Questions lead to state review
Foster-care businesses under scrutiny
The Denver Post
May 21, 2000
The Denver Post's investigation of Colorado's foster care businesses prompted the state to take action before any of the series even was published.After Post reporters asked about foster parents accused of crimes or child abuse, the Colorado Department of Human Services began its own review of several businesses the newspaper identified as having a history of serious problems.
Dana Andrews, the state administrator who oversees the inspection and licensing of foster care businesses, said that her department historically has viewed problems in foster care businesses as isolated incidents. Her staff didn't look for patterns.
"You can beat us over the head all you want for what we didn't do," she said. "I can't change that ... But I can do something about what happens now and I can hopefully affect what happens in the future."
Marva Livingston Hammons, the state's human services chief, vowed to hold her employees responsible when they fail to discipline foster-care businesses.
The Post's investigation was prompted in part by the death of Miguel Arias-Baca, a 21/2-year-old foster child who was killed last year in his foster home.
Two weeks ago, Ricky Haney, Miguel's foster father, pleaded guilty to child abuse caused by negligence resulting in death. With the felony conviction, Haney, 38, faces up to 32 years in prison.
He told police he had been drinking at a Super Bowl party and was upset when he returned home and found that Miguel had soiled his diaper. Haney told police he threw Miguel to the floor and rubbed the toddler's face in the dirty diaper.
Miguel's brain swelled with blood. The toddler died in a hospital two days later, no family members at his side.
In the weeks that followed, details about Miguel's foster family emerged.
Haney and his wife E'von had arrest records. That information never made it to the foster care business that hired the Haneys because the Colorado Bureau of Investigation inadvertently didn't provide it.
The Haneys had hopped from one private agency to another, one time after an abuse complaint was lodged against them. Though caseworkers determined the allegation was unfounded, the director of one foster care business stopped placing children in the couple's home.
Last year, The Post not only pressured the state for answers about Miguel's short life and early death in the private foster care system but also investigated the cases of three other children who died under the watch of government caseworkers.
In March 1999, Gov. Bill Owens told Hammons to find the problems in the state's child welfare system and fix them.
"The Denver Post has revealed the tragic consequences which occur when some of our most vulnerable children do not get the protection they deserve from our child protection systems," Owens said at the time. "While I am convinced the vast majority of foster parents are dedicated to their foster children and provide loving homes for them, it is also clear that the system needs to be evaluated for quality of care."
Last year, Hammons successfully pushed to fund a "24-hour monitoring team," which includes four inspectors and a supervisor who focus solely on foster-care companies and institutions that care for children around the clock.
A law went into effect last July requiring prospective foster parents to list - under penalty of perjury - all former foster care businesses where they worked. Among the changes, the state now requires the businesses to make monthly visits and an annual unannounced visit to their foster homes.
While these changes were in the works, The Post launched its own investigation and uncovered even more cases that concerned state officials who oversee the private agencies. The details of those cases came from the state's own files and several state computer databases.
El Paso County also vowed to investigate the case of a foster child who molested the biological child of his foster mother.
The Post obtained an internal memo from a private foster-care agency, alleging that the county moved the boy from foster home to foster home, leaving molestation victims in his wake.
Hammons, the state human services director, even wrote a memo to members of a key legislative committee outlining The Post's investigation and its findings long before this series was published. Department spokeswoman Liz McDonough told The Post the state didn't want any legislators to be caught off guard by the volume of problems.
"That's for our survival," McDonough said. "Jesus, do you want us to have it hit the front steps of the Legislature without them knowing about it in advance? My God, we'd kill ourselves."