Child welfare director expresses sadness, but caseworker retained

Crocker Stephenson And Gina Barton

As an angry group confronted child welfare officials Friday, demanding those responsible be held publicly accountable for the beating death of 13-month-old Christopher Thomas and for the months of torture endured by his 2-year-old sister, the Journal Sentinel learned that the caseworker who was responsible for the little girl remains assigned to her case.

The siblings' aunt, Crystal Keith, 24, was charged last month with killing Christopher and with abusing his sister. According to a police report, Keith told investigators that she began hurting the girl as soon as officials placed the children in her home in June under the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare's kinship foster care program.

Both children were removed from the home Nov. 10. Christopher died the next day. His sister, who suffered repeated scalding, multiple broken bones and ligature scars, remained hospitalized for weeks.

Though a doctor who examined the girl called her wounds blatant, the Milwaukee child welfare bureau has yet to explain how the caseworker could have visited the child for months and apparently not noticed her condition.

The girl is recovering well, and remains in state custody at an undisclosed location, according to her great-grandparents, Katherine and Frank Shaw.

The Shaws, who live in Alabama, are returning home Sunday, and Katherine Shaw said she wants the caseworker removed.

"They failed me once," Katherine Shaw said, seated beside the children's biological mother, Candace Glover.

"Who can say they won't fail me twice."

Glover refused to discuss her daughter, saying she did not want to violate laws protecting the girl's privacy. State officials removed the children from her home in March.

At a meeting of the Milwaukee Child Welfare Partnership Council earlier in the day, state child protection officials would not comment on the status of the caseworker.

So far, the only action taken by officials that the public knows is that they suspended the foster care license of a West Allis couple who tried to adopt Christopher before he was placed in Keith's home. The couple said they were told lawyers were reviewing the couple's contacts with news media after Christopher's death.

Officials from the state Division of Children and Family Services and the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare said they are working diligently to investigate what happened to Christopher - but they will do it in secret.

The partnership council is an advisory board made up of children's services workers, legislators and community members. It meets quarterly and reviews deaths and "egregious incidents" concerning children in the Milwaukee County welfare system. Among other things, it is supposed to make recommendations for improvement to the state, which took over the county system in 1998 as the result of a lawsuit.

The Rev. Archie Ivy, chairman of the council, said the purpose of Friday's special meeting was to discuss Christopher's death.

"That's going to be our number one priority today," he said.

A brief statement

Although some officials, including Denise Revels Robinson, director of the Milwaukee bureau, made brief statements at the start of the meeting, no information, other than how the investigation would be conducted, was released.

A preliminary report is expected in mid-January with a final report to follow 60 days after that, said Cyrus Behroozi, administrator for the Department of Children and Families' division of safety and permanence. That is the soonest the findings could be made public. However, there are half dozen other criteria that must be met, including approval from Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, who is overseeing the prosecution of Crystal Keith.

Officials troubled

Reggie Bicha, secretary of the state Department of Children and Families, called Christopher's death and the abuse of his sister "inexcusable and unacceptable." Major changes in the Milwaukee County child welfare system will be made as a result, Bicha said. He didn't elaborate on what those changes might be.

"I am very troubled by what I have learned so far," he said.

"The public has demanded answers," he said. "So have I."

Revels Robinson, too, said she had been both personally and professionally affected by Christopher's death.

"We are all very saddened and very much affected by this very, very difficult situation," she said.

She and her staff will work to figure out what happened to Christopher and why, as well as how things can be improved, she said. Although she issued a written statement in the immediate aftermath of Christopher's death last month, Revels Robinson has not returned reporters' phone calls in intervening weeks.

Bicha said he had instructed Revels Robinson to focus on her job and avoid talking with the media. Bicha said he and Behroozi would be available to the media but that the law limits what they can say. In response to a question from state Sen. Spencer Coggs (D-Milwaukee), who serves on the partnership council, Bicha said the secrecy provisions of the law are "terribly frustrating."

The public's need for information, which is necessary to provide checks on the child welfare system, must be balanced with the privacy of the children whose lives are affected, he said.

Closed session

After introductions, Ivy moved that the council go into closed session and asked the public to leave the conference room.

A storm of protest followed.

"The bureau is hiding behind the statute to avoid accountability," called out Kathy Masch, who adopted two foster children.

Becky Welk moved from committee member to committee member, demanding that they look at a photograph of her 7-year-old daughter, Raven.

Welk had been Raven's foster mother. She believes she saved Raven's life by adopting her when the child welfare bureau attempted to reunite the child with her biological mother.

"This is my beautiful daughter, still alive," she said as she moved around the conference room.

"My daughter. Raven. Still alive."