Media Coverage

Sisters look to raise funds for a nonprofit that helps foster kids Denver Post - Lindsay H. Jones - June 11, 2011 - The Adams sisters are hoping to raise $1000 in leading the Kids Cycling for Kids bike team, a subset of the Champions for Children cycling team that. . . .

Salvaging Children - Unusual case evolves around welfare, abuse of siblings By Kevin Vaughan The Denver Post December 12, 2010 A story of a boy and his two sisters, taken from the filthy mobile home where they'd been assaulted by their mother, sexually abused by multiple men, and then placed in a foster home and subjected to more horrors.

Unwanted By: Natasha Gardner 5280 Magazine December 2010 An in-depth investigation into Colorado's dysfunctional foster care system.

New Guardian Ad Litem Offices for Denver, Arapahoe Counties By Ali McNally, LAW WEEK COLORADO September 4 2010 Those who won the proposals are Denver-based nonprofits Rocky Mountain Children’s Law Center . . . . The contracts are good from January 2011 to July 2013. “For us, we’re excited because we see it as an extension of this great practice,” said Children’s Law Center executive director Stephanie Villafuerte. She added that the contract allows the organization to add five more attorneys within the next two years.

Crying shame: Kristen Stillman relinquishes her four children in court By Patricia Calhoun, WESTWORD September 22, 2010 That September, she relinquished them back to the Department of Human Services and foster care. And now she has relinquished them altogether. ...

Death Knell: Colorado wants reforms for its child-welfare system, but the biggest change is off the table 7/29/2010 By Melanie Asmar Westword Thursday, Jul 29 2010 In May, Ritter appointed another twenty-member committee called the Governor's Working Group on the Structure of Colorado's Human Services System and the Centralized Call Center for Child Abuse and Neglect Referrals. Its goal is to determine the fate of the two controversial recommendations. Its deadline: September 30, 2010. . . . Didn't meet for the first time until June 17. That day, the members decided to table the recommendation to overhaul the structure of the entire state system and to focus solely on determining the viability of a centralized call center.

Championing the cause of the children 2/26/2010 By Anthony Bowe THE COLORADO STATESMAN Senate Bill 10-171, sponsored by Sen. Linda Newell, D-Littleton, would establish the Child Protection Ombudsman under the supervision of Ritter and Karen Beye, the executive director for the Colorado Department of Human Services (CDHS). The office would be independent from the department’s Division of Child Welfare.

Gov. Ritter urges creation of ombudsman office to help combat child deaths By Colleen O'Connor The Denver Post Posted: 02/26/2010 01:00:00 AM MST Dennis Kennedy, spokesman for Mount Saint Vincent, which provides services for children, says his organization supports the bill but hopes for changes through amendments that will strengthen independence. . . . "The ombudsman has to be well-connected, broadly connected and fiercely connected," he said. "They shouldn't care about what happens to them or to their office under their boss." . . . "I think about the fact that the office of ombudsman was never going to happen in this state," said Karen Lausa of the Rocky Mountain Children's Law Center. "It was a divisive, very emotional issue, and there was a huge amount of debate and disappointment and really rough months of controversy. But sitting here today, I see we have come a long way."

Human Services overseer proposed following death of Loveland infant, others By Nate Taylor For Loveland Connection February 26, 2010 Ritter emphasized the importance of creating an ombudsman office that is independent and can conduct investigations backed by integrity. "What we want is a level of independence so there is an actual, what I would say is credibility, assigned to the ombudsman office and can be trusted by the people that are calling it," Ritter said. "The design (of the office) is still what I would say is in the making. This is going to be vetted by the Legislature."

Monitoring child welfare- Lawmakers unveil bill to create an independent investigator of the system Peter Marcus, DDN Staff Writer Denver Daily News Friday, February 26, 2010 Following the deaths of 35 children over the past three years who “slipped through the cracks” of the state’s child protection system, lawmakers yesterday unveiled a bill that would create an independent investigator to address weaknesses in the system.

Ritter, lawmakers want more child welfare oversight February 25, 2010 5:50 PM COLLEEN SLEVIN The Associated Press Colorado Springs Gazette Gov. Bill Ritter and state lawmakers want to create an independent office to investigate complaints about how child abuse cases are being handled following the deaths of 35 children in the last three years. . . . This year, there is no money to fund the proposed ombudsman's office because of the recession so Newell hopes to win donations from businesses and foundations to fund it if the bill passes. However, whether there's funding likely depends on how the final version of the bill is written.. . . Child welfare advocates are interested in funding the bill but Newell said they want to make sure that the office is independent enough to do its job.

