'Heartbroken' Iowa agency asks experts how to prevent child deaths

LEE ROOD   | The Des Moines Register

Teenagers Sabrina Ray of Perry, Natalie Finn of West Des Moines and Malayia Knapp of Des Moines all had this in common:

They and their siblings were adopted out of foster care by parents who collected thousands of dollars annually in taxpayer-supported subsidies.

Their parents said they were home-schooling them but had been accused before of abuse.

Two of the girls died after becoming extremely malnourished. The third ran away, fearing for her life.

Advocates for home-schooling parents will tell you that such cases are rare, and statistics back them up. Just one of the 20 Iowa children who died in preventable deaths last year was home-schooled: 16-year-old Natalie, Reader's Watchdog found.

But revelations about the suffering of the three teens — and other cases nationally — have prompted Iowa legislators and advocates for children to call for major state reforms.

Some want to bolster screening of potential foster and adoptive parents, as well as home-schoolers, to provide a better safety net.

Others have called for the ouster of Human Services Chief Chuck Palmer and suggested that Iowa’s child-welfare system needs another overhaul.

Iowa’s ombudsman, who was already investigating Natalie's death, has begun an inquiry into how Sabrina died. Brian West, a father who took his children to Rays of Sunshine Daycare, said the Rays had notified parents they were at Disney World at the time.

State child-welfare workers had visited each of the girls' homes. Knowing that, Iowa’s Department of Human Services has appealed to national experts at Casey Family Programs for assistance.

The agency hopes to have a national consultant on the ground in June to take a deep dive into child-welfare policies and offer perspectives from other states.

“When we say we are heartbroken over here, that is not an organizational platitude,” said Wendy Rickman, a 37-year veteran at the agency and a top administrator overseeing children’s services.

“We are heartbroken, and we are going to figure it out. We’re going to stay in the middle of the storm.”

'We have to be careful'

Rickman said several ideas for shoring up specific areas are on the table, including:

• How human services workers communicate between departments;
• How workers analyze multiple abuse referrals;
• Whether workers consider the reduced scrutiny of home-schooled children;
• How foster and adoptive parents are screened.

“But we have to be careful,” Rickman said. “Because if we had run with some strategies apparent in the first death, they wouldn’t have mattered in the second.

“Everybody who has ever had a kid or wanted a kid … has an opinion about what we should be doing. I understand that. But the nature of families is much more complicated.”

Amy McCoy, a spokeswoman for the agency, said officials will decide soon which consultant to select.

Palmer, who has been under fire because of the deaths and recent abuse of disabled Iowans by state workers, is expected to speak more publicly after that selection is made.

An atypical case

Misty Ray, 40, and Marc Ray, 41, were charged Thursday with multiple counts of abuse and endangerment in the death of 16-year-old Sabrina, who weighed 56 pounds.

Authorities also removed from the Rays' home two other adopted girls who required medical attention and also a boy.

No information released by police or neighbors suggests the parents had a problem with drugs, a factor child-protective workers are told to look for in serious abuse cases.

Rather, the Rays were longtime foster and adoptive parents, day care owners and home-schoolers, according to a state legislator and the Perry schools superintendent.

Their home had been visited multiple times by child-care and social workers, who received at least two complaints about beatings and inadequate food.

Some advocates and legislators are turning their attention to improved screening of potential adoptive and home-schooling parents.

“I’ve gotten dozens of emails from (human services) workers … and they are telling me we are not doing these kids justice,” said state Sen. Matt McCoy, D-Des Moines, who asked for briefings in both the Ray and Finn cases. “They are telling me a lot of these parents are (fostering and adopting) for the money, and we don’t get to decide where these kids go.”

Rickman acknowledged the state struggles to find appropriate foster and adoptive parents, especially in rural areas. She wants to explore whether applicants are being screened appropriately.

The state’s foster and adoptive subsidies pay less than 55 percent of the typical cost to raise a child, she said. Once foster children are legally adopted, they no longer are wards of the state.

Home-schooling 'on our radar'

Historically, young children who aren’t school age are the most at risk for abuse and death.

