CLEARWATER, Fla. (WFLA) – The Department of Children and Families is “reviewing” contractor Eckerd Kids, a nonprofit responsible for placing children in Hillsborough, Pasco and Pinellas counties, officials told News Channel 8.
The review comes after a June 8 On Your Side investigation revealed some children who had been taken from their homes by child protective investigators were sleeping in office buildings. Eckerd didn’t have foster and groups homes for the children to stay with, News Channel 8 found.
“DCF is reviewing Eckerd’s failure to find appropriate placement and will impose a formal corrective action plan if the issue is not quickly and thoroughly resolved,” DCF spokeswoman Jessica Sims said in a statement.
Sims said DCF expects “no child removed from their home be allowed, directed or otherwise put in a position to sleep or spend any significant period of time in a department, Community-Based Care (CBC) Lead Agency, or case management organization office, hotel or other unapproved placement.”
“There was a period of about 2.5 weeks where the removals were so significant that we were not able to immediately accommodate the kids at the time that they entered the system,” said Lorita Shirley, chief of program operations with Eckerd Kids. “Those individual kids were able have a placement identified with in a day or two of their entrance into the foster care system.”
Seventeen kids spent at least one night in the office.
Despite Shirley telling 8 On Your Side the situation only last for 2.5 weeks, the Department of Children and Families said officials received reports of children sleeping in offices over a six-week period, beginning May 13 and ending June 24.
“We initially have them set up in cots in their visitation rooms. They do have shower facilities; we have access to a kitchen for the kids and healthy snacks,” Shirley said.
“When you look at the jump between March, April and May, it increased about 40 percent in terms of the number of kids entering,” she continued. “Prior to May we had an opportunity to meet with the secretary and his team to share the anomaly that was occurring here in Hillsborough County. We wanted the department to be fully aware of the impact that this anomaly was having on our ability to place kids in the system.”
Shirley maintains DCF was notified when kids were sleeping in offices. “When the first kid could not be placed then we are required to notify the Department of Children and Families, and that notification was in fact made,” she said.
Meanwhile, a work group of stakeholders has been formed to try and get to the root of the problem.