State Senator: 'How many kids have to die?' Eli Stokols Political Reporter 6:32 PM MST, KDVR FOX 31 Denver © 02/26/2010

State Ombudsman Bill Introduced CALL7 Investigation Prompts Proposal For State Oversight Of Human Services Agencies Arthur Kane and John Ferrugia , CALL7 Investigators POSTED: 3:35 pm MST February 25, 2010 UPDATED: 4:06 pm MST February 25, 2010 “If the doctors and nurses who were concerned about Destiny Lewis had a place to call besides social services, Destiny Lewis could be alive today,” said Shari Shink, executive director of the Rocky Mountain Children's Law Center.“The same thing with Chandler Grafner.”

Let's Talk with Ed Sardella is Shari Shink, Founder and Executive Director of the Rocky Mountain Children's Law Center February 2010 Governor Ritter's Child Welfare Action Committee addressed concerns of child welfare and safety after 13 children died in 2007 who all came from families with contact with Social Services. Ed and Shari discuss the 29 recommendations from the Child Welfare Action Committee and look into other concerns and issues surrounding the safety of children in Colorado.

Lawmakers: Remember the kids By Karen Lausa Denver Post Posted: 02/11/2010 01:00:00 AM MST It all starts with children. Children grow up to either become functional members of society or not. The most vulnerable population of Colorado is abused and neglected children. There are more than 8,000 abused and neglected children in foster care. It is unforgiveable to remove them from birth families only to deny them the critical treatment, education and a permanent home they so deserve. We must not turn away from this voiceless minority. They will haunt us in years to come, long after bridges are repaired and the economy recovers.

Denver boy, 9, died after state-benefits error denied him asthma medication By Allison Sherry The Denver Post Posted: 02/04/2010 01:00:00 AM MST A Montbello mother says her 9-year-old son's death from severe asthma could have been prevented had Denver Human Services resolved problems with his Medicaid pharmacy benefits. Zuton Lucero said she called Human Services every three days for months last year when she was suddenly unable to get prescription drugs for her son, Zumante.

Compromise bill for independent child advocate office gets high-level backing By Colleen O'Connor The Denver Post Posted: 01/17/2010 01:00:00 AM MST State Sen. Linda Newell, D-Littleton, has redrafted a bill to establish the state Office of Child Advocate to include the compromise language, with the approval of Gov. Bill Ritter and Karen Beye, executive director of the Colorado Department of Human Services.

Johnson: Colorado's number of shame 179 kids killed from abuse, neglect over seven years By Bill Johnson Denver Post Columnist Posted: 01/11/2010 01:00:00 AM MST One-hundred seventy-nine. That is the number I cannot seem to shake. It is a number I learned last Friday at a luncheon meeting of child advocates who called together members of the media so they might process the number, appreciate it and tell others of it. It is the number of children in Colorado killed as a result of abuse and neglect between 2000 and 2007, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Every Child Matters Education Fund. . . . the state's 64 counties received about 76,000 reports of child abuse or neglect. Imagine this the way I do: every last seat inside Invesco Field at Mile High occupied by an abused or neglected Colorado kid. . . . Colorado's child-welfare system is in crisis, Shari Shink, founder and executive director of the Rocky Mountain Children's Law Center, told me over sandwiches. . . . Money is tight, granted. Yet if we can't meet the basic needs of the most vulnerable among us, each of us should be more than ashamed of ourselves.

Children Failed, Children Forsaken CALL7 Investigators Air Special On Colorado's Child Welfare System Tom Burke and Arthur Kane and John Ferrugia , CALL7 Investigators POSTED: 3:19 pm MST December 16, 2009 Angel DeHerrera was 4 years old when he died at a foster home in El Paso County. He was playing on a trampoline in the backyard, apparently unsupervised, and was found strangled. His death was declared an accident, but prior to his death, DDHS workers knew there were serious problems at the home, and one caseworker had removed two people from that foster home just two days before Angel died. VIDEO

Child Welfare in Colorado Found Lacking By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS New York Times Published: December 5, 2009 Colorado’s child welfare system is not in compliance with federal regulations on child safety and well-being Karen L. Beye, executive director of the Colorado Department of Human Services, said the review demonstrated that the state needed to improve its system of protecting vulnerable children. “The results of the review reinforce Governor Ritter’s decision to create the Child Welfare Action Committee in 2008 and initiate comprehensive reform in Colorado’s child welfare system,” Ms Beye said.

