The state of Maine
has been recognized by the Anne E. Casey Foundation as having a NationalModel Child Welfare System. The
reason for this is that the state has managed to cut the number of kids in
foster care in half over the last 10 years, by utilizing more kinship
placements and doing more to help the family by giving the parents the support
they need, which helps keep children who come to the attention of Maine's Child
Protective Services safe in their own homes.
These reforms happened mostly in response to thedeath of a little girl named Logan Marr.
Then on May 5th, of
this year, there was another horrible act of child abuse committed against a
little baby from Maine named Ethan Henderson.
I have been following this case because I believe it is being used as a springboard
in Maine to turn around the trend of taking less kids into care and instead be
a bit quicker to remove. For this, I
believe there are two reasons. The first
is that the state is broke and the more kids they take into care, the more
federal funding they will receive. The
second reason is that the state's economy is staggering, needs to be able to
provide business to the service providers.
We all know that the minute a kid is taken into foster care an army of
service providers, everybody from the lawyers to the shrinks, get their
contracts. For example, