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As judges and the state argue over the care of disabled foster children, lawmakers ponder a bill that would settle the dispute.
BY CAROL MARBIN MILLER
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Joe’s mother abandoned him when he was a baby. His father drank until he died.
Diagnosed as mentally disabled with the vocabulary and articulation of a small child, Joe drifted from foster care through youth shelters and juvenile lockup until he ended up homeless. He told psychologists he was depressed and hopeless. He said he saw “dead people.”
For about three years, two Miami juvenile court judges tried desperately to help Joe. They ordered the state Agency for Persons with Disabilities to enroll the youth in a taxpayer-funded program that could have provided speech and occupational therapy, behavioral supports, tutoring and vocational training.
But agency officials refused — prompting one of several constitutional showdowns between the agency, which says it alone has the authority to decide who is eligible for state-paid care, and local judges, who say it is their job to protect foster children.
Now, Florida lawmakers are considering a sweeping bill proposed by APD administrators that would end the standoff — in favor of the state.
The measure would strip juvenile court judges of the authority to order services such as speech or physical therapy and behavioral interventions for disabled children in the state’s care. The APD drafted the bill, sponsored by Rep. Bill Galvano, a Bradenton Republican who chairs the House Future of Florida’s Families Committee, and Sen. Carey Baker, a Eustis Republican.
WAITING LIST
Currently, 232 Florida foster children are on a waiting list for state-paid services to help them cope with a developmental disability, such as mental retardation, autism or cerebral palsy. About 30 of the children live in Miami-Dade and 41 in Broward.
The children are among 12,000 to 16,000 on the waiting list for Medicaid-funded community services, and 7,500 of the Floridians on the list are age 21 or younger, records show.
Five cases — four of them from Miami — have been appealed to the state’s highest court, which has yet to rule on whether judges can insist that a state agency provide services to a disabled child who is under the court’s jurisdiction. Joe’s case has not yet been appealed.
State officials say the bill places authority over taxpayer-funded services where it belongs: with state agency heads who know how much they have to spend on social welfare and are best qualified to determine who is eligible.
”It is the agency’s position that judges never had that authority,” said Lindsay Hodges, a spokeswoman for APD Director Shelly Brantley. “It is out of their jurisdiction, and we want to clarify that.”
The bill also would give foster children a boost closer to the front of the state’s waiting list for services, Hodges said, so they will not have to wait as long as children who have moms and dads to advocate for them.
Advocates for children and disabled people say the legislation is a heartless bill that would leave children who are already legal orphans with no one to speak for them but the very state that has consistently refused to help them.
”These children are the most vulnerable people in the state of Florida,” said John Hall, who heads the Association for Retarded Citizens in Tallahassee. “They were neglected and abused, and they have a developmental disability.”
Said Andrea Moore, who heads Florida’s Children First: “This is a classic case of the executive branch over-reaching and trying to deprive the judicial branch of its authority. It’s of concern to us because we believe it would violate federal child welfare law.”
Joe, who is now 18, elected to remain in foster care after he normally would have ”aged out” of the system, allowing Miami-Dade dependency Judge Cindy Lederman to continue her supervision of his case. He entered foster care as an infant.
Joe has been diagnosed as mentally retarded five times since 2001.
REPEATEDLY DENIED
But the disability agency repeatedly has refused to declare him eligible for state-paid care. Administrators cite a June 2002 evaluation conducted for the state by private psychologist Hilda Lopez. In her report, Lopez wrote that Joe’s IQ test indicated he was mentally retarded — though she refused to make a formal diagnosis.
Even a separate state agency, the Department of Children & Families, which oversaw Joe’s foster care case, acknowledged he suffered from a developmental disability.
”The great majority of psychologists and psychiatrists who have evaluated Joe since 2000 — with the marked exception of Hilda Lopez … have reached and documented the conclusion that he is mentally retarded,” DCF court liaison Meg Cantwell wrote in a June 10 letter to Lederman and another judge.
Though Lopez and the APD refused to declare Joe disabled, the psychologist still recommended he receive care.
”Joe needs affection and guidance,” Lopez wrote in her June 2002 report. ”Due to his emotional, cognitive and social condition, he requires very specific and highly involved case management.” Lopez recommended the boy get academic tutoring, a life-long guardian and a speech therapy evaluation.
The two Miami judges, Lederman and delinquency Judge Lester Langer, were determined to get Joe services, such as speech and occupational therapy, a room in a group home that specializes in caring for disabled youths, behavioral therapy, tutoring and vocational training.
”Joe is a young man who has been met with a great deal of adversity from the very systems that were designed to help and support youth with special needs,” Joe’s foster care case manager wrote in a recent report. “Joe has been bounced from system to system and has lost his trust and faith in those who attempt to offer him any help or supports.”
Joe, the report added, “is in a very sad and difficult position. He is in essence homeless.”
In September, Langer was forced to close his case on the young man, having achieved virtually nothing. Last month, Joe was arrested for bringing a pocketknife to a South Miami-Dade high school — a felony. He told school officials he put the knife in his pocket and forgot it was there.
”Joe is a picture-perfect example of the need for courts and judges to have some authority over these kids,” said Langer, who presided over delinquency hearings for the youth since 2001. Since Joe was consistently determined to be incompetent, all of Langer’s cases were dismissed with no final outcome.
Said Langer: “My fear is that, under this new bill, all we’ll be doing is setting up some of our most vulnerable citizens for failure.”