DYFS let four kids slowly starve

Child advocate's report on Collingswood family case lists years of
poor judgment by agency


Friday, February 13, 2004

BY SUSAN K. LIVIO AND MARY JO PATTERSON
Star-Ledger Staff


Through negligent casework, ignorance of the rules and poor internal
communication, the state's child welfare agency allowed
four "intentionally malnourished" adopted children to live in near-
starvation for almost a decade, according to a blistering report
released yesterday by New Jersey's Office of the Child Advocate.

Years before Collingswood police responded to a middle-of-the- night
call about a "little kid" eating out of a neighbor's trash can, the
New Jersey Division of Youth and Children Services should have known
that there was something terribly wrong, Child Advocate Kevin Ryan
found.

The "little kid," weighing 45 pounds and standing 4 feet tall when
found foraging for food on Oct. 10, 2003, was actually a 19-year-old
man, Bruce Jackson. At the home of his parents, Vanessa and Raymond
Jackson, were three younger brothers just as deprived.

Yet DYFS workers who visited the Jackson household on at least 38
occasions since 1999 failed to do anything about their appalling
state, the report documents.

"None of (them) apparently noticed the stark underweight and
underdeveloped conditions of the four boys, or did anything about it
if they did," Ryan wrote.

The Jacksons have been charged with child endangerment and assault.
Bruce Jackson, still living in a hospital but thriving "on a normal
diet," has gained 37 pounds and grown 6 1/2 inches in the last three
months, the report states. His brothers, in foster care along with
three other Jackson children, also are doing well.

Ryan's 35-page report provides a chilling portrait of bureacratic
dysfunction. Since the Jacksons became foster parents in the summer
of 1991, it concludes, DYFS did almost nothing right in caring for
the boys it placed with them.

His findings include the following:


Although physicians, school officials, therapists and even DYFS
workers took note of the Jackson boys' emaciation on numerous
occasions, DYFS never investigated to find out what was behind it.
"In every case, these signs were dismissed, ignored or overlooked by
the state Department of Human Services and the Division of Youth and
Family Services," Child Advocate Kevin Ryan said at a news
conference in Newark.


Contrary to claims by Vanessa and Raymond Jackson, there is no
evidence to suggest the Jackson boys suffered from any medical
conditions prior to their adoptions.
In reality the four boys "were systematically malnourished over many
years," Ryan wrote. "After extensive examination and testing,
doctors have concluded the exceptionally low weight and
exceptionally small stature were not caused by any medical condition
whatsoever."

Richard Josselson, attorney for the Jacksons, did not return a
telephone call yesterday seeking comment.


DYFS caseworkers, their supervisors, and licensing officials all
appeared to be unaware of rules requiring annual medical evaluations
of all family members living in a foster home.

State officials misled the public in October when they said a DYFS
employee had gone to the Jackson household four months earlier to
assess the safety of a foster child there. Such visits are required
under settlement of a lawsuit brought by a child-advocacy group.

Not only is there no record of a visit, there is evidence to suggest
as many as 2,500 of 14,300 other "safety assessments" DYFS purported
to have made were nothing more than reviews of notes taken during
visits many months earlier.
The child advocate's four- month investigation was based on 20,000
pages of DYFS, medical and school records and testimony from eight
senior DYFS officials.

It leads "to the very unsettling conclusion that policies designed
to protect children are not strictly adhered to at DYFS, and have
not been for many years. They are not even fully understood," Ryan
wrote.

From start to finish, DYFS caseworkers had a high opinion about the
Jacksons as parents, the report shows.

For example, workers praised the couple for "doing an excellent job"
and being "very consistent on doctor's appointments" in a 1997
foster home evaluation. In reality, the four boys suffered
emotionally and physically for many years.

In a 1994 entry in a caseworker's notes, Bruce Jackson pleaded with
his caseworker to take him to McDonald's, a Dunkin' Donuts --
anywhere where he could eat. She refused, but the ravenous 10-year-
old wouldn't relent. He found a cookie in the car's glove
compartment, swallowed it, then begged her not to tell "Miss
Vanessa," the name he used for his foster mother.

