All of the children placed in Nebraska's foster care system because of the old safe haven law have received either more mental health services or more stable living environments, a World-Herald analysis has found.
That doesn't mean all is well: About half of the children still have uncertain futures.
Some continue to struggle with serious mental health or behavioral disorders, with getting access to services or with finding families to take them permanently. One teen awaits trial on several felony charges.
After the safe haven children were left at hospitals, almost all were made state wards and placed in the custody of the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services — a sliver of the 6,315 children in state care.
What makes these children different is the unique way they became foster children, said Todd Reckling, HHS director of children and family services.
“We never had it where a parent could just take a teenager and say, ‘I'm doing the best I can for you, but I'm going to leave you here,'” Reckling said. “They know what has happened to them.”
However, many of the circumstances with these families are similar to everyday foster care cases.
“They're a microcosm of what we deal with every day,” said Tom Incontro, a guardian ad litem representing children in six safe haven cases and others in foster care.
While the number of safe haven cases is small, they hit on themes common in the sometimes heartbreaking world of foster care:
Still struggling
At least a half dozen of the parents and guardians said they used the law to get their children psychiatric services that they said they could not otherwise have received. Other children have gotten new psychiatric diagnoses since they were made state wards.
Some of the children have improved greatly after getting intensive services, with one recently starting the transition home. For others, the struggle to get services continues.
A 15-year-old walked into the courtroom in July, her tight braids pulled into two fluffy ponytails, a navy jumpsuit on her adult frame. She had spent three months in the Douglas County Youth Detention Center — essentially, a juvenile jail.
State wards stay there at times — usually without therapy or other services — while professionals decide where they should go or wait for openings.
This girl's case started when her mother left her at a hospital after the teen argued with the aunt she had lived with for more than a year. Her father is in federal prison for drug crimes.
The teen ran away from the children's emergency shelter where the state first placed her. She then was put in a foster home, but was kicked out for allegedly assaulting her foster parent, her guardian ad litem said in court.
She was moved to a group home, which has more staff, structure and therapeutic services, but was kicked out in April, accused of hitting an employee. That's when she was moved to the youth center.
In May, HHS staff recommended intensive services at a residential treatment center, based on the group home staff's recommendation. Douglas County Juvenile Court Judge Vernon Daniels delayed a decision to get another evaluation.
Two months later, HHS staff switched to recommending the least-restrictive living environment: stay at a foster home and have “day treatment” — a daytime psychiatric program.
HHS attorney Lee Brawner said the teen has no severe psychiatric problems to warrant a residential facility.
That confused the judge because the girl already had been in a group home. “Was that an appropriate level of care from the get-go?” the judge said.
The prosecutor and guardian ad litem still wanted her in a residential treatment center.
The judge sighed, then asked for input from her grandfather. He worried his granddaughter was learning bad habits from “hardened criminals” in the youth center.
The judge told everyone to return to court later with more information. “I don't want an administration decision,” he said, hinting financial or political factors may be at play. “I want a treatment recommendation.”
The grandfather clenched a triumphant fist and whispered, “Thank you.”
Back in court a month later, the stalemate continued.
The teen's father piped up, via speakerphone from prison: “This is my baby girl. She might be a docket number to you.”
He worries she is on the same destructive path that he was. “She's mad at the world right now,” he said. And putting her anywhere without 24-hour supervision is “a disaster waiting to happen,” he said.
The judge reassured him. “We're not going to let her fall through the cracks.”
The girl's behavior seemed to merit a residential treatment center, the judge said, but he needed firsthand evidence.
He scheduled a hearing at the next opening on his calendar, two months away. The teen will remain locked up until then, but the judge ordered HHS to find a way to provide therapy before the hearing.
On the run
Inside the courtroom, the 14-year-old boy in a dark polo shirt gave polite assurances to the judge.
The boy and his 17-year-old sister had run from the moment their mother left them at the hospital. The boy escaped for a few hours, his sister a few days.
At an August hearing, Judge Elizabeth Crnkovich asked him to cooperate and not run. “It never helps anything,” she said.
“I won't do that,” he said.
“I appreciate that,” the judge replied.
Moments after the hearing, the teen lipped off to caseworkers and relatives: “I am out of here.”
At least six safe haven children have run away from foster care at times, staying away for periods ranging from hours to months.
The 14-year-old's sister has been gone a total of 4½ months — half of the time she has been a ward. She ran last spring after HHS appealed a court order to move her from a relative's foster home to a residential facility.
