DSHS employees rarely pay a price

for failing to protect foster children

Originally published August 17, 2015 at 7:00 am Updated August 18, 2015 at 6:58 am

Cheryl Schaefer, 28, and three siblings suffered years of abuse in a foster
home under DSHS supervision in northeastern Washington. She was
angered to learn from a reporter there was no apparent record of
discipline for her social worker. (Mike Siegel / The Seattle Times)
Over the past eight years, the child-welfare division has
been hit with scores of lawsuits, paying $141.4 million for
failing to protect children under its care.

Share story

By
Will Drabold
Seattle Times staff reporter

The state of Washingtons largest department is

tasked with caring for the states most vulnerable
residents abused children, foster kids, mentally
handicapped adults. But time and again, it has
failed.

Over the past eight years, the Washington state

Department of Social and Health Services
(DSHS) has been hit with scores of lawsuits,
ultimately paying $166.4 million for personal-
injury claims. Many of the most severely injured
were children who were tortured, starved or
raped. Some died.

DSHS employees behind these failures rarely are

punished, The Seattle Times has found.

Report abuse and neglect

Call 1-866-ENDHARM (1-866-363-4276) if you suspect abuse or neglect of a child or
vulnerable adult. If its an emergency situation, call 911.
The ENDHARM number is TTY accessible. Someone will answer your call 24 hours a day,
seven days a week.

Source: DSHS

From those scores of lawsuits, the newspaper

selected one dozen of the high-cost, child-welfare
cases for which records were readily accessible.
Many of these cases made headlines and resulted
in verdicts or settlements ranging from $750,000
to $11 million, some $75 million in all.

Using court records, public records and

interviews, the newspaper identified 48 DSHS
staffers involved in the failures in these 12 cases.

None of the 48 was fired or suspended. None was

demoted or lost pay.

That is according to DSHS, which ran the 48

names through its human-resources databases at
the newspapers request. (The database only
shows records that affect compensation.)

Whether any of the 48 staffers were given lesser

forms of discipline, such as reprimand letters, is
unclear. DSHS in May said it would takes several
months to provide answers. (Recently, the agency
said one staffer had been given a letter of
reprimand. It hasnt completed its research.)

Slightly less than half the 48 still work for DSHS;

some have retired.

The review of the 12 cases as well as several

dozen interviews with present and former DSHS
 employees, state employee-union officials,
personal-injury lawyers, childrens advocates and
others turned up some common failings:
overlooked complaints of abuse; delayed or inept
investigations; placement of children in unsafe
homes.

DSHS lack of focus on personal accountability is

a significant problem, said Tim Tesh, a personal-
injury lawyer who has sued DSHS many times.
Policymakers can suggest reforms, he said, but
often, its that the worker didnt follow
procedures that are already in place. What good
does reform do you when the worker just doesnt
follow them?

DSHS said paying a victim does not mean an

employee made a mistake.

I dont think anyone in the field can

credibly deny that theres a scary
connection between overburdened
workers and risk of harm to kids. - Ira
Lustbader, litigation director of
Childrens Rights
Jennifer Strus since 2013 has been head of the
Childrens Administration, the division
responsible for payouts of $141.4 million. She
would not comment on how her predecessors
handled employees who may have made mistakes
years earlier.
Any failures must be well-documented before the
agency can take action, she noted. DSHS in recent
years has improved training and how it tracks
complaints of abuse and also reviews the
performance of employees implicated in claims
against the agency.

Being a social worker is the toughest job in state

government, Strus said. A combination of large
caseloads, employee turnover and budget cuts
makes it pretty hard to do great work, she said.

Cheryl Schaefer, 28, isnt comforted by these

words. She and three siblings suffered years of
abuse in a foster home under DSHS supervision
in northeastern Washington. Up until 2001, court
records show, they were beaten, forced to overeat,
throw up and eat their own vomit, and suffered
sexual abuse.

According to court records, Schaefer and her

siblings said the caseworker repeatedly ignored
their cries for help.

A 2012 lawsuit, filed by Tesh against DSHS, was

settled for $5.3 million. To Schaefer, money does
not equal justice.

She was angered to learn from a reporter there

was no apparent record of discipline for her social
worker. Theres no repercussions for her
actions, Schaefer complained.

Paying for mistakes

 DSHS paid out $166.4 million over eight years for injury claims. The
largest cases involved the Childrens Administration, its child-welfare
division.

