Problem parents slip net

Some foster caretakers play musical agencies

The Denver Post

Sharon Cramer didn't wait for Jacob Family Services to close her foster home after her delinquent son sexually assaulted one of her foster children.She quit.

But just a month later, Cramer was a foster mom again - for a different private agency.

Then one day, her 15-year-old foster son forced his 9-year-old foster brothers to have sex with each other, then forced one of them to have sex with the family dog, according to court records and a police report. Cramer had left them home alone together. That, she said, prompted Larimer County caseworkers to put her name on a registry of Coloradans who they believe have abused or neglected children.

Hopscotching from one foster-care business to another is commonplace in Colorado. The state's fractured child-welfare system has allowed foster parents to skip from job to job, regardless of their records, in a risky game of musical chairs, The Denver Post found.

A state official acknowledged that Colorado children have been molested and physically abused in homes they never should have lived in, given the foster parents' track record with prior agencies.

"Horrible things happened," said Dana Andrews, licensing administrator for the Colorado Department of Human Services. "Children who would not have been victims are now victims."

One of those victims is dead.

After jumping to a fourth foster-care business in three years, Ricky Haney, then 37, threw his foster son Miguel Arias-Baca to the ground in early 1999 and smeared the child's face in his own feces, court records show. The 21/2-year-old boy's brain swelled with blood, and he died two days later. Haney pleaded guilty two weeks ago to child abuse caused by negligence and resulting in death. He faces a maximum sentence of 32 years in prison.

Three years before Miguel's death, Haney and his wife left Synthesis Inc., a Lakewood foster-care business, after Haney's stepdaughter accused him of beating her, Synthesis director Pam Hoggins said.

Hoggins said she was convinced the girl was telling the truth, even though Adams County caseworkers determined the allegation was unfounded. She notified state human services, she added, but the state was not required to note the complaint in Synthesis' licensing file because the alleged victim was Haney's stepdaughter, not his foster child. No criminal charges were filed against Haney, who denies abusing the girl, according to his lawyer.

Hoggins did not revoke the foster-care certificate of Ricky and E'von Haney. Instead, she told the Haneys she no longer would place foster children in their home. Like Sharon Cramer, the Haneys quit and went to another agency.

That informal practice of allowing parents to quit promotes the musical-chairs problem. Foster parents move from one agency to another without any formal mark on their record.

Hoggins said foster-care agencies routinely let foster parents resign because the formal revocation process is time-consuming and expensive.

After the Haneys left Synthesis, the abuse allegation against Ricky Haney never made it into the files of All About Kids, the last of the four foster-care businesses to certify them. Had it, All About Kids executive director Judy Malin said she might not have certified the couple.

Because of the death of Miguel Arias-Baca, a law that took effect last summer requires prospective foster parents to list on their application the names of every agency for which they've worked. The foster-care businesses considering the application must contact all prior agencies. The Legislature also made lying on foster-care applications a criminal perjury offense.

But lawmakers did not require state human services to develop a system for tracking problem foster parents.

The department is working on a new computer system that would allow foster-care businesses to enter an "alert" on a foster parent who left because of a problem. However, entering a red flag will be voluntary, and agencies will not be required to check the Internet-based system before certifying a parent, Andrews said.

After a series of problems in foster homes run by private business, Illinois in 1998 took this idea much further. The state acknowledged its musical-chairs problem and created a computer clearinghouse to track the movements of foster parents, said Carol Cochran-Kopel, chief of staff for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.

It established a "placement clearance desk," with 12 workers manning a hotline that agencies must call before placing a child in a home. The workers review criminal and child-protective databases and private-agency reports about foster parents before approving a placement.

By law in Illinois, private agencies also must report whenever they stop using a foster parent because of problems or complaints. That information then is passed on to foster-care agencies considering that parent. Since the system was put into place, the clearance desk has prevented several foster parents from moving from one agency to the next, Cochran-Kopel said.

Such a system might have flagged Jerry and Deloris Cronander. When they applied to be foster parents with All About Kids in 1998, the application asked if they ever had been investigated for child abuse.

They answered, "No," state records show. But those records, on file with the department of human services, show that the Cronanders were investigated twice by Adams County caseworkers while they were foster parents for Synthesis. The couple later told an All About Kids caseworker they thought the question referred to an investigation by police.

In both cases, the caseworkers concluded the allegations were unfounded. But county officials and Hoggins, the Synthesis director, were concerned enough to take foster children away from the couple both times. And eventually, Hoggins limited the number of children the family could take into their home.

Malin, the All About Kids director, said she didn't review the state file on Synthesis before certifying the Cronanders.

In November 1998, when the Cronanders were working for All About Kids, a 7-year-old foster daughter accused Deloris Cronander of grabbing her by the arm and yanking her into a chair, leaving a bruise.

County caseworkers substantiated that allegation, state records show. Once Malin learned that, she stopped sending more children to the Cronanders' home. Five months later, she closed the home without revoking the Cronanders' foster-care certificate.

Jerry Cronander told The Post that all of the allegations against him and his wife are false. He declined to comment further.

Lacking a formal system of oversight and notification, such as the one Illinois adopted, Colorado uses an informal approach that saves time and money but leaves children vulnerable.

Counties "blackball" problem foster parents by refusing to allow private agencies to send them new foster children. But while one county might decide that a particular home is not suitable, another county might not receive that information and continue to use that home.

"Unfortunately, blackballing is an informal way of managing the system, when there is no formal oversight," said Mona Schatz, director of Colorado State University's Education and Research Institute for Fostering Families. Children who became wards of the state because their biological families abused or neglected them can get hurt again in foster homes they never should have entered, she noted.

Sometimes foster-care businesses know about foster parents' problems at other agencies and choose to certify them anyway. But county caseworkers, who contract with the private agencies to place foster children, at times are out of the loop.

That was the case with Sharon Cramer.

Northern Colorado-based Jacob Family Services certified her as a foster parent in 1994, despite two marks on her record caring for children. Nine years earlier, she spent six days in jail for possessing drugs while running her state-licensed day-care home. In 1988, she temporarily gave up custody of her two sons and daughter to enroll in a substance-abuse detox center.

Jacob Family director John Carlson said he relied solely on Cramer's explanation of the marijuana case when he hired her, and didn't know that she initially had been charged with selling the drug. Cramer last week admitted to The Post that she sold marijuana but never in the presence of children.

Carlson said he also didn't know that Cramer had given up custody of her children. He was satisfied, he said, that Cramer had turned her life around.

Shortly after she became a foster parent, Fort Collins police arrested Cramer's foster son, along with her two teenage biological sons, for burglarizing a car.

It wasn't the first time her oldest biological son, Michael Cramer, had been in trouble with the law and it wouldn't be the last. His record includes arrests for theft, trespassing, burglary, DUI, sexual assault and illegally buying prescription drugs.

Michael Cramer was ordered to receive sex-offender counseling in 1996 after sleeping with his mother's 18-year-old foster daughter, court records show. Two years later, he had sex with two other foster sisters, according to a police report and court records.

One of them was only 14. He was 18.

Sharon Cramer, who had left the 14-year-old home alone, said her son and the girl "betrayed" her. County caseworkers found no evidence that she neglected the 14-year-old, Cramer said.

She also downplayed what had happened, even though Michael Cramer pleaded guilty in a deferred judgment to sexual assault on a child.

"If Michael would have done this in New Mexico it would have been OK," she said, noting that the age of consent in that state is 13.

Yet the day after she learned about the incidents, Cramer resigned from Jacob Family Services. She worried the agency would "fire" her. Agency director Carlson told The Post he planned to close the home.

Cramer was out of work as a foster mom for about a month.

Her friend Vonda Davis urged Cramer to apply at Maple Star Colorado, the foster-care agency where Davis worked as a supervisor. Cramer was certified Sept. 1, 1998, after the agency had verified that Michael Cramer had moved out of the house, former Maple Star Director Ron Baptist said.

Davis first placed a 9-year-old Larimer County girl in Cramer's home, but county caseworkers demanded that the child be removed when they learned she was there, Cramer said.

"They blackballed me," she said.

Adams County caseworkers, however, did not know about the sexual assault in Cramer's foster home or about Larimer County's reluctance to place children in her home.

"Certainly we need to know that," said Bob Sparby, director of Adams County's Children and Family Service Division. "We never want to place (children) in a home that would jeopardize their safety."

By January 1999, Maple Star had placed two Adams County boys and two Weld County boys in Cramer's home. The oldest was 15-year-old Nathan Zavala, whose disclosed problems "didn't seem like a big deal," Cramer said.

She later learned that Zavala was a gang member who had struck his mother, "huffed" gasoline, pulled a knife on his brother and had been investigated by Weld County caseworkers for molesting a girl, Cramer said. She said she also eventually learned that three of the four boys in her home either had molested other children or had been caught in sexual play.

Davis said she didn't know that Zavala had been accused of molestation. She said she told Cramer everything she knew about the boys.

"If I would have found out what I know today, none of those kids would have been in my home," Cramer said. There was no way to keep them apart from each other because they had to share bedrooms.

In January 1999, two of the boys were fighting and injuring each other, but Cramer would not intervene, according to a state human services report. Cramer said she let the boys fight because one of them had bullied the other for a long time and the picked-on boy needed to stand up for himself. After the fight, the bullying stopped, she said.

After one of the boys went to school with bruises, a Larimer County caseworker investigated whether Cramer had neglected the boy by failing to intervene, according to Cramer and state records.

The caseworker did not "substantiate" the neglect case but added that Cramer's "ability to parent is questionable," the records show.

Davis told The Post she warned Cramer not to leave her foster children alone together. Current Maple Star Director Debi Grebenik, who reviewed the case file, added that the agency especially cautioned Cramer not to leave the children alone with Zavala.

But Cramer did leave them alone together. She had to take one of them to the doctor, and the children she left at home were old enough to care for themselves, she said.

In April 1999, she learned what had happened.

Three months earlier, Zavala had forced his younger foster brothers to perform oral and anal sex on each other, according to Larimer County District Court records. Her daughter had seen the boys but didn't tell because Zavala had threatened her and the other children, the records say.

Cramer also discovered that on another occasion, Zavala forced one of the boys to have sex with her dog, Fort Collins police records say. And Zavala's 9-year-old bunk mate also told police that Zavala had raped him on the floor, according to court records.

Cramer quickly reported the incidents to authorities. Zavala was charged as an adult and pleaded guilty to third-degree sexual assault, according to Larimer County District Court records. He was sentenced to five years in a youth-corrections facility and five years' probation, the records show.

The state department of human services eventually cited Jacob Family Services - the first agency that certified her - for failing to adequately investigate Cramer's background.

Before making her a foster mom, state officials said, the agency should have conducted a more thorough investigation of her "history of substance abuse" and her son's criminal history.

Maple Star, like Jacob Family, didn't review the court file on Cramer's drug-dealing charge before certifying her home, Grebenik said.

But the state never cited Maple Star for failing to investigate Cramer's background.

Grebenik said she didn't know that Cramer now admits selling marijuana.

"I wouldn't have licensed her with that information," she said.

Kirk Mitchell's e-mail address is Kmitchell@denverpost.com. Patricia Callahan's e-mail address is Pcallahan@denverpost.com.