DYFS workers apparently relied on the boys' parents, rather than the
boys' doctors, for information about their health. Vanessa Jackson
told caseworkers and friends that the reason Bruce was so small was
that he had "bulimia and depression," the report states.

Doctors and therapists who treated the boys may have conveyed
concerns to the foster parents, but the caseworkers did not get wind
of them or ignored them, Ryan said after his news conference.

"Clearly, DYFS knew the children were losing weight. The explanation
offered in the case record said children suffered from 'eating
disorders' or 'fetal alcohol syndrome.' There is not a single shred
of evidence to support either diagnosis," he said.

Doctors who treated the Jackson boys did document serious medical
concerns.

For example, a physician conducting a routine physical on one of
them noted that the boy was "markedly underweight, undersized and
presented with failure- to-thrive syndrome." At age 3, the doctor's
records showed, the boy weighed only 21 pounds.

One year later, DYFS approved his adoption, with no indication that
the boy's health was of any concern. The other boys' adoptions also
sailed through, with the approval of DYFS, judges, and special law
guardians assigned.

In a set of recommendations accompanying the report, Ryan urged the
Department of Human Services to require in-person safety assessments
of all children adopted through DYFS, and to interview all members
of the household during these visits.

Ryan also urged the state to coordinate medical care for foster
children by establishing medical offices at DYFS offices to serve as
go-betweens for physicians, caseworkers and foster parents.

Ryan also recommended that the state require parents who adopt
through DYFS to provide proof that their child gets an annual
physical as a condition of receiving a stipend. The federal
government pays adoptive parents several hundred dollars a month.

The Department of Human Services has 30 days to respond to Ryan's
report and recommendations.

Hetty Rosenstein, president of Communications Workers of America
Local 1037, representing many DYFS workers, did not dispute Ryan's
contention that caseworkers routinely overlooked at least one rule.

"No one" at DYFS follows the rule requiring annual medical exams for
everyone in a foster child's household, Rosenstein said.

"Management decided to not require that any longer. No one has ever
done these medicals every time a child is adopted. It was a
management decision to waive that," said Rosenstein, who sat in on
the news conference.

The Office of the Child Advocate, assisted by the law firm of Latham
& Watkins on a pro bono basis, did not delve into possible
motivations for the boys' alleged maltreatment.

That is a focus of the continuing criminal investigation of the
Jacksons by Camden County Prosecutor Vincent Sarubbi, Ryan said.

http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index...ood_report.html

Absolutely sickening

But this whole thing went down nearly one year ago. Old news

It happened a couple of months ago my wife showed me in the paper and saw it on the news, just absolutely disgusting that those people had CPS all over and they never did a thing about it.

Showed the pics of the 4 kids, mind you they had more but those that were adopted were starved, and omg the horror I saw, the oldest kid in high school was so malnourished he looked no older than 8 years old! Im glad they finally did something and those kids are doing well now.

The story broke this spring. But the abuse had been going on for years, I think I have heard that jail time is in order for the "parents." What happened to the kids makes me sick, that the orginization that is supposed to help children let it happen makes me sicker.

the worst part is that they take kids when they shouldn't/
Absolutely disgusting..

What a sad story

What makes me upset is they will deny very legit loving couples adoption but would give people like this kids...that I dont understand.

this has been goin gon for so long---everywhere


example---woman has two kids---3 and 5---for punishment she made the kids go out and clean up after their huge dalmation in the back yard-(they had to pick up weeks worth of feces) and when Human Services showed up there was no proof.

Weeks later---someone saw the same woman kick her dog---the police were called and the woman was fined for animal abuse!!!

So---why are laws stricter when it comes to animal abuse thna with child abuse??

Makes me sick---makes me angry---but it continues to go on!

If you re read she got a fine for kicking the dog

now if the same neighbor called SS one her about the kids picking up dog POOP==they do nothing---no DCS Doesn't do a thing---unless the kid is briused---then there is nothing they will do