A Miami-Dade Circuit Judge chastised the Florida Department of Children and Families Broward County office for not following more closely the case of a toddler whose mother now reports the child has died. According to news reports, after Judge Cindy Lederman learned that Broward DCF was not monitoring the family, whose children had... View Article
Another infant has died while under the watch of the Florida Department of Children and Families and one of its privately contracted providers, spurring child advocacy attorneys and lawyers who fight for at-risk children or those suffering abuse or harm to closely follow this case. Miracle Collins, only 7 months... View Article
The deaths of two young children in Miramar, Florida, at the hands of their mother should serve as yet another warning of how children’s protective services need to be more protective of the children. Ariel, a toddler, and St. Leo, 7 months old, were taken from and later returned to... View Article
Children across Florida who have suffered rape, child sexual abuse, child abuse, and other personal injury often wait years to receive damages awarded by the court or juries – if they ever receive the money at all. Claims bills now before the Florida Legislature could make money available to help... View Article
When the Florida Supreme Court issued its Juvenile Rules Opinion this week on requiring attorneys for Florida foster children with special needs, it was the successful culmination of a 10-year effort by the state’s leading foster child advocates, including the Florida Guardian ad Litem (GAL) program and Florida’s Children First... View Article
Abused, abandoned and neglected are the lives many South Florida foster children lead. Yet, what one Miami judge saw recently regarding the events they endured and care they receive he called ineptitude and incompetent. The judge was commenting on the violent “cockfights” and brawls children at a Miami group home for... View Article
Florida child advocates and child abuse attorneys who represent children and families in cases of wrongful death, child abuse and other personal injuries, are watching closely as the Florida Department of Children and Families reviews the death of Knowellan Kelly, a 15-month-old who died at All Children’s Hospital in St.... View Article
As Florida’s child advocates and attorneys who fight for the rights of kids who suffer child abuse, sexual abuse and other physical personal injury mourn the finding of the bodies of two children in recent days, Florida Department of Children and Families Secretary Mike Carroll had an admission. The Florida... View Article
Five children have been found safe after walking out of their Cutler Bay foster home. The siblings — ages 16, 14, 13, 6 and 5 — were under the care of the Children’s Home Society in the Miami suburb of Cutler Ridge. They later were found in Florida City. Reportedly,... View Article
The 2009 death of 7-year-old Gabriel Myers, an abused foster child found hanging from a shower fixture in his foster home in Margate, Florida, shone a bright light on the state’s policy of allowing doctors to prescribe psychotropic drugs on foster kids. It was a horrible tragedy – one that... View Article