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Review Blasts YMCA Foster Care Work(Tampa Tribune (FL) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Oct. 30--TAMPA -- Florida's first private agency to take on child welfare duties -- the one held up as the state model for privatizing social services -- may find itself without a contract next year. In a preliminary report released Monday, a team assigned to review Sarasota Family YMCA's operations said it cannot recommend renewing the agency's multimillion-dollar contract unless the group makes major internal changes. The team, organized in August by Department of Children & Families Secretary Bob Butterworth, described the YMCA's management as arrogant and defensive in the way it deflected criticisms of the agency. The YMCA handles foster care and adoptions in five counties, including Sarasota, Pinellas and Pasco. The team concluded if the "culture and attitude" within the YMCA doesn't change, part or all of the contract -- worth $72 million this fiscal year -- should go out for bid by competing agencies. "The system does not seem to operate in the best interest of the children," the team wrote. Most issues cited involved the YMCA's services in Sarasota, Manatee and DeSoto counties. That contract, worth $22.9 million, ends in June. Butterworth will review the findings and decide whether to keep the YMCA or open the process to other agencies. A final report is expected to be released today during a YMCA board meeting in Sarasota. The panel also suggested Butterworth take "immediate and aggressive steps" to stabilize Pinellas County, where overburdened and underpaid caseworkers were described as being in constant "crisis mode." Directions for Mental Health Inc. and Gulf Coast Jewish Family Services contract with the YMCA to provide social services, including case management. Caseworkers earn on average about $30,000 a year, nearly the same as five years ago, according to one state study. Some caseworkers had as many 40 cases, according to the report. Foster parents told panel members there was a lack of follow-through with caseworkers, telephone calls were not returned and obtaining documentation was burdensome. Workers Say Oversight Improved The YMCA's oversight is better than when another provider, Family Continuity Programs, ran the show, workers and foster parents told reviewers. "But children are not being provided for any better," the report stated. Family Continuity lost its contract in March 2004 amid growing safety concerns for children and a $4 million deficit. DCF asked the YMCA, considered the leader of community-based care at the time, to finish out the contract and eventually take over Pinellas and Pasco counties. Safe Children's Coalition, the YMCA provider, handles about 3,340 children in those two counties, said Lee Johnson, the YMCA's executive vice president. Some child welfare advocates say that was the beginning of the YMCA's decline. "I think it was more of a challenge than they probably should have been willing to undertake," said Andrea Moore of Florida's Children First in Tallahassee. "It would appear the worst started to happen when they expanded." YMCA President and CEO Carl Weinrich said Pinellas presented challenges because of the sheer number of children, many of whom had been in the system a long time. He said he had reviewed the report, which he termed as "balanced." "We also know we have some areas where we need to improve," he said. Weinrich said the YMCA planned to address the issues raised in the report but noted the agency needs to make sure the review isn't such a distraction it affects how the YMCA deals with the children in its care. Case Shed Light On Problems The YMCA came under fire in June, when a Pinellas caseworker delayed reporting a 2 1/2 -year-old girl missing after her mother absconded with her. Authorities discovered Courtney Clark and her mother nine months later in a Portage, Wis., house where a woman had been strangled and buried in the backyard and her son tortured and burned. Courtney and two younger sisters remain in foster care in Wisconsin. Their mother, Candice Clark, and two other adults have been charged with murder and child abuse and await trial in Wisconsin. The case made national headlines and was followed by news of the death of an 18-month-old Manatee County girl, who suffocated beneath a stove a month after being reunited with her mother. By then, complaints had begun to surface from former provider agencies, who said they lost contracts with the YMCA because they were vocal about problems, not because of performance issues. Reviewers echoed those suspicions but said they could not determine whether any wrongdoing had occurred. They said they found YMCA managers to be arrogant in their responses to questions about the complaints, often blaming the complaints on disgruntled employees. "Something must be done to address the way in which providers are managed," the team wrote. The change in providers "has negatively affected staff, the system of care, and ultimately the children being served." The panel took issue with the YMCA's "too many layers and too many operational staff. ... It should continue to review opportunities for efficiencies and redirect functions and resources to community providers." During the review, Johnson, who earns $170,000 a year from the YMCA, announced he would retire Dec. 10. The Tampa Tribune is posting the preliminary report on TBO.com. Appendices to the report were not immediately available Monday. Reporter Sherri Ackerman can be reached at (813) 259-7144 or [email protected]. To see more of the Tampa Tribune or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.tampatrib.com. Copyright (c) 2007, Tampa Tribune, Fla. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |