TAMPA, Fla. — With a small village of relations surrounding them, Taniyah and Rodney Williams shared, what they are saying, no loving guardian ought to ever should.
“They called us abusers and just took us from her,” Williams defined in regards to the day her then-12-week-old daughter was taken by state youngster welfare employees after a nurse suspected her daughter was being abused.
The Williams now consider the system, created to guard households, not solely failed them however distorted the reality to steal their daughter away from them and her organic household.
“I don’t know anything about her. What her favorite color is, her favorite show on TV, I don’t know anything,” mentioned Williams about her daughter who she hasn’t seen since 2018.
Lawsuit: Foster care employees “internally diverting” youngsters away from relatives for system-connected strangers
The Williams are amongst 4 Florida households now suing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and leaders of Florida’s Department of Children and Families (DCF) together with a number of different state foster care organizations.
In the lawsuit, filed in a Tallahassee federal courtroom Wednesday, dozens of relatives throughout 4 households accused workers inside the state’s foster care system of fabricating proof, hiding and withholding key information, creating false abuse allegations, or ignoring state and federal household legal guidelines so the system employees may hold youngsters from being positioned with organic relatives and, as an alternative, place them with system-connected folks in search of youngsters of their very own.
ABCD v. Desantis, Et Al. by ABC Action News on Scribd
For the Williams household, it began in 2017 when their toddler daughter confirmed indicators of leg ache. According to the lawsuit, Williams had been out and in of her pediatrician’s workplace and the hospital over numerous medical points involving her new child daughter.
According to the lawsuit, her daughter’s delivery was traumatic. The umbilical twine was wrapped across the child’s neck, forcing docs to interrupt the infant’s clavicle throughout supply to get her out, the grievance states. The child’s delivery additionally resulted in bruising, famous by the household’s pediatrician, courtroom data present.
After the infant’s delivery, the Williams’ made each physician’s go to for his or her new daughter, the go well with states. Mom had additionally been to the ER a number of occasions over completely different points along with her daughter, together with a respiratory an infection. According to the 106-page grievance, the infant’s pediatrician by no means suspected abuse. In reality, he famous the infant has a type of brittle bone illness that made her bruise simply.
On the day the Williams introduced their child in over issues about leg ache, docs ordered x-rays which revealed the infant had a fractured femur and greater than a dozen different fractures “in various stages of healing,” in accordance with the lawsuit.
A nurse suspected abuse.
When dad and mom lose custody, these households declare, relatives additionally lose their rights
Following the nurse’s suspicion, mother and pop have been investigated by police. According to the lawsuit, the case was closed with no felony expenses filed.
Still, DCF filed a petition to take away the infant and her brother from their dad and mom. The younger dad and mom have been finally stripped of their parental rights.
“It broke us, it changed us and it’s always going to be a part of us missing until she comes home,” mentioned an emotional Williams.
“It ruined my life,” added dad, Rodney.
The couple vehemently denies they ever abused their youngsters and are preventing to get their parental rights restored.
But their relatives mentioned the system additionally broke the household by depriving organic relatives of their proper to take custody of the infant.
According to the lawsuit, businesses inside the state’s foster care system bypassed state and federal legal guidelines that require foster care employees to present relatives the chance to take custody of a toddler earlier than putting that youngster with non-relative strangers.
On the day investigative reporter Katie LaGrone, and her photographer, Matthew Apthorp, met Taniyah and Rodney Williams, in addition they met greater than a half dozen members who mentioned they have been every prepared, prepared, and in a position to take custody of the Williams’ daughter. But relations have been, in the end, disqualified for causes they nonetheless don’t perceive.
Relatives rejected
Paternal grandparents, Charlotte and Rodney Williams Sr., mentioned they went by intensive background checks and have been initially accredited to take custody of the 2 Williams’ youngsters.
“We passed all the home studies, they dug into our backgrounds,” mentioned Williams Sr. “I’m in the military and the backgrounds we went through were just as bad,” he defined.
The grandparents mentioned they have been rejected on the final minute.
“They made up so many reasons,” mentioned the paternal grandmother.
Lisa Crutch is the infant’s maternal grandmother and mentioned, she too, was disqualified.
“I’m retired military, I worked for the city of New York, I have a college degree, there was nothing wrong with me having my granddaughter,” Crutch mentioned.
The lawsuit alleged caseworkers “falsely claimed” Crutch was a toddler abuser who “had abused her son years earlier” and was even erroneously listed on the abuse registry as a toddler abuser.
According to Crutch. the paperwork, allegedly, stating she was a toddler abuser was riddled with spelling and factual errors. In addition, she mentioned, the state labeled her son’s age on the time of his so-called abuse as “18 years old.” She additionally mentioned system employees intentionally withheld information on the best way to get all corrected and eliminated from her background.
“I felt like it was conspiracy,” she mentioned.
A conspiracy, the household now claims, was half of an even bigger intent described within the lawsuit as “unlawful internal diversion” to let “operators of the system essentially have their choice of children placed into the state’s custody.”.
Why?
“Why would they do it,” requested Leigh Crutch, the infant’s great-aunt. “Because they’ve been doing it for so long and never expected to get caught,” she believes.
Crutch has been working behind the scenes, conducting her personal investigation attempting to get to the underside of why her household is constantly being shut out of the younger youngster’s life.
Crutch and different relations consider they found the why after they discovered the infant taken from them had been fostered out to a household who had a powerful connection to the foster care system. The foster father was, on the time, a board member and a basis trustee for a similar Clay County foster company that fought to terminate Taniyah and Rodney Williams’ parental rights.
“I was furious,” mentioned the infant’s organic mother. “I felt like it was a setup,” she mentioned.
The Williams aren’t alone
“I can’t even describe the pain that we experienced as a family,” defined Judy Miller, who mentioned, she and different relations have been additionally unjustly disqualified from taking care of a child relative who was additionally eliminated from her household.
Miller moved to Florida from Illinois to look after her granddaughter after her daughter and son-in-law’s parental rights have been terminated over allegations of abuse.
While the infant’s organic dad and mom deny they did something improper, Miller mentioned she was one of eight household relatives prepared, prepared, and in a position to take custody of the infant, however who have been all rejected by the system.
“They did two home studies and they were both approved,” Miller mentioned of her makes an attempt to achieve custody of her granddaughter. Miller can be in search of authorized motion and named within the go well with.
According to the grievance, caseworkers rejected Miller as an appropriate guardian for her grandbaby as a result of Miller’s “bond with her daughter was too close.”
Instead of household, the lawsuit states the infant was positioned with a stranger, “system-connected.”
“You can’t write off the whole family,” mentioned Anna DaCosta and her husband.
Their daughter’s half-sister was additionally eliminated from their organic household as a result of DCF, towards committee suggestions in accordance with the grievance, positioned the younger lady with a non-relative, foster-system linked individual after the infant’s mom misplaced her parental rights.
“She was a pretty little blond-haired, blue-eyed baby. Of course they wanted her,” mentioned DaCosta.
“It’s happening all over Florida”
“It’s happening all over Florida,” mentioned legal professional Octavia Brown of Community Law for Families and Children. She’s half of a workforce of attorneys who filed the grievance.
When LaGrone steered the lawsuit accused kidnapping by and inside the system, Brown responded “what else do you name it? If there’s somebody who’s linked to the system they usually see a toddler that they need, they’ll get the kid.”
Brown is also a former insider who worked as an attorney for DCF and other agencies representing Florida’s foster care system.
While Brown believes the system, overall, protects children from abuse, she explained how some staff members who collaborate to deliberately keep a child from being placed with biological relatives can get away with it.
“This system is so bogged down”, she said. “When they [system staff] come in with these false stories or they come in with false allegations of caregivers having backgrounds, the judge is not going to say ‘oh let me look into that home study or let me look into that criminal record,” she explained.
Brown said young parents and poor families are most vulnerable to what they dub as “internal diversion” practices.
“Because those families don’t have the money to fight the bogus allegations,” Brown said.
Board member adopts baby
Today, Taniyah and Rodney Williams are parents to a little boy. Their older son, who was taken away from them at the same time their baby daughter was removed, was placed with his paternal grandparents.
But their only daughter wasn’t. She remains gone from the family after being adopted three years ago by the same board member and his family who first took her in.
In response to questions about the adoption and potential conflict of interest, the now-former board member stated in an email, “I would certainly like to speak to you regarding our daughter. I’m sure you’ve heard several fabulous stories which are not true,” he said.
The board member never elaborated because his attorney wouldn’t let him. Custody cases are, by law, confidential and can’t be publicly discussed according to his attorney.
The system responds
According to a Department of Children and Families dashboard, over 21,000 youngsters and younger adults are presently within the state’s foster care system. To get some extra perspective, we referred to DCF’s most annual performance report, from fiscal 12 months 2020-2021. According to the report, the quantity of youngsters getting into the foster care system in Florida is barely above the nationwide common – with above 3.5 youngsters per 1,000 getting into Florida’s system in 2019, in comparison with 3.4 youngsters per 1,000 nationally.
In response to the lawsuit, DCF spokesperson Laura Walthall despatched us the next assertion:
While you in all probability gained’t embrace any of our successes, you will need to spotlight the Department of Children and Families proceed to make the well-being of youngsters our prime precedence. As a system of care, we work to exhaust all effort to discover a relative or non-relative caregiver for kids who’re eliminated from their organic dad and mom. Our objective is household preservation every time attainable. In reality, during the last couple of years, we’ve invested vital sources in reaching that objective and we will attest that Florida is at an 18-year low for elimination from household caregivers. Florida has additionally invested hundreds of thousands of {dollars} during the last three years to enhance household placements.
We stay dedicated to making sure the integrity of our mission: to work in partnership with native communities to guard the susceptible, promote sturdy and economically self-sufficient households, and advance private and household get well and resiliency.
But the Williams’, and three different Florida households named within the lawsuit, preserve that was not their expertise. Now, they’re hoping the justice system can do what, they consider, the state’s youngster welfare system went out of its means and towards the legislation to not— carry these youngsters again residence to them.
“She’s a black child, raised in a white household and she’s going to find out that she was stolen and stolen from an excellent family, “ said great-aunt Leigh Crutch about the Williams’ daughter.
“The system is a lie, that’s what it is,” the infant’s mother mentioned.