Appalling Circumstances Lead To: $30M suit filed in death of boy

[i4doors]

this is horrible....

[dulcinea]

$30 million is not nearly enough. The people taking care of this child should be starved to death.

[Annie143]

What a beautiful boy ! So horrible ! 30M is not enough, though it wont bring the child back.

This reminds me of little Chandler Grafner in Denver.

[Amy]

Originally Posted by RachelRose

I think there will be more to this story.

This is really accurate record keeping - unlike agencies that fail to provide adequate care.

Is there another side? Did this boy refuse food and they couldn't tube feed him without parental permission?

I don't know, honestly. But having worked within the MHMR system, I can say, this kind of careful record keeping is not usually accompanied by purposeful abuse, but rather by complete frustration at being able to serve the patient in the way he/she should be served.

It seems unlikely that an agency that was so forgetful/negligent would be so good at keeping accurate records.

Adequate documentation would include a reason for each and every blank space left. If I do not administer a medication, I circle the time, but there had better be documentation as to why I did not give it.

If there was documentation, surely this would have been discovered by now. If it was the same thing every time, such as he refuse to eat/swallow---after a day or two, someone should have seen the pattern and brought it to the attention of someone in charge. Like, someone who could get him to a doctor to determine why he is not eating. Could have been a medical problem, could have been psychological.

Even if there is no accompanying documentation, anyone with a brain should have been able to seen there were blank spaces. Someone SURELY was reviewing this "documentation"--otherwise, why have the record @ all? After a week or two, someone should have been checking into his problem. And not just saying, well he wouldn't eat. He wasn't placed in foster care because he was a normal kid that didn't need any attention and assistance.

IMO, if a child starves to death, that IS failure to provide adequate care.

[JD1974]

Originally Posted by RachelRose

I just think there will be more to this.

I agree this is horrible - that this poor child starved to death - but all we've heard is the attorney's side of it, not the defense.

I don't think any agency would keep records that so clearly indicate this child wasn't being fed - they'd either not keep the records, or feed him, or falsely claim they are feeding him. To keep an accurate chart of no feeding - with no explanation or defense - I don't think would happen.

That's all I'm saying.

My mom and I were saying the same thing when we read this story, why the heck would these people keep correct records showing they didn't feed this poor little guy? That shows right there they are guilty of killing him, are people really that stupid? The only thing I can think of is maybe, just maybe each person thought the other was falsifying the records, when in reality no one was was changing them? So weird.

[JD1974]

Originally Posted by RachelRose

Does anyone know what this facility actually is? Is it a single family home providing foster care, or is it a group home type format with several individuals providing care at different shifts through the day/week? I've worked in conjunction with group homes in the past, and I really can't imagine this - how horrible.

Sounded to me kind of like a group home, they had a nutritionist and some other people on the records that you really wouldn't find in a single family foster home. I am going to try and check it out, I seen it is in the Detroit area and I am not that far from there.

ETA It says right in the story, not sure how I missed it the first time I read it...Department of Human Services supervised care facility, according to a $30 million lawsuit filed Monday in Wayne Circuit Court.

[Amy]

At the bottom of the article:

Although Reed said the foster home closed shorty after Dragomir's death, the state continues to show an active license that was authorized in December 2002. The News was unable to reach representatives of the foster home or Community Living Services for comment.

The state's child and protective care services were placed last month under the supervision of a court-appointed monitor to settle a class-action lawsuit brought in 2006 by a national children's advocacy group that complained Michigan's foster care system was broken and harming kids
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So, it seems it is closed, but there still might be info about it.

[evalles]

From the same article, the spokeswoman for the state Dept of Human Svcs said she was prevented from saying anything more because of laws that guard against the release of information about children in foster care.

The only thing is, Johnny isn't in foster care because he's dead.