Three-quarters of all child abuse and neglect deaths in the federal 2015 fiscal year involved children under three, according to the Children's Bureau of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

But caregivers with histories of maltreatment and those who are not biological parents also pose a higher risk for child abuse, federal research has shown.

And as home-schooling has expanded to include as many as 2 million children nationally, more stories are making headlines of abusers who allegedly used home-schooling to avoid the scrutiny of school authorities.

This month, a Kansas City man who confessed to killing his 7-year-old adopted, home-schooled son and feeding him to pigs in a sty was convicted of first-degree murder.

The Coalition for Responsible Home Education, a national organization advocating for home-schooled children, has identified more than 330 cases since 2000 involving kids who have been severely abused or killed in homes where they were supposed to be being home-schooled.

In 118 of those cases, children died.

But Iowa researchers say they have only begun to consider what’s happening to children who are removed from public schools.

“That’s been on our radar more because of the recent cases,” said John Kraemer, coordinator of Iowa’s 20-member Child Death Review Team. “They have increased our awareness of looking into the type of schooling they are going through at their time of death.”

The team just finished researching child deaths in 2013 and 2014.

Past abuse vs. fewer eyes

Compounding the problem is the fact that Iowa has some of the most lax rules in the country for home-schooling, experts say.

Under a 2013 law change, Iowa is one of just 11 states that don't require families to give notice if they are home-schooling.

Some Iowa lawmakers now estimate the parents of as many as 10,000 to 15,000 children could be opting for independent private instruction.

“In these states, there is literally no way to know how many home-schoolers there are, or even who is home-schooling,” said Rachel Coleman, executive director of the reform coalition.

“This can be confusing for truancy officers, as a family being prosecuted for truancy only has to say verbally that they are home-schooling. They don't have to fill out any paperwork or anything else.”

Under existing state laws, those who want to home school do not have to undergo a criminal background check, as teachers do. And those who have previously abused kids are free to teach at home.

Coleman said 46 states have more home-schooling requirements than Iowa.

Her group recommends background checks, requiring plans and services for children with disabilities, mandatory medical visits like those required of public school children; risk assessments for parents accused of abuse and a home-school ban for those found responsible for abuse.

Advocates for home-schooling parents want state leaders to keep in mind that the deaths and abuse reported of home-schooled children account for a sliver of all deaths.

“Statistically speaking, Natalie Finn was more likely to die from suicide than neglect,” said Scott Woodruff, senior counsel for the Home School Legal Defense Association. “I don’t think we can make policy based on the outliers.”

Woodruff’s group, which has represented home-schooling families across the country in a mix of legal action, says existing laws already allow judges to prohibit home-schooling if children are being abused.

The association also points to 2012 research by a federal commission exploring child deaths that suggests other factors, such as past child-abuse reports, are better indicators of high risk for abuse.

Woodruff also challenges whether it’s fair for states to bar adults from home-schooling if they’ve been found responsible for minor abuse or neglect.

They contend that parents should have due process or be convicted before their parental rights are restricted.

“We believe people can raise their own kids unless there’s evidence that they can’t,” he said.

Child homicides tick up 

Confirmed child abuse fell in 2014, as Human Services shifted more cases toward informal services and less formal investigation and court intervention.

The abuse rate that year was the same as the national average: 11 per 1,000.

Iowa had a higher rate than other states of children in foster care as a result of neglect and abuse — eight for every 1,000 in 2014, versus five for every 1,000 nationally, according to the Kids Count Data Center supported by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

However, the rate of abuse reports investigated by child-protective workers also was lower — 39 per 1,000 in 2014 versus 41 per 1,000 nationally.

The number of deaths of children known to Iowa’s child welfare system has fluctuated in recent years from as high as 28 in 2012 to a low of 11 in 2015.

But there’s been an uptick in child homicides and other preventable deaths since then, according to Iowa’s Child Death Review Team.

Child homicides — those caused by another regardless of intent — hit a low mark of seven in 2013. But they climbed to 13 in 2014, then hit at least 14 in 2016, according to Iowa's Department of Public Health.