On Friday, March 23, 2018, Governor Rick Scott signed CS/HB 6509, a claims bill that directs the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) to pay more than $5 million awarded by a Florida jury to C.M.H., a victim of sexual abuse by a child in foster care. This marks... View Article
On Thursday, March 8, the Florida Legislature approved a Claims Bill regarding a West Palm Beach jury verdict, which would provide $5 million to a victim of sexual abuse. The bill is the result of a verdict against the Florida Department of Children & Families (DCF) on behalf of a... View Article
When the Florida Department of Children and Families responded to a records request by the media regarding the suicide of Lauryn Martin-Everett with the line, “We remain deeply saddened by the tragic loss of this child,” some could argue the admission itself was a reflection of the state’s failed experiment with privatization... View Article
Attorneys, advocates, psychiatrists and healthcare providers who work with foster children under the care and watch of the Florida Department of Children and Families have learned through the years the perils of prescribing powerful psychotropic medications. Several years ago, Gabriel Myers, a 7-year-old boy also under the care of DCF,... View Article
Pioneering child advocacy attorney Howard Talenfeld, who fights for the rights of children harmed, injured, physically and sexually abused, or who have died while under the watch of Florida’s child welfare system, recently spoke with WLRN to discuss the need to end Florida’s tragic, failed experiment with child welfare privatization.... View Article
A Miami judge overseeing a case related to a child’s January suicide that was streamed from her foster home on Facebook Live threatened a Florida Department of Children and Families lawyer to jail for reportedly misleading the judge. The judge is exploring whether other children in the foster home may... View Article
Florida child advocates and attorneys who represent children raped and abused in the child welfare system are struggling to comprehend how and why a 14-year-old girl, who reportedly had been sexually abused while in state care, hanged herself while streaming the event on Facebook Live this week. “I have to... View Article
A study from the Children’s Bureau, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has found that the Florida Department of Children and Families is underperforming related its care of foster children in several critical areas. HHS reviewed 80 such cases and has given the state 90 days to deliver a... View Article
In what has been called a “heartbreaking” case, a 11-month-old toddler from Boynton Beach near West Palm Beach, Florida, died on Christmas Eve – and days before his first birthday – from what authorities call blunt force trauma. Now the family, the community, the Florida Department of Children and Families,... View Article
Child advocates and attorneys who fight to protect from abuse teens and youths in the Florida juvenile justice system are watching closely the case of a teen who died at a drug treatment center in Pembroke Pines. The youth’s case also has raised the interest of police and state juvenile... View Article