Friday, April 13, 2018

Foster Shock

This documentary reveals the systematic abuse and neglect that many children have
faced in the Foster care in Florida. The film starts off with a quick introduction to the
data of Florida’s Department of Children and Families. About 22,000 kids in foster care
live with poverty, neglect and abuse even though the department has spent 2.9 Billion
Dollars in 2014. It is stated that in 1996 Florida has tried to test run a privatization of five
foster care in which they included; Duval and Clay County Family Service Coalition was
give 9.5 million dollars, Escambia County Children’s house Society was given 2.4
million, Lake Country Boys Ranch was given 5.6 million, Sarasota County Coalition for
Families and Children was given 9.5 million, and lastly an unspecified private for profit
company in Palm Beach Country was given an undisclosed amount of money. After the
testing four out of the five test programs had failed. Even with the amount of failure
Florida faced they still went forward with the plan of privatizing child care. Springing up
Community Based Care agencies that were made to deliver care and basic necessities
for a form of living for these children, such as Our Kids, ChildNet, and CFC. Many
people were under the assumption that these Agencies were the ones that were going
to provide the services, but in result the agencies has subcontractors that divided up the
work for them.

One of the biggest events that brought foster care was the Miami Exposé of Children’s
lives lost in the system. About 447 children lives were lost in the Department of Children
and Families (DCF) because instead of intervening with the families involved they
advised the parental figures to sign what was called a Safety plan which pledges to
become better parents. Another failure of the system was the inability to meet the needs
of the children in an enriched environment.

A young adult named Ke’ondra shared the reason why she was put in the system, she
suffered from traumatic event while living at her Grandparents homes. In which her
Uncle was displaying sexual advances to her and her sisters which landed her into a
group home. A group home was explained to be a home where shift workers come in
every eight hours, with no privacy and freedom for children to have a safe place to stay.
Another teen describes the homes as a very chaotic environment in which a lot of fights
broke out and children were angry. Ashtavia describes her group home as hell because
police were there every day because many of the children refused to go to school, out
of bed or even eat at times. Her group home was near a Juvenile facitity which was

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used as a form of discipline. Calls to the police are more common in group homes for
situations that a parent would most likely be able to handle.

Taevon, another foster child describes that he felt that children were used as a form to
produce money. Which is backed up by data which tells that on average a child in foster
care is worth 124 dollars. He assumed that the foster system had his best interest but
he stated that to them he is just a number instead of a human. This comes into play
because much of the money given to these private corporations were not actually given
to provide help to the foster children but many times the corporations employees were
spending money for their own agendas. Mr. Parekh an administrator at Childnet was
under investigations due to spendings done for his home and personal use, which is
what money others did as well. Foster children, Janice and Tiana explain that their
allowance did not exceed thirteen dollars per week. Sometimes having to buy their own
home necessities such as soap using this money. Many times they were not given their
allowance because of small reason which to Tiana explains why some of the girls in
foster care fall into human trafficking. Ke’ondra explains that her foster home was close
to a hotel used for sex trafficking where many girls were brought and provided with illicit
drugs or food in order to preform sexual tasks. The ongoing question is how do these
people get access to the children when they are under adult supervision, foster child
Alexis says that many times girls come in smelling like sex trafficking and many of the
times the employees just give each other a look and keep quite. There is no educational
program that allow these children to understand that they are the most vulnerable to sex
traffickers. There is not even a place for them to go after they get out of the sex
trafficking system, most of the times they are just brought back to a home with no sense
of closure. Therapy nor proper counseling is provided.

Angel, a young adult was born into the system due to her mother being a drug addict
and her aunt being abusive. Not only was foster care her struggles but she was also
judged because of her gender identity. Her aunt told her that when she dress more like
a boy she was wrong and that she should dress more like a boy. Angel explained that
instead of asking her what was wrong, or what the parents could do to help her cope or
open up they would simply send her to her room and if she did not comply they would
call the police. A Baker Act was common in situations like that because they would be
used as babysitting areas for children whom acted out or were not complying. Atavia
and Angel explain the time they spent in the Baker homes which were basically mental
facilities.

Angel was put into the Center for Adolescence Treatment Services (CATS) in which she
states that she was force-fed pills crushed in yogurt and if she refused they would

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tranquilize her and tie her to a bed in a seclude room. Many times the kids in the group
homes were given high doses of medicine without their consent nor an explanation on
why they needed them. This was brought to light after a fourteen year old girl was
punched in the face in the facility. Angel later was brought to Netty Herring who became
her foster mom and allowed her to be who she wanted to be. Ms. Herring approached
Angel with love and care instead of abuse and medicine.

Carlos and his family were another family that entered the foster system at a young age
due to neglect and abuse. Although at first their foster dad, Travis tried to keep them
together Carlos eventually ended bouncing around foster homes because of the
learning disabilities he had become a threat to himself and his family. In a therapeutic
foster home he was sexually abused. The therapist and DCF investigator allowed
Carlos to become abuse because they did not believe him. After he was removed from
the home, another child was abused a week after they got into the home and filed a
complain. No one was held accountable which caused a lot of frustration. Carlos was
put in a long term facility.

Brain, was apart of the system along with his brothers due to neglect from his mother.
They became traumatized by a serial child molesters Hector Rosas whom was later
convicted after abused a girl after the boys had left his care. The boys were later
adopted but suffered from nightmares and stonewalling tendencies which their new
foster parents were not aware of.

Ashtavia and her sister were in the foster care because her mother was a drug addict.
She was under the care of her grandmother who physically abused her and when she
was going to be under investigation she sent the girls to Florida. Ashtavia looked into
her record and they showed no evidence or information about the sexual abuse and
physical abuse that she had. She shares the story of her sister, who was sexually
abused by her foster father. She cries as she shares that she tried to put herself out
there so that he sister was not sexually abused but that caused her to get put into a
Crisis program away from her sister.

Florida Youth Shine is a program that many of the foster children have advocated in
order to fix the system. They focus on topics such as “aging out” which later opens the
window for homelessness throughout foster care children. They volunteer and talk to
Legislators to help children that are stuck in the system. Things that are often avoiding
is out of county placements, multiple placements, group homes, large CEO salaries,
and limiting contract services. Many foster parents feel threatened that they are fighting
against the system and therefore give up.