Sun coverage: Child welfare system woes

Vernice Harris: A timeline

Jan. 16, 1998: A daughter is born to Vernice Harris.

Sun exclusive

Nurse watched over Bryanna

A city nurse kept tabs on Bryanna Harris for most of her short life, but during that time the nurse had little or no communication with the agency that protects vulnerable children, Baltimore's health commissioner disclosed yesterday.

Sun Exclusive

2 more lose jobs in death of child

Two more caseworkers have lost their jobs and another supervisor has been disciplined as a result of the death of 2-year-old Bryanna Harris, the Baltimore child who died of methadone poisoning despite her troubled mother's repeated contacts with more than a dozen city social services employees.

Inquiry in toddler's death faults agency

The death of a Baltimore toddler might have been prevented had case workers with the Department of Social Services better communicated with one another about the needs of her family, especially those of her drug-addicted mother.

Child's death prompts action

Spurred by the death of a toddler named Bryanna Harris, legislators are introducing bills intended to identify parents and others who might harm children before abuse occurs, closing gaps in a system that has too often failed families in Baltimore.

Lawmakers seek closer monitoring after abuse

Disturbed that child protective services failed to prevent the death of a 2-year-old city girl despite previous investigations of her mother for child abuse and neglect, Baltimore lawmakers said yesterday that immediate legislation is needed to better track such cases.

Inquiry ordered in death of child

The head of Maryland's Department of Human Resources ordered an investigation yesterday into the agency's handling of a 2-year-old girl whose mother has been charged with her murder.

Mother charged in child's death

Child Protective Services had already taken two of her daughters, but Vernice Harris was raising her third girl amid squalor and boarded-up rowhouses on East 25th Street.

City to launch Chessie system

Even as state officials prepare to track Baltimore foster children with a new $67 million computer system today, they are contemplating $10 million worth of repairs to fix serious glitches and shortcomings that have already surfaced.

Tracking system delayed again

The implementation of the state's new foster child tracking system in Baltimore has been delayed because of continued reports of operating glitches and growing concern among child advocates, including the city's health commissioner, that the system will remain flawed unless more time and money are invested to fix it.

Injury to child in foster care described as tragic accident

Martina Ford holds a photograph showing her son, a chubby child with a misshapen head, lying in a hospital bed in Spider-Man pajamas. In another photo, she awkwardly cradles the boy, whose body is attached to tentacles of tubing.

Mother sues city over tot's brain damage

A woman who lost custody of her children while in a city witness protection program filed a $34 million lawsuit against the Baltimore Department of Social Services yesterday, alleging that her toddler son suffered a fractured skull when he was slammed onto concrete steps while staying with a foster family.

Answers elusive in foster care crisis

The Baltimore City Department of Social Services office at 301 N. Gay St. was never intended to house children - but lots of them have spent nights there.

Children still being housed illegally in office building

City Department of Social Services officials are continuing to illegally house foster children at a downtown office building, the director of the state-run agency confirmed yesterday.

State uses downtown office to house troubled teens

For the past five months, the Baltimore Department of Social Services has been regularly housing children overnight at a downtown office building - allowing them to sleep upright in hard plastic chairs or on thin mattresses on the floor.

Child-welfare advocates press for reform of Md. DHR

Child-welfare advocates are ramping up efforts to promote reform at the state Department of Human Resources after the release of a legislative audit that documented continuing and serious lapses in the care of nearly 9,000 children living in Maryland's foster homes and group facilities.

County says it didn't find evidence that Dundalk boy's life was in danger

Baltimore County social workers visited the home of Roy Lechner Jr. more than 150 times in the two years before he died of suspected abuse - but didn't feel they had conclusive evidence that the Dundalk boy was in danger.

Explaining infant's death a difficult task for police

As Baltimore County investigators take a fresh look at the unexplained death in November of an infant boy whose mother has since been charged in her other son's death, experts say such mysteries can be tough to unravel.

As child is laid to rest, questions persist

Thick makeup camouflaged the bruises on his face, and his Ravens cap covered the injuries on his head.

Mother held in boy's death had drawn earlier notice

A 25-year-old Dundalk woman whose parenting had drawn the attention of authorities has been charged with child abuse in the death this week of her 3-year-old son, prompting investigators to launch a review of the death of her younger son in November, police said yesterday.

Couple deny killing twins

A Northeast Baltimore teenager arraigned with her boyfriend yesterday in the beating deaths of their 1-month-old twins was physically abused in the hospital by that boyfriend shortly after giving birth, according to court documents.