Sources: Washington Department of Social and Health Services; Washington Department

of Enterprise Services (Reporting by Will Drabold / The Seattle Times; Graphic by Mark
Nowlin / The Seattle Times)

I cant do my job
Complaints about how DSHS handled foster kids
and reports of child abusehave tagged the agency
for years. In 1998, lawyers for 13 foster kids filed
a class-action lawsuit against the state, saying
foster children were being harmed across the
board by inadequate care. The state Supreme
Court, in the landmark 2003 Braam decision
(named after one of the plaintiffs), upheld a lower
court and put Washingtons child-welfare system
under judicial oversight.

The Braam case led to several improvements,

including sharply cutting back on children
bouncing from one foster home to another. The
court oversight continues, in part because a key
court-ordered mandate remains unfulfilled:
foster-child caseloads of 18 or fewer for 90
percent of social workers.

Besides the court, state lawmakers recently

required DSHS to be more accountable for
mistakes. DSHS was required to do automatic
 reviews of botched child-welfare cases only when
someone died in state care, a fatality review.

As of July 24, under Aidens Law, DSHS must

review worker actions if a child experiences a
near fatality within one year of a previous
incident of abuse.

State Sen. Steve OBan, R-University Place, who

sponsored the legislation, called it an
improvement. That lawmakers had to force DSHS
to review such cases speaks volumes, he said.

Most of the multimillion-dollar settlements come

from the DSHS Childrens Administration
division. There more than 1,800 social workers
oversee nearly 10,000 children in foster care and
last year looked into 90,000 reports of child
neglect or abuse. Turnover is high about one in
six staffers leaves each year. Starting pay can be
as low as $32,688.

Joyce Murphy, a social worker in Vancouver

whos worked for a decade at the agency, said she
has failed to see children once a month, as
required by DSHS policy. She blames it on her
caseload, which she says over the past four years
has averaged about 25 children well above the
national standard of 15 and the DSHS average of
19.

When we are some 30 percent above a

reasonable caseload, that can be like
sending the Seahawks to play the Super
Bowl with two-thirds of a team, then
firing them when they lose. - Kevin
Quigley, DSHS Secretary
I cant do my job, she said. She worries each
night that one of her clients will die on her watch.

No one died in the case of two young Snohomish

County boys, ages three and six, who were being
starved and beat by their father and his girlfriend
in 2006, but it does illuminate the tragic results
when workers utterly fail to do their jobs. The
case is one of many that reveals the personal
consequences for such failures can be slight.

Between May and July 2006, a neighbor filed

four complaints with DSHS, saying two young
boys were being starved and beaten by their
parents. She would later say that no one at DSHS
ever followed up with her, court records show.

The father, Danny Abegg, and his girlfriend,

Marilea Mitchell, kept a padlock on the
refrigerator and withheld food to punish the boys.
A social worker, Aubrey Kilgore, in one visit
reported that the house had plenty of food in it.

He went back a second time after a sheriffs

deputy, shopping at Wal-Mart, saw bruises on the
face of the 3-year-old, and alerted DSHS. This
time, Kilgore required the parents to see a family
therapist, documents show.
The child-welfare case was transferred that fall to
another social worker, Deanna Neff. Among her
failures, she gave Abegg eight-days notice she
would be visiting the home, giving him time to
hide evidence of abuse. Nor did she speak to the
more severely abused younger brother, Shayne,
records show.

A few months later, Ada Sharp, who had no

experience or training investigating child abuse,
was given the case, court records show. Other
warning signs surfaced, records show, but
Cherokee Screechowl, the area supervisor, ended
the investigation in February 2007.

A month later, someone alerted authorities that a

little boy was being starved. Paramedics rushed
Shayne, now 4, to the hospital where he was
found in urine-soaked clothes, emaciated, with a
body temperature of 87 degrees. After being given
food at the hospital, the boy told doctors not to let
his parents know that he had eaten. A veteran
paramedic later said he had not seen a worse
case of neglect or malnourishment.

After Abegg and Mitchell were charged with first-

degree criminal mistreatment, the case, with its
sickening details and claims of DSHS failures,
exploded in the news. Gov. Chris Gregoire asked
for a special review, and DSHS said its employees
failed to protect the two boys.
At the time, a DSHS spokesman said two
employees linked to the case had resigned. DSHS
recently said one of the four did receive a letter of
reprimand.

Kilgore and Sharp still work at DSHS. Neff

resigned from the agency. Screechowl resigned in
2007, came back in 2011 and then re-retired.

Screechowl could not be located; the other did

not return calls for comment.

