Deaths have Georgia child welfare workers under criticism again

Posted 9:26AM on Sunday 15th September 2002 ( 22 years ago )

ATLANTA - Five days before 3-year-old Alexis Headspeth was held under water in the bathtub, the girl's grandmother told a state caseworker that she could not stop her 11-year-old son from beating children in the home. The 11-year-old was in charge of Alexis' bath the night she was fatally injured. In Cherokee County, teachers and neighbors had been calling the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services for years worried 13-year-old Rhiannon Gilmore, who used a wheelchair and couldn't speak or feed herself. Her decaying body was found in a filthy room on Aug. 6. Police said Rhiannon starved to death. She had sores all over her body and clothes were jammed under the bedroom door with a fan set up in the window to remove the smell of Rhiannon's soiled diaper and dog feces. The two deaths this summer came just three years after Gov. Roy Barnes and Attorney General Thurbert Baker ordered an investigation into DFCS after a pair of similar child deaths. The Legislature passed laws to protect children, and new leadership was brought in to DFCS. But to some, it seems as if not much has changed. ``Just as soon as I think something can't get any worse, another child dies, or drowns, or is burned to death, or is lost,'' said Don Keenan, an Atlanta attorney who has filed lawsuits that try to force the state to reform. ``A civilization is judged on how we treat our children - if that's the case I don't think we're going to fare well under any judgment.'' Although poor parenting must shoulder the blame for mistreated children, child welfare workers can't seem to help when it's needed most. ``You cannot defend failing to follow up with some of these children,'' Barnes said in an Associated Press interview. ``It's a difficult job, but we have to understand it's the responsibility of the Division of Family and Children Services to protect these children.'' In the Headspeth case, in East Point near Atlanta, the department acknowledged that a supervisor and caseworker made several mistakes - the caseworker never contacted neighbors, never questioned a boyfriend who reportedly used crack cocaine and didn't visit the house as often as required by law. The caseworker didn't even read the family's file. The Division of Family and Children Services had been monitoring the family since 1999. Alexis' maternal grandmother, Beverly Headspeth, told doctors the girl nearly drowned in the bath while in the care of her 11-year-old son. She died days later. Headspeth, 45, faces charges of involuntary manslaughter, reckless conduct and contributing to the deprivation of a minor. After Rhiannon's death, a caseworker was fired, another caseworker and supervisor resigned and a second supervisor was demoted. Stephanie Gilmore, Rhiannon's mother, is charged with first-degree cruelty to children and contributing to the deprivation of a minor. ``If we had done a better job, many scores of children - possibly hundreds of children - could have been saved,'' said Normer Adams, executive director of the Georgia Association of Homes and Services for Children, a nonprofit agency that gives support and placement services to at-risk children. ``The problem in Georgia is that Georgia has consistently under-resourced its child welfare division.'' Neighboring Florida has dealt with similar problems. The state's child welfare agency has been accused of losing track of foster children, leaving children in abusive situations and the falsification of reports by its caseworkers. Many people in Georgia say social workers are taking an unfair amount of blame. Caseworkers are so overloaded and underpaid they can't properly evaluate their charges and decide when it's appropriate to remove a child from a dangerous home, officials said. And often, the care the state provides through foster families or shelters isn't much better. Workers may have to handle an average of 45 child cases each month, compared to the national average of 17. Entry-level caseworkers make $25,000 - up from $21,000 last year. ``We're asking people to take dead-end jobs that are very stressful, very complex and require a lot of skill for low pay under dire circumstances without the resources the families need,'' said University of Georgia professor Alberta Ellett, who does contract work for DFCS. The state's official child advocate, Dee Simms, said the state's residents have a history of unwillingness to pay for needed child services. Money could be used to hire more caseworkers, pay them higher salaries and create better care facilities for when a child has to be removed from home, she said. It also would help the state overcome its two-year-long effort to cut down on an inefficient paper filing system by converting to a computer system capable of tracking abused and neglected kids. ``The problems are very deep. I think we have a system that has been underfunded for so long,'' Simms said. ``It doesn't do any good to have a well-trained work force if you don't have enough of those trained workers to be out in the community working with families and children.'' Over the last two years, nearly 200 caseworkers and supervisors have been hired, Barnes said. Several advisory panels are studying how to improve the department, and investigations are looking into the agency's failings. Keenan, the attorney who has filed a class-action lawsuit claiming DFCS is mismanaged, said changes need to come now and anyone who says there isn't enough money is only making excuses. Millions could be saved if the state found stable families for children rather than stuffing them into shelters or group homes, he said. ``It's not a question of money it's a question of leadership,'' Keenan said. ``Even in Alabama they don't spend any more money than we do, and yet they can afford to pay their caseworkers more than we do, they can afford a computer system, and they don't have a dead child of the week.''

http://accesswdun.com/article/2002/9/190099