|
Dallas Morning News
15 foster kids taken out of homes :
Removal comes after sweep of residences once managed by Mesa
January 13, 2007
By Robert T. Garrett
A state sweep of foster homes
managed by a now-closed private agency has resulted in the removal
of 15 children from eight of the homes, a spokesman for the Texas
Department of Family and Protective Services said Friday.
Patrick Crimmins said he could not
provide the homes' locations or detail why the children needed to be
removed. He did say that state foster care standards had been
violated in the eight homes.
Also Online Police: Foster mom
delayed helping girl All the homes were recruited by Harker
Heights-based Mesa Family Services Inc., which placed children on a
contract with the state. Three children have suffered violent deaths
in former Mesa homes since August 2005 – including 6-year-old
Katherine Frances last month in DeSoto.
About 250 children still live in
126 former Mesa homes. Mesa relinquished its child-placing license
last year after coming under state scrutiny.
Mr. Crimmins said Child Protective
Services and Child Care Licensing officials who recently visited all
of the homes had other worries about the children they removed.
State workers cited "concerns about
family dynamics – for example, the relationships between foster
children and biological children" in the homes from which children
were removed, he said. Some homes were in poor physical condition,
he said.
The department's investigators have
urged Austin-based Therapeutic Family Life, which last fall took
over almost all of the former Mesa homes, to close 12 of them, Mr.
Crimmins said. The reasons include unspecified violation of minimum
standards, major financial problems and lack of cooperation with
state officials, he said.
The state has completed about
two-thirds of the national criminal background checks it promised to
conduct on each of the 390 people 14 years old and older who live in
former Mesa foster homes.
"We have results back on 248 of
those individuals, and ... there are 17 convictions on 13
individuals," Mr. Crimmins said.
Two foster parents had been
convicted of carrying a weapon. Other past crimes included theft,
drunken driving, disorderly conduct and marijuana possession.
E-mail rtgarrett@dallasnews.com
|