Efforts to stop abuse outlined

WASHINGTON - Maryland officials were pressed by U.S. lawmakers yesterday on possible further changes to the city's child-welfare program, a system that failed to prevent the killings of a teen-age foster child's 1-month-old twins in Baltimore last month.

Md. aims to stop deaths of children

During an intense grilling by legislators yesterday, state child welfare officials said they're making incremental changes to prevent more child abuse deaths but added that legal and financial restrictions keep them from acting more aggressively.

Child welfare head tries to improve agency's image

When Christopher J. McCabe stood at the microphone of a recent nationally televised news conference, Maryland's highest child welfare official mentioned his boss' name, introduced his colleagues and spoke vaguely about his agency's work.

Child welfare system faulted

Federal auditors examining Maryland's child welfare system are criticizing the state for having one of the worst computer systems in the nation for tracking abused and neglected children.

Improved safeguards for children proposed

In the aftermath of the beating deaths of month-old twins, Maryland's top child welfare official and Baltimore's chief prosecutor announced yesterday several proposals they say are aimed at better protecting the city's vulnerable children.

'He was real bad news for her'

Sierra Swann well knows of the various addictions that play out in the neighborhood near the corner of Boone Street and East 20th, a grim place where heroin and cocaine are available curbside beneath the blank stares of boarded-up windows.

City, state grapple over care of family

After being called by a concerned hospital worker, the Baltimore Department of Social Services should have dispatched a caseworker to investigate a 17-year-old girl who had a history of child abuse and had just delivered twins, city and state officials said yesterday.

Generations bred in despair

Long before Sierra Swann was charged, along with Nathaniel Broadway, with murdering her month-old twin girls last week, she lived with her mother, five siblings and her mother's boyfriend in a one-bedroom apartment that lacked electricity.

Report on abuse got no response

The latest case of fatal child abuse in Baltimore is raising another round of questions about how the system attempts to protect children from their abusive parents.

Twins slipped through gap in city services

An apparent gap in child protective services allowed a teen-age mother with a history of abuse to leave Johns Hopkins Hospital with her newborn twin girls that she and the infants' father are accused of beating to death less than a month later, city officials said yesterday.

Mother, father are charged in deaths of infant twin girls

A 17-year-old girl and a 24-year-old man living in the basement of a vacant Northeast Baltimore rowhouse have been charged with the beating deaths of their 1-month-old twin girls.

Doctor finds guardian OK to stand trial

A state psychiatrist has found Satrina Roberts competent to stand trial for the 2002 torture death of 15-year-old Ciara Jobes, but nevertheless called it "shocking" that state officials gave Roberts custody of the child while she suffered from a severe mental illness.

State to alter juvenile process

Maryland social service officials said yesterday that they would reform the agency's largely unregulated process for appointing guardians of abused and neglected children - despite the failure this week of a bill in the General Assembly that would have forced them to make such changes.

Girl's death spurs bill

In response to the torture death of Ciara Jobes, a 15-year-old Baltimore girl who was allegedly killed by her mentally ill guardian, state legislators are introducing a bill this week that aims to regulate who can be awarded permanent custody of abused and neglected children.

State social services chief defends agency's workers

The head of the state's social services agency defended yesterday his workers' performance in attempting to protect the children of Keisha Carr, who was convicted of killing one infant son and breaking the arms and legs of another.

Md. child protective reforms are urged

Baltimore's top health official proposed yesterday that the state reform its troubled child protective system by stationing abuse caseworkers in hospitals 24 hours a day and acting more quickly to remove minors from dangerous homes.

Warnings of abuse, yet the system fails a child

In November 2002, a health counselor called the Baltimore Department of Social Services in fear, warning that a 22-year-old mother convicted of breaking her baby's arms and legs had abandoned a court-ordered psychiatric treatment program.

Report argues DSS puts city children at risk

Noting last year's torture death of Ciara Jobes, a report filed in U.S. District Court in Baltimore asserts that the city's Department of Social Services is "sitting on a time bomb" and is putting hundreds of supervised children at risk because of a lax approach and overburdened caseworkers.

Jobes case highlights guardian loopholes

A legal loophole that allowed an unfit mother to gain custody of Ciara Jobes - the 15-year-old girl tortured to death in one of the city's worst cases of child abuse - is an unregulated problem that exposes Maryland's neediest children to a guardianship system with little or no oversight.

Girl's autopsy reveals a history of abuse

A 15-year-old girl whose emaciated body was discovered in December had as many as 700 wounds and bruises by the time authorities found her, according to an autopsy report obtained by The Sun yesterday.

Guardian indicted in death of teen

A Baltimore City grand jury indicted yesterday on first-degree murder charges the legal guardian of a teen-age girl who prosecutors said died from abuse.