State Demands That Youth Shelter Get License

By SHANNON O'BOYE        
Web-posted: 1:03 a.m. July 1, 2000 
Sun Sentinel (Ft. Lauderdale, Florida)

OAKLAND PARK -- Following the attempted suicide of a teenage boy at the Lippman Family Center nearly three weeks ago, the state is now requiring the shelter for troubled children to get an operating license, officials said on Friday.

The Oakland Park center has not had a state license since 1996, the year the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services, now called the Department of Children & Families, told the program's directors they would no longer be under HRS jurisdiction.

In a memorandum dated Dec. 16, 1996, a licensing supervisor for HRS informed the director of the center that the state Department of Juvenile Justice would monitor the agency.

That memo came in response to correspondence from the Lippman director saying that he understood the program did not have to be licensed by HRS but was not opposed to being licensed "if the (HRS) feels that we should be licensed."

"We can't explain to you what happened," said Phyllis Scott, the head of Children & Families in Broward County, on Friday. "That was that person's interpretation of the statute. That is not my interpretation. We're investigating to see what happened in the previous four years."

On June 12, Sandra Trotter, a center "youth care specialist," found 15-year-old Anthony Dumas hanging by a belt from his bunk bed. She dialed 911, but rather than take him down, she took pictures of him hanging and left him that way until police arrived, according to an initial police report.

An Oakland Park police officer took him down and fire-rescue workers managed to revive him, but he has been in a coma at Broward General Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale ever since. He suffered brain damage, and doctors do not know whether he will recover, his mother said.

Since 1996, the Department of Juvenile Justice, which had a contract with the center's parent company, Lutheran Services Florida, of Tampa, had been conducting annual quality assurance inspections at the shelter.

The center has always received at least "satisfactory" ratings on the reports, which measure such things as facilities, staff development and training, counseling services and emergency procedures.

The inspection conducted in March showed the center lacked the proper documentation that staff members had CPR and first-aid training, but the center was still deemed "satisfactory."

The center has 28 beds and is a designated youth crisis shelter in Project Safe Place, a network of community sites that provides temporary refuge for runways, children too hard for parents to handle and other troubled youth. Children can walk in off the street or judges can remand them to the center.

John Criswell, chief of the bureau of quality assurance for juvenile justice, said the two state agencies have wrangled over whether shelters and group homes contracted by Juvenile Justice need to be licensed by Children & Families.

"That has been a huge question in the agency," he said. "My understanding is DJJ has no requirement that a ... shelter has to be licensed," he said.

David Fuchs, the attorney representing the family of the boy who tried to hang himself, said "there's way too much bureaucracy in the system."

"Why are we playing games with our children?" he asked. "Not having one with the other? What are we saying? Something doesn't smell right here."

Anthony's parents, Walter Dumas and Shirley Finley, said their son was an average teenager until about six months ago. When he suddenly grew angry and began acting out, they sought help. They said a law enforcement officer suggested having the boy arrested and entered into the legal system so he could get help.

At the end of May, Dumas and Finley, who are divorced, had Anthony arrested after he got into a shoving match with his mother. A judge ordered Anthony to the center on May 23, and his parents hoped he would get back on track.

Following the suicide attempt, Trotter told police that Anthony seemed despondent after a phone call with his father, and one of his friends at the shelter said Anthony had been threatening suicide for several days. His parents dispute that and say their son, a seventh-grader at Pompano Middle School, was not suicidal.

All three of the Lippman employees on duty the night of the incident were suspended without pay, a Lutheran Services spokeswoman said.

Juvenile Justice stopped making placements at the shelter Friday.

The Broward Sheriff's Office, the state Inspector General and Lutheran Services are all investigating.

Lutheran Services' two-year, $2.6 million contract with Juvenile Justice expired Friday, but Juvenile Justice secretary Bill Bankhead said the agency had no immediate plans to close the shelter.

"It'd be very difficult for us to just close them," he said. "There's a population being served that just would not have any place else to go."

This is not the first time the center has been under investigation.

A civil lawsuit alleging negligence by center employees was settled in 1997. In that case, a 15-year-old girl said she was fondled by a male employee, Kevin Lamont Carter, according to attorney Glenn Jay Garrett.

The employee was arrested in March 1994 and charged with 16 counts of sexual battery, lewd and lascivious behavior and simple battery on three girls aged 13, 14 and 15. He later pleaded guilty to lesser charges and was sentenced to five years' probation.

The 15-year-old girl, referred to as "Mary Doe" in court papers, was placed in the center voluntarily by her mother, who was concerned about her sexual promiscuity, Garrett said. The mother was assured by staff that her daughter would not be left alone with male staff, but she was left alone with Carter, and he fondled her, Garrett said.

Some of the fondling took place in a lounge area at the center, Garrett said.

Garrett said that his research for the court case, which included taking depositions from staff at the center in 1994, showed poor supervision and poor record keeping about who was working when.

Broward Circuit Judge John A. Frusciante, who sends children classified as "children in need of services" to the center, said he visited one evening several months ago. The shelter needed money for staffing and improvements to the grounds, he said, but he was impressed with a counselor he encountered.

"I have seen some turnarounds who improve there," Frusciante said. "I also have had some children that have found it difficult to be there."

Staff Writers Paula McMahon and Patricia Parker contributed to this report. Shannon O'Boye can be reached at soboye@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4597.