a pediatrician. They said their 4-year-old then paid with his life last month. Dawn James and her husband, Jeff James, took Zaydian in when he was just 4 months old."
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Infant’s death sparks child welfare debate
(Southeast Iowa Union, 2022)
"Some complaints from foster families are overlooked because they fundamentally break from the foster system’s mission. Harvey said the state had legal obligation to aim for reunification of almost every family in the foster system. When suggestions contradict that mission, they’re difficult or impossible to act on."
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Despite red flags, child protection closed the case of 6-year-old weeks before his murder
(KARE11 Minnesota, 2022)
"Ten days before police found 6-year-old Eli Hart’s body in the trunk of a vehicle driven by his mother on May 20, a judge closed a child protection case for the boy – despite serious red flags raised by court workers about his mother’s care for her son. Dakota County took Eli into temporary custody in January 2021 where he was placed into foster care for the next year...."
Lethal reunifications: two children dead in New York and Florida
(Child Welfare Monitor,2021)
"They were both taken into state care at birth. An inexplicable drive to reunify families, regardless of the lack of change in the parent’ ability to care for their children, is behind both of these tragic stories. Much needs to be clarified to understand how these children were returned to the families that would kill them.
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Baby dies shortly after reunited with family from foster care
(WSYX Columbus, 2019)
"Deputies say body of missing baby found in in 30-foot deep well; parents arrested. The baby was placed with children's services shortly after birth after drugs were found in its system... Ohio law prioritizes family reunification in child welfare cases."
25 years of deaths:
A look back at child slayings among families known to child-welfare agency
(Cleveland.com, 2021)
"We review our archives for details of over 20 cases involving the deaths of children who had come to the attention of the county's Children and Family Services since 1997."
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Foster family who raised slain 5-year-old explains how system repeatedly failed him
(Great Falls Tribune, 2019)
"While the public’s rage and sorrow may rise to a blinding fury, it will never match that of the family who raised him from infancy and hoped beyond anything else that they would one day be allowed to adopt him. The only life Tony had ever known was with his foster parents, Christy and Jeff Foster, who brought Tony into their home in Columbus more than five years ago."
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Palmdale Boy Who Died Begged Not to Be Reunited With Birth Parents
(KTLA Los Angeles, 2019)
"The great-grandmother of a Palmdale boy who died under suspicious circumstances last week said Wednesday that she cared for the child between stints in foster care, and he had begged not to be returned to his parents. She lamented that “the kids don’t have a voice.”
These 19 children died after welfare agencies returned them to their birth parents
(Dayton Daily News, 2017)
“Child welfare agencies in Ohio have long sought to reunite children with their biological parents whenever possible. A months-long investigation found Ohio’s system often fails to protect children, with some suffering painful deaths just weeks or even days after being reunited with their birth parents.
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Foster care failures uncovered in death of 2-year-old Jordan Belliveau
(Tampa Bay Times, 2019)
"Child welfare agencies missed warning signs, failed to make home visits and said nothing when a mother lied in court about completing mandatory counseling classes to get her child back from foster care."
Massacre of the Innocents
(City Journal, 2018)
"New York’s misguided family-reunification policies continue to have fatal consequences. Reform known as “family preservation”had been carried to ideological extremes, in which judges and social workers zealously “reunified” children with monsters.
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Foster parents of child found dead:
'We hope Jordan’s loss will lead to change'
(11 Alive Georgia, 2018)
"I'm Sam Warren. This is my wife, Juliet." And for a majority of 2-year-old Jordan Belliveau's life, that's who he knew as mom and dad. Jordan was found dead in a wooded area in Largo on Tuesday."
Innocents Lost:
477 deaths in 5 years
(Miami Herald, 2014)
"After Florida welfare policy cut down on protections for children, deaths soared. The children died in ways cruel, outlandish, predictable and preventable..."
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Foster Care’s Looming Crisis
(Florida Weekly, 2014)
"In the course of her life from foster child to foster parent, Ashley Rhodes-Courter has seen the child welfare pendulum swing from nonsensical removals to nonsensical reunifications. She believes her adoption saved her life and the emphasis on biological reunifications is dangerous.
“I think we’re leaning too much into biology and that’s why all these premature reunifications are happening and that’s why children are being killed,” Ms. Rhodes- Courter says.
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Does pressure to reunify families lead to tragedy?
(Vermont Digger, 2014)
“The events that led to the toddler’s death tell not only the story of a broken family, but also of a social services agency that is struggling to protect children of abusive parents...
Dezirae’s story is not an anomaly. A month after she was killed, Winooski toddler Peighton Geraw died just three months after he was returned to an unstable mother and her boyfriend. Meanwhile, other foster parents across the state tell stories of their own Deziraes and Peightons.
Caseworker, foster mom warned DHS before Oklahoma girl's death
(The Oklahoman, 2011)
"A child welfare worker and foster mother tried relentlessly to warn others to slow down placing 5-year-old Serenity Anne Deal with her father before she was killed, The Oklahoman has learned.
Child welfare worker Donald Wheeler killed himself during the investigation of the girl's death."
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Foster parents blame Child Protective Services for deaths
(Plainview News, 2004)
“The decision to reunite 2-year-old Diamond Alexander with her mother was signed off on by Child welfare caseworkers, an attorney and a San Antonio judge. But no one asked the foster parents who had cared for Diamond for most of her short life.
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The Montgomerys blamed themselves. It was the second time in three years that one of their former foster children had been murdered after being returned home by the state."
Fatal Preservation
(City Journal, 1997)
“Family preservation” may please advocates, but it kills kids.
Daytwon's killing was just the latest in a parade of tragedies in which children have been murdered after judges and caseworkers have returned them to violent, deranged, or drug-addicted parents. The law must insist that families that grossly abuse children are not worth preserving."