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“Two Dominics”

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

June 13, 2004
Editorial 

TWO BOYS NAMED DOMINIC died in Missouri's foster care system three years apart. The death of two-year-old Dominic James at the hands of his foster father in Greene County in 2001 led to this year's foster care reform bill.
But the reform effort didn't save Dominic Williams.

The high school freshman from the Walnut Park neighborhood in the city spent his entire life shuttling from one foster home to another before his naked body was found abandoned in a trash bin this month, just before his 17th birthday. He had been strangled. It's too soon to know all the specifics that set the stage for Dominic Williams' tragic death.

But the circumstances of his life illustrate the personal problems and systemic failures that confront many children in foster care. Dominic's mother neglected him from birth, leading to brain damage as an infant. His father is unknown. Dominic lived in eight different homes; no one wanted to adopt him.

His case file crossed the desk of no fewer than eight state case workers and nine court-appointed guardians. The last of the nine hadn't visited Dominic's home in the year he had the case. In meetings about him in the last year, no one in the system seemed to have an inkling that he was in danger. A sex offender in custody is a suspect in his murder.

On average, children in foster care have three different placements. The Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care recently concluded that children suffer damaging "turbulence and uncertainty" with lasting consequences from multiple placements.

One response to this is a lawsuit. The Washington Supreme Court ruled last year that foster children have a right to be free from the "unreasonable risk of harm," including harm from moving them indiscriminately. But it's one thing for a court to limit the number of placements for foster children and quite another to find the money and safe homes to care for them.

The foster care reforms enacted by the Legislature last month mostly move the foster care system in the right direction. But laws, unfortunately, don't make people treat their children well. The uncomfortable truth is that some biological parents neglect and abuse their children.

The uncomfortable truth about the foster care system is that some children are left in the care of overworked, under-trained social workers who fail them. Mary Taylor, who runs the Court-Appointed Special Advocates Program in St. Louis has had some success in limiting the number of placements for children her program supervises.

Although Dominic Williams was not in the CASA program, after his death she wrote this to her volunteers:

           "I wonder who really knew him, how many case managers he had, how many places he lived,
            whether he ever knew his guardian ad litem. Sixteen years of foster case has to be a failure
            in everyone's eyes." It was a failure that left Dominic wandering his block of Queens Avenue,
            mumbling, "I just don't have anywhere to go."
 

http://pewfostercare.org/press/files/PostDispatch061304.pdf

 


 

 

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