Family Services neglected foster placement restriction

Records show that in 2007 Clark County commissioners unanimously committed to child welfare improvement goals, including restricting to one the number of unrelated infants or toddlers placed in a single foster home.

That restriction was not followed in 2014 by the Clark County Department of Family Services in placing 16-month-old Michell Momox-Caselis in a foster home with a 9-month-old foster child who was not her sibling. Michell was found dead in her crib Oct. 12 in the foster family’s apartment home. She died of an antihistamine overdose, according to the Clark County coroner’s office.

Joaquin Juarez-Paez, 37, the toddler’s foster father, committed suicide with an overdose of pain relievers in a car in the northwest valley complex’s parking lot, according to Metro and the Clark County coroner’s office. Investigators believe Juarez-Paez was responsible for Michell’s death.

There’s no way to know what, if any, difference would have been made had the placement restriction been followed in Michell’s case. But a former director for the county Department of Family Services explained what motivated the 2007 resolution adopted by commissioners.

“The rationale was that these are not normal children,” Tom Morton said Wednesday of the youngest children in foster care. “Even young infants suffer the trauma of separation from their parents, and this is followed by a difficult behavior. A wise course of action … was to limit the amount of demands placed on foster parents with a very young child with this kind of history.”

Morton was director of Family Services from 2006 to 2011, when he retired. He was hired to fix the agency, which was under scrutiny for fatalities of children in care.

Responses from Clark County officials to Review-Journal questions about the placement of multiple young children in one foster home have varied in the wake of Michell’s death.

Neither Clark County Manager Don Burnette, Clark County Assistant Manager Jeff Wells or Family Services Director Lisa Ruiz-Lee were available to be interviewed for this story.

On Thursday, Clark County spokesman Erik Pappa wrote in a statement that the agency tries to limit the number of young children in one foster home. On Friday, he said that’s not a policy but rather a goal. But the resolution approved by commissioners called for an assurance system to “be developed and implemented by Oct. 1, 2007, ensuring that all new policies developed pursuant” to the agreement are implemented.

“We generally try to limit the number of children under the age of 2 in a home to one child, except for siblings,” Pappa said. “But we don’t always have enough available beds in foster homes licensed for children in this age group in order to meet this goal.”

In late December, when county officials were asked by the Review-Journal about the placement restriction that Morton had implemented and commissioners had approved, Pappa said he couldn’t speculate about what Morton might have said at the time and that many foster families are “well-suited and entirely prepared to meet the needs of two children under the age of 2 living in the same household.”

In October, when county officials were first asked about the placement of two young children in one foster home after Michell died, they said “foster care licenses designate the age ranges and number of foster children that can be placed in a home.”

“For example, a license may be for so many children under age 5, or for so many children aged 3-18, etc.,” county officials said at the time.

Under Nevada Administrative Code, foster parents must not have more than two foster children under the age of 18 months. The county’s restriction to one toddler or infant per foster home grew out of several meetings between Family Services and the San Francisco-based Youth Law Center to avoid litigation, Morton said. The center, a public interest law firm that works to protect children in foster care and justice systems, had expressed several concerns with Clark County’s child welfare system.

Pappa on Friday added that Family Services’ policy on the placement of children under the age of 2 is found in the Nevada Administrative Code. He said county officials are certain that Wayne Holder, an expert whose review of Michell’s case found no wrongdoing by Family Services, was aware of Nevada Administrative Codes related to placement.

Pappa didn’t answer a question about whether county officials made the expert aware of the restriction under the 2007 resolution. Holder’s organization, Action for Child Protection, is midway through a $3 million contract with Family Services. State-hired expert Mike Capello, who is scrutinizing Michell’s death and other Nevada child fatalities, also cleared the agency in the first phase of his review. The results of his review’s second phase are still pending.

Maria Ramiu, managing director at the Youth Law Center, was involved in the 2007 negotiations with Clark County. It would be a disappointment if Family Services was not enforcing what it agreed to under the 2007 resolution, she said.

“I would think that if the agency would’ve agreed, than that’s the direction the agency is going to go,” she said.

Morton said the restriction remained in effect through his tenure.

Placement caseworkers often would approach him with a request to waive the restriction, but he rarely granted them, he said.

“I can’t say that it never happened, but if it ever happened, it was rare,” Morton said of placing unrelated foster children under 2 in the same home.

Morton declined to speculate on whether following the restriction would have made a difference in Michell’s case.

“It’s difficult to play what-ifs around these cases,” he said.

Denise Tanata Ashby, executive director for the Children’s Advocacy Alliance, said her organization has recommended to a state blue-ribbon panel reviewing shortcomings in the county’s child welfare system and court that an audit be conducted of Family Services’ policies, procedures and implementation practices. The committee, appointed by Nevada Supreme Court Justice Nancy Saitta, will hold its third meeting Thursday.

“Oftentimes, there is a policy in place, but it’s not always implemented the way that is intended to be,” Ashby said Thursday. Her community-based organization advocates for children’s safety, school readiness and health.

Another child welfare improvement goal in the 2007 resolution was to limit the length of stay for children under the age of 2 at Child Haven, the county’s emergency shelter for abused and neglected children, Pappa said.

“On occasions children under 2 will be placed in a qualified, licensed foster home to get them out of congregate care, even if it means two children under 2 are in the same home,” he said in a statement.

Officials have not provided a breakdown of the ages for children at Child Haven after the shelter experienced a steep population increase during Thanksgiving week.

“The obvious underlying issue is the community’s need for more high-qualified foster homes, and we are constantly on the lookout for families willing to open their doors to care for our community’s most vulnerable children,” Pappa said.

Contact Yesenia Amaro at yamaro@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0440. Find her on Twitter: @YeseniaAmaro.