Their mother, who has had 11 children, has a history of raising them until their teens, then letting relatives take over. This time, she used the safe haven law, telling a caseworker that those two needed to be “voted off the island” — using a catchphrase from the TV show “Survivor.”
At the August hearing for the brother, the judge asked the age of the older sister who was serving as his foster mother. Everyone in court — including her own mother — turned to the sister to answer the question. She is 25.
HHS wanted the brother to stay in that home, but the judge followed a therapist's recommendation to move him to a treatment foster home or group home for more structure and services.
After the hearing, the teen said he wouldn't go, and taunted the caseworker that he was harder to catch than his missing sister. “I'm a track star,” he said.
So far, though, his remarks were idle bluster, and his sister turned herself in a week later.
Sidelines parents
In the middle of a court hearing, Judge Douglas Johnson picked up his phone.
“I think I saw Judge Judy do this one time,” he said.
The judge was at his wits' end with a father who had dropped off his 16-year-old son after an argument over grades. The son had moved in with the father two years earlier, when his mother went to prison.
“You can't change your dad or your mom,” the judge counseled the teen in one hearing. “You can change you. You can have a successful life.”
The father pursued getting his son back but had been belligerent with caseworkers and had shown up drunk to visit his son.
When the father said he hadn't done his court-ordered assessment because the agency didn't return his calls, the judge, in an unusual move, called the agency from the courtroom.
“He's available anytime,” the judge said over speakerphone. “He doesn't work.”
Six weeks later, the father still hadn't finished the assessment. He went to the appointment set up by the judge but left after some concern about insurance, his lawyer said. As the court hearing began, the father was calling to set up an evaluation.
The judge looked the man in the eye and unleashed:
“You've done absolutely nothing to parent your child,” he said, cutting off the father when he tried to interrupt. “You have nothing but excuses.”
He ruled that HHS did not need to make any more efforts to reunify the father and child.
It is one of two safe haven cases where judges ordered HHS to quit reunifying children with parents who have come to court.
“You're not fit to be a father,” the judge told him.
The judge apologized to the teen that his father's mistakes had taken over the hearing when the teen's success is their focus.
HHS staffers are working toward having the teen's aunt become his guardian. The teen can decide whether to visit his father in sessions supervised by a therapist.
As the stormy hearing concluded, the father turned to his lawyer: “So I don't have to come back to court or nothing?”
Accused
An 18-year-old walked into court this summer with a sheriff's deputy on his heels and an orange jail uniform on his back. As the deputy uncuffed him, he asked, “Can I hug my mom?”
His mother got him to the hospital by pretending he needed a shot for an infection, while slipping staff a note that she wanted him in state care under the safe haven law. She had heard gang rivals wanted to kill her son — also a gang member — who just had been charged with assault.
At first the teen did fairly well at a foster home near Ashland, Neb., going to school and working at Mahoney State Park. Then he was charged with selling marijuana at school — a felony.
At a June hearing, Judge Daniels told HHS caseworkers to prepare the teen to live on his own as an adult and ordered therapy, as well as psychiatric and chemical dependency evaluations. He asked why the teen skipped therapy.
“I'm just used to dealing with my problems on my own,” the young man said.
“Dealing with your problems yourself has gotten you two criminal charges,” the judge said.
At a hearing two months later, the judge spotted the telltale orange outfit. “Is he locked up?”
The teen had been arrested again. At age 18, he is considered adult enough for the county jail, yet could remain under juvenile court jurisdiction until 19.
This time he was charged with attempted burglary, accused of kicking in an apartment door. He also had tested positive for drugs, quit therapy and skipped evaluations. He had hit and tried to smother his roommate at a children's emergency shelter.
Could anything be done for the young man — now sitting in jail with three pending felonies and five months before being too old for the juvenile system — the judge asked.
Yes, said Incontro, the teen's guardian ad litem. If the teen bailed out of jail, he would need a place to stay and could get the evaluations to guide future mental health services, Incontro said.
Everyone else suggested the case could be closed. The HHS report noted: The teen is “choosing a life of crime instead of the services being offered.”
Judge Daniels closed the case, leaving the teen on his own.
“Young man, this court has not failed you.”
Caseworkers offered him services to help, the judge said.
“You thumbed your nose at them. They were directly calculated to keep you from being where you're at now.”
World-Herald staff writer Lynn Safranek contributed to this report.
Contact the writer:
444-1208, karyn.spencer@owh.com
Copyright ©2012 Omaha World-Herald®. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, displayed or redistributed for any purpose without permission from the Omaha World-Herald.