Colorado Again Fails Federal Test on Child Protection By Electa Draper The Denver Post Posted: 12/05/2009 01:00:00 AM MST Colorado's child-welfare system again fell short of federal standards for protecting the safety and well-being of the state's kids, according to a comprehensive federal review released Friday. Despite extensive public and political focus on human services following a series of preventable children's deaths, Colorado's overall performance, assessed between Oct. 1, 2007, and March 20, 2009, was no better than its substandard showing after the first such review was completed in 2002.

Infant Dies After Caseworkers Leave Her At Home CALL7 Investigation Shows Caseworkers Told Mother Likely Couldn't Care For Child But Didn't Act Arthur Kane and John Ferrugia , CALL7 Investigators POSTED: 11:39 am MDT September 28, 2009 The case of a premature baby who died less than two days after leaving the hospital was reported to the Denver Department of Human Services, but city child protection workers did not provide assistance that might have saved the child’s life, a CALL7 investigation found. Destiny Lewis was born nearly 3 months premature in December 2007 to a mother with mental, emotional and physical problems and a father who was in his 70s, records show. But when hospital workers contacted the DDHS, city workers determined that Destiny could safely go home, records show. Destiny died soon after her release from the hospital. VIDEO

Child-protection efforts gain priority in Colorado as deaths rise By Colleen O'Connor The Denver Post Posted: 10/21/2009 01:00:00 AM MDT Colorado is among the top 15 states in terms of per-capita spending on child welfare, and yet deaths of children due to abuse and maltreatment increased 40 percent between 2001 and 2007, according to a report by the nonprofit child-advocacy group Every Child Matters.

Protecting the most vulnerable A state ombudsman a good idea By Erika Stutzman Boulder Daily Camera Posted: 10/16/2009 01:00:00 AM MDT Yesterday morning, 10 days after Baby Jack`s death, his father was charged with first-degree murder in Boulder County District Court. Jack Koller was 9 weeks old when his parents brought him to a Louisville hospital. Police say the little infant had a skull fracture, bite marks, retinal hemorrhaging and multiple bruises over his body. He survived longer than was originally expected, given the nature of his severe injuries. He died last Monday, soon after turning 4 months old. . . . Colorado could do better. The recommendations by the state`s child welfare committee deserve close review.

Ritter: Recommendation to hand child-welfare powers to state "a bold move" A county official prefers a state welfare takeover only if other efforts fail. By Allison Sherry The Denver Post Posted: 10/02/2009 01:00:00 AM MDT "It's a bold move, but it's exactly the kinds of things we put this committee in place to do," Ritter said Thursday. "Our primary goal in all of this is to protect kids. . . . We won't let the counties dictate this if, at the end of the day, we don't believe the system we have in place is adequate for protecting children." Jefferson County Human Services director Lynn Johnson said she would like to implement recommendations other than the state takeover to see whether services improve. "Let's see if all this works and then do a radical move to regionalizing if that's still needed," she said. Ritter formed the Child Welfare Action Committee after 13 children died statewide in 2007 under county- supervised care.

2 YEARS AGO . . .

State review finds widespread violations in child abuse deaths written by: Jeffrey Wolf Kyle Clark 2 years ago 9news KUSA*TV A Department of Human Services investigation into child deaths found caseworkers in several counties broke state laws, failed to investigate complaints and did not share findings with other agencies around the state.

Children Lost in the System Profiles compiled by Electa Draper The Denver Post Posted: 04/16/2008 01:00:00 AM MDT The state reviewed the cases of 13 children who died in 2007 after their families had contact with county social services departments. In two cases, the contact was found to be irrelevant to the death. ZOE GARCIA, 7 CHANDLER GRAFNER, 7 NEVEAH GALLEGOS, 3 LUZ VALDEZ, 3 MONTHS LOREYNA BAREA, 7 EZRA SPROWES, 5 MONTHS ROSALIA GARCIA- QUINTANA, 4 JESSE WEAVER, 11 ALIZE J. VICK, 2 KAYLA DUTCHER, 5 ADRIAN RUYBAL, 5 WEEKS

Lost in the System By Karen Auge The Denver Post Posted: 04/13/2008 10:31:09 PM MDT . . . even in a system where most workers do their best, the odds are against them — stacked by a system that is underfunded, widely dysfunctional and inconsistent, and at times seems to operate in a common-sense vacuum.