FOSTER CARE WAS PROBLEM, NOT SOLUTION FOR SLAIN BOY FAMILY BLAMES SYSTEM THAT TRIED TO GIVE TODDLER, BROTHER STABILITY

Rocky Mountain News

Their lives were scattered, chaotic for babies. Maybe for anyone.

Brothers Miguel, then 1, and Oswaldo Arias-Baca, a newborn, were toted around to four motels or apartments within a year.Father Humberto Arias, 26, was sometimes there, sometimes who knows where, sometimes in jail accused of beating their teen-age mother, Odelia Baca.

She was jobless, in and out of drug rehabilitation, often in fear of former dealers hounding her.

That's the grim side of the story in the pages of this family's file at the Adams County Courthouse.

Last October, social workers decided this life was too risky for Miguel and Oswaldo. With a judge's approval, the boys were placed in foster care.

Foster care was worse.

At 2 1/2, Miguel was beaten to death in a big home on a  suburban cul-de-sac. He died Feb. 2. Westminster police have named foster father Ricky Haney, 37, a suspect and say they plan to charge him with murder this week.

About 4,200 Colorado children are living in foster care because judges and social workers decided home wasn't safe.

State records show that many are plucked from families like the Bacas, poor, unstable and drug-addicted.

But the Baca file reveals a brighter side as well.

"The children appear happy and healthy, and they continue to grow," a social worker wrote last June.

"The children appear happy and healthy, and they continue to grow," a social worker wrote last June.

She described Odelia Baca, who is now 19, as "affectionate and nurturing."

Anita Baca helped her struggling daughter and grandsons. "Family is cooperative; they obviously care, and love the children," the social worker wrote.

But Odelia Baca couldn't kick her crack habit. That's the main reason her sons were taken, according to the file.  The file contains no reports of physical abuse or neglect.

Odelia and Anita Baca blame the system for Miguel's death.

It's a system that left children with Ricky and Evon Haney even though both have recent arrest records. The couple also had been fired or allowed to resign from two private foster care agencies.

Anita Baca says she tried to persaude Adams County to let her keep the boys instead of handing them over to foster parents.

But by then, Odelia had moved in with her mother. And social workers "didn't want them around me," Odelia said.

So why did the government decide that foster care was better?

Adams County Social Services officials say they can't discuss the Bacas' case because of the death investigation.

But child abuse experts say there should have been additional problems in the family to warrant taking the boys away.

A parent's drug use alone does not automatically get a child pulled out of a home.

"That's a red flag to us to look further and see if the drug addiction - as it often does - prevents her ability to keep that child safe and nurtured," said Susan Ludwig, a child protection program supervisor with the Colorado Department of Human Services.

How Odelia Baca's drug use affected her sons is not as clear.

Social services entered Odelia Baca's life on Oct. 3, 1997, the day after Oswaldo was born. A test at Denver Health Medical Center turned up cocaine in his system.

Odelia Baca admitted she'd smoked crack every day during the last six months of her pregnancy. She went straight to a detoxification program.

Social workers wrote that she seemed sincere and willing to change. Anita Baca looked after the boys.

Odelia was given a "treatment plan" by the social workers. She had to stay away from cocaine to keep her  children, they told her.

Drug tests last July showed she was using again.

In August, Arias was ordered by the court to stay away from Odelia. He didn't, and was jailed for a month, according to court records.

More drug tests on Odelia came back positive.

"The situation in the family has continued to deteriorate for the past few months," the caseworker wrote in October.

The Adams County Social Services Department took the boys away in October when District Judge Thomas Ensor approved the removal.

County social workers have an enormous amount of discretion in how to handle families like the Bacas. State law offers only general guidance.

Children can be removed if they're "seriously endangered," according to the Children's Code. It describes seriously endangered as "whenever the safety or well-being of a child is immediately at issue and there is no other reasonable way to protect the child without removing the child from the child's home."

"A lot of this is personal opinion," said Bev Holst, education chairwoman at the Colorado State Foster Care Association, and a longtime foster mother.

"You get crucified if you don't take them out, and you get crucified if you do. Who knows when a family is going to go over the line and that child's going to get killed or permanently damaged?"

The state tracks the numbers of children each county removes. Rates vary wildly from county to county.

Adams County, where the Bacas live, averaged 833 children a month in out-of-home placements last year. That's about nine children  per 1,000.

Denver, with its pockets of poverty, had nearly 13 children per 1,000 living away from home.

In Boulder, Jefferson, and Douglas counties, removal rates are a fraction of that.

"The reality is, living in poverty in America is an extraordinary stressful life and people really struggle," said Dr. Robert Clyman, executive director of the Denver-based Kempe National Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse.

"They're more likely to encounter representatives of the state because they depend on governmental services," said Donald Bross, a pediatrics professor and family law expert at the Kempe Center.

Jerry Paulson, the administrator for child welfare in Douglas County, sees a direct link between poverty and children being taken from their homes. Few chidlren are removed in affluent counties such as Douglas, partly because families can afford child care and therapy if they're on the brink of a crisis.

Odelia Baca says she's trying to get Oswaldo back. An attorney advised her not to comment for this story.

She buried her other son Tuesday.

Miguel's small white casket was opened for the rosary service the day before. His battered face was plastered with makeup. A green toy sat on his chest.

"Oh, my baby," Odelia Baca said as she leaned over her son.

She told him she loved him. And she kissed him on the cheek.