CHILD AGENCY CLEARS HURDLE IN DEATH

RULES WEREN'T BROKEN IN LETHAL PLACEMENT

Rocky Mountain News

State child-care inspectors have decided a private foster care agency did not break state rules when it placed a toddler in a foster home where he was later beaten to death.

All About Kids, a private child placement agency based in Englewood, is still in business, and will likely keep its state license, said Dana Andrews, child care licensing manager at the Colorado Department of Human Services.``They are still placing kids, they still have children in placement and they are still supervising those (foster) homes,'' Andrews said Thursday.

In February, 2-year-old Miguel Arias-Baca was beaten to death while under the care of foster parents Ricky and Evon Haney, who worked for All About Kids.  Ricky Haney has since been charged in the death.

Both Haneys had arrest records and neither had a driver's license or a job, yet four young foster children were living with them until Miguel's death.

All About Kids hired the Westminster couple after two other private child placement agencies had either fired them or asked them to resign.

All About Kids is one of about 100 private child placement agencies in Colorado. Counties contract with the agencies to place foster children, and agency workers hire and supervise individual foster homes.

The state Child Care Licensing Division monitors this system.

Child Care launched an investigation into All About Kids to determine whether the agency had violated state regulations in connection with Miguel's death. No violations were found that will affect the agency's license, Andrews said.

A supervisor at All About Kids declined comment Wednesday, saying other investigations were pending.

A string of 1999 child deaths, including Miguel's, prompted the state Department of Human Services to take a closer look at child protection systems in Colorado.

The Child Fatality Review Team is finishing in-depth investigations of four deaths. A report is expected in about two weeks.

Part of that probe will examine whether there were any gaps at the state, local or private agency level, so further review of All About Kids is in the works.

The deaths already have prompted the state to require agencies to conduct employment reference checks for foster parents - something that was not required when the Haneys were hired.

Human Services has also recommended tighter rules for child placement agencies, including requiring them to visit the foster homes they employ more often and keep records of those visits.

Those kinds of recommendations have been made, and broken, before in Colorado.

Two years ago, a state foster-care audit found that some county social workers rarely visited foster homes they were supposed to be monitoring for safety.