Re: Lost girl in Florida

["Michael Hoover" <HooverM@xxxxxxxxxx>]

>I have not been paying much attention to the little girl that
>the Florida welfare department lost until this morning when
>NPR remarkably had decent coverage of the story.  It turns
>out that Florida is leading the country in the privatization of
>its foster care system.  So we have another success story of
>free enterprise.
>Michael Perelman

1998 legislation (signed by outgoing dem governor lawton chiles) mandates full privatization by beginning of next year...2001 study found massive increase in caseloads/ caseworker burnout/caseworker turnover in counties where privatization has already occurred...

ironically (on second thought, maybe not), dept. of children and family (dcf) services - state agency being privatized - has been investigating firm with contract to investigate child abuse claims...evidence indicates company has not adequately evaluated levels of child risk, has not met with victims, has not documented follow-up action, has closed cases before they were properly assessed...

in miami-dade county alone, dcf has about 20 folks monitoring *effectiveness* of about 600 contracts with private companies for such programs as child protection/foster care, substance abuse, etc...    michael hoover