Monitor's Report Details Mississippi's Failures to Protect Children in Foster Care

Examples of referrals the monitoring team concluded should have been investigated for child abuse and neglect include:

• A referral was made by a nurse practitioner expressing concern that child’s foster family was not making sure she was taking her medications.
• A 13-year-old foster child alleged that two years ago, in a previous foster home, she was sexually assaulted by her foster mother’s teenage son. The foster mother was home at the time, but she was in the kitchen and the children were in a separate room. The child did not tell anyone about the assault at the time, but afterwards she disclosed the assault during a visit to the doctor. The child also reported that the foster mother would whoop her across the back with a wide extension cord and it made her bleed. MDCPS screened this referral out as a “duplicate report” stating that the allegations were disclosed by the foster child during an open investigation. However, that investigation referenced a different perpetrator and did no document that any of the allegations in this referral were investigated by MDCPS.
• MDCPS unsubstantiated allegations of child maltreatment after a five-year-old child disclosed that his previous foster mother had put socks in his throat when he was crying and made him squat against the wall as punishment. He alleged that sometimes he was made to do the “wall sits” while in his underwear or naked, and that on at least one occasion, he was made to squat against the wall in the closet. The foster mother admitted to making him squat against the wall, but denied ever putting a sock in his throat. The alleged child victim had been removed from the home prior to the investigation at the request of the foster mother, but two other children were left in the home. The SIU worker noted in her investigative findings that one of the foster children left in the placement was a similar age as the alleged victim child and that she “may be at risk for similar treatment now that [the alleged victim] is no longer there.” The licensing worker met with the foster parents and recommended that a CAP be completed; the home remained opened.
• In one case where the monitoring team concluded that more information was needed, there were allegations of insufficient food in the home and that the foster mother was waking the children up at 2:00 or 3:00 a.m to complete chores. Similar allegations were made against the same foster mother in 2012 by another foster child. It is unclear if the SUI worker noticed this connection before finding the case to be unsubstantiated. The investigation was also completed prior to receiving the results of the forensic interviews MDCPS requested during the investigation. A CAP was completed at the recommendation of the licensing agency, the children were removed, and the home remains open.

Read the full report here: https://www.abetterchildhood.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/mssd-Progress-of-the-Mississippi-Department-of-Child-Protection-Services-Monitoring-Report-for-Olivia-Y.-06-11-2019-0845.pdf