Shayne Abegg received $5 million from the

state in 2009 after a judge compared him to a
concentration-camp survivor. His older brother
received $2.85 million two years later.
Danny Abegg sits after being arrested for criminal mistreatment of son
Shayne, 4, who weighed 22 pounds. Shayne got $5 million from the state
after judge compared him to a concentration-camp survivor. (Snohomish
County Sheriffs Office)
It is a war zone
If the high-profile Snohomish starvation case
didnt result in someone being punished, what
sort of case would?

This story has been going on for 30 years, said

Dennis Braddock, DSHS secretary from 2000 to
2005. He once described DSHS culture as
bunkerlikeand said he tried to hold staffers to
account but faced an uphill battle.

Republicans dont like administration, he

recently said. Democrats all side with the union.
So management gets the short end of the stick in
[employee] disputes.

Its a proven formula: To effectively serve

children and families, social workers need a
reasonable number of cases to manage, a finding
backed by decades of state and national studies.

Currently, the average caseload for child-

protective-services (CPS) workers Childrens
Administration employees who investigate
reports of child neglect is 16, well above the
national standard of no more than 12. Also, it
takes on average two years for a CPS investigator
to become proficient, DSHS said.

Since 2008, the Childrens Administration has

lost 300 employees. This year, for the first time
 since, the division received an additional $7.2
million for 43 employees and other resources, an
attempt to lower caseloads and improve
investigations.

Most Read Stories

Without HIV vaccine volunteers, 'We would not have a team'

A look at big names hosting Trump for Seattle fundraiser

Blue Angels in Seattle: What you need to know about the shows WATCH

Mike Leach punishes entire WSU football team in relation to alleged party assault

Seahawks sign veteran guard Jahri Evans

Gold or silver wont do much good in an economic collapse
Unlimited Digital Access. $1 for 4 weeks.

Greg Devereux, executive director of the

Washington Federation of State Employees,
which represents unionized DSHS staff, describes
social-worker caseloads, burnout and turnover in
dire terms: It is a war zone.

Some former DSHS officials and child advocates

point to his union when noting that individual
discipline doesnt always occur. DSHS is required
to have substantial documentation to punish
negligent employees, they assert, and the
arbitration process can be time-consuming.
 Thats ridiculous, Devereux said. The union
makes sure DSHS fairly holds people
accountable.

In the past eight years, the union went to

arbitration on only two cases of Childrens
Administration social workers who were
terminated, he said. One firing was upheld; the
other employee was reinstated.

I dont think anyone in the field can credibly

deny that theres a scary connection between
overburdened workers and risk of harm to kids,
said Ira Lustbader, litigation director
of Childrens Rights, a national organization that
advocates and files lawsuits to bring
accountability to child-welfare systems.

Lustbaders organization has filed lawsuits in

other states arguing high caseloads are a civil-
rights violation for children because it puts them
in harms way.

Theyre poor. Theyre disproportionately

of color. Theyre not a legislative
priority.
These kids dont vote. Theyre poor. Theyre
disproportionately of color. Theyre not a
legislative priority, he said.

Not held accountable

Even so, heavy caseloads cannot always explain
away mistakes or why they go unpunished.
According to interviews with 10 plaintiff
attorneys who have brought personal-injury cases
against DSHS, none of them has heard of a social
worker being disciplined for failing to protect
someone.

David Moody is a Seattle lawyer who has brought

lawsuits against DSHS that resulted in $86
million in verdicts or settlements since 2000.
Theres a constellation of warnings and a
corresponding constellation of failures by DSHS
to heed those warnings, said Moody, lawyer for
the Abegg children. No one is held accountable.

DSHS Secretary Kevin Quigley declined to be

interviewed. In an email, he wrote that the agency
has an improved performance-evaluation system
and is more aggressive about dismissing subpar
workers during their probation period.

I understand the solution for some is to blame

the caseworker every time a mistake is made but
when we are some 30 percent above a reasonable
caseload that can be like sending the Seahawks to
play the Super Bowl with 2/3 of a team then
firing them when they lose, Quigley wrote.

Some officials note that the state does have

another tool to hold DSHS accountable: The
Office of Family and Childrens Ombuds. Director
Patrick Dowd says the office plays a neutral role
 when it intervenes in cases in which DSHS failed
to act or was unreasonable.

However, he said, his offices focus is on the actions

of the agency and not the specific caseworker.

Will Drabold: wdrabold@seattletimes.com. On Twitter @WillDrabold