Another distressing failure by foster care system

BY EDITORIAL BOARD
Thursday, October 24 2013

The state’s foster care system failed Orion Destany Hamilton.
That’s the way Orion’s father, Brian Hamilton, sees the violent end to his daughter’s short life. He told the American-Statesman’s Andrea Ball and Claire Osborn in a report printed Thursday that he had warned Child Protective Services that Jacob Salas, the man accused of killing his year-old daughter, was a threat to the girl. But Orion’s foster mother, Brian Hamilton’s sister, denied Salas lived with her or frequently visited her apartment. CPS appears to have accepted her word despite public records pointing to the contrary.

“I told them that Jacob was living there, and they didn’t care,” Hamilton told Ball and Osborn.

The foster care system fatally failed Orion Hamilton. We condemn the system’s failures and welcome the state’s announced investigation of Child Protective Services’ handling of Orion’s case.

Eight foster children were killed in fiscal year 2013, which ended Aug. 31, according to a report by the Dallas Morning News. So far this fiscal year, abuse or neglect is suspected in the deaths of three foster children.

Orion’s life began badly and ended tragically. She was taken from her San Antonio home on Oct. 31, 2012, after she was born with methamphetamine in her system. Two months later she was sent to Cedar Park to live with Heather Hamilton, her paternal aunt and the mother of three children ages 3, 5 and 7 fathered by Salas. This past weekend Heather Hamilton was called unexpectedly to work. She asked Salas to babysit. Police say Salas fractured Orion Hamilton’s skull by placing her head between his knee and the floor. She died Sunday.

Heather Hamilton denied Salas — who had previously faced family violence allegations, though charges eventually were dismissed — lived in her Cedar Park apartment. Court documents suggest otherwise, or at least indicate Salas was a frequent visitor to the home.

Brian Hamilton says he picked up the red flag that was Salas and waved it, vainly trying to draw attention to his potentially harmful presence in the home where his daughter lived.

Orion Hamilton’s death follows the July death of 2-year-old Alexandria Hill in her Central Texas foster home. Alexandria’s foster mother, Sherill Small, has been charged with capital murder, accused of slamming the girl’s head on the floor.

The death of Alexandria Hill focused attention on Texas Mentor, a child-placing contractor that finds and approves foster families. The agency failed to properly check the employment status, finances and criminal backgrounds of the Small family. It has since changed its vetting procedures.

Two weeks before Orion’s death, Heather Hamilton had been placed in a program offered through Lutheran Social Services of the South, the state’s largest foster care contractor. The Austin-based child-placing agency says it performed criminal background checks on everyone Heather Hamilton said either lived at or frequently visited her apartment. She did not mention Salas, according to Lutheran Social Services.

This month the state suspended placements of children with Lutheran Social Services’ branch in Garland after two children with health problems died in their North Texas foster homes this summer. The state is investigating whether the children received proper medical care.

We learned after Alexandria Hill’s death that foster families often are financially challenged and foster parents make $650 to $700 a month to care for a foster child. Last year, the state paid 351 private agencies $227 million in taxpayer money to screen and train foster parents and to find the children homes. Placing children in foster homes is big business in Texas.

As we condemn the system’s failures, and mourn another foster child’s death, we keep in mind that individuals and their actions make the system.

Foster care begins with the failure of one or both birth parents. The system fails when the caseworkers, supervisors and contractors fail to find safe foster homes. There’s also the failure by legislators to properly support and fund a system that cared for more than 31,000 foster children last year.

The state’s most vulnerable children, who have so little in life, deserve better. From all of us.



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This is important because it is dealing with the lives of young children and their safety. It is also focusing on the work of the CPS and how it obviously needs to make some changes for improvement.

The failure by the foster care system is obviously something trending throughout this article. Something is not right here, and the Child Protection Services need to do their job correctly and efficiently. Efficiency is obviously an issue here, as well as a sign of laziness. It seems to me that the CPS is continuing to do their job, but not doing it well. They are letting these children be taken in to these homes where they are violently treated, and some result in deaths that are underserving. Why is this happening? I think that the process that prospective foster care parents go through needs to be more strict and taken more seriously. Just because a person wants to become a foster parent, does not mean that they are always doing this in good will. This is apparent by the death of Orion Hamilton. Through this happening, it is also made clear that the CPS have shown minimum care when being warned of a bad situation. This is a problem. Red flags and warnings from others is something I think should be investigated and acted upon at that exact moment. If a child is possibly in an unsafe environment, and there is a hint or warning of that you better act on it! This article was very upsetting to me, and makes me want to pursue CPS more than ever as a career. I think that this system needs to be renovated and not just seen as you’re typical, every day, blue collar job. These situations are things that need to be taken more seriously.