Author: Robert Latham
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Thank you to the Guardian ad Litem Program for a huge honor
I am honored and humbled to be this year’s statewide recipient of the Guardian ad Litem Program’s Excellence in Advocacy Award, which recognizes contributions to the child welfare system by attorneys for special needs children. I am so grateful to be on the list below with many attorneys who I call when I need help. These…
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Florida Supreme Court to immigrant teens: just go away already
The Florida Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the cases of immigrant children pending appeal should be dismissed as moot when they turn 18, even if the lower court erred when the child was still a minor and even if the error prevents the child from applying for Special Immigrant Juvenile status. In October of 2014, OICL,…
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Florida Child Welfare Stats for August 2016: the expansion continues
The August numbers are out and it appears the Carroll expansion is slowing down, but continuing. OOHC numbers were slightly higher than projected this month, which may be due to lower discharges during the summer holidays. Though the line is flattening, removals are expected to continue to outpace discharges for the foreseeable future and only two…
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What’s causing the Manatee County foster care crisis? By the numbers.
Manatee County is holding a town hall on 8/30 to discuss the drastic expansion of its out-of-home care population. According to news reports, the expansion has been driven largely by an ongoing heroin epidemic. I thought it would be useful to share what the Dashboard says about the situation. The spike may have more to…
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Florida Child Welfare Stats for July 2016: OOHC=23,054, IHC=12,262
At the request of a distinguished commenter, I will try to help readers make sense of the statistics found in the Child Welfare Data Dashboard. To that end, I will try posting monthly updates — corresponding with DCF’s data updates — with an eye toward big picture trends and projections of things to come. The projections are crude, based…
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Help test our Florida Child Welfare System Dashboard
Good morning readers, Our office receives a lot of calls from folks with questions about DCF statistics. I usually point them to the Trend Reports, kept by the Center for Child Welfare. The Trend Reports are amazing repositories of big-picture and local-level details. The people who maintain them do a fantastic job. The Trend Reports’ only limitation is that…
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Fifth DCA essentially declines to follow Florida Supreme Court on ineffective assistance of counsel
The opinion boils down to this: Florida Supreme Court: Trial judges must orally advise a parent of their right to file a motion alleging ineffective assistance of counsel after a TPR trial. Mother: The trial judge didn’t advise me, and my trial counsel (who I tried to fire halfway through the trial) didn’t say anything…
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Miami’s foster children are going missing at historically high rates. Why?
There has been a lot of discussion in Miami lately about the appropriate response to kids who run away from foster care. The perception here is that foster kids are running away more often. I wondered if that was true, so I checked the Department of Children and Families’ Child Welfare Services Trend Report (January 2016). A…
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We don’t know enough about peer violence in foster homes
An article this month in Child & Family Social Work looks at the scant amount of research on peer violence in foster homes. Whilst evidence on peer abuse in residential settings is limited even less is known regarding peer abuse in foster care. Although no specific research has been undertaken, work by some (e.g. Farmer…
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Florida Supreme Court denies review of order limiting parents’ pro se filings
The Florida Supreme Court has declined jurisdiction in a dependency case involving two pro se parents who were limited by the Fourth DCA to filing pleadings only with the signature of a member of the bar. The word “sovereign” occurs in the parents’ jurisdiction brief three times. The docket, with briefs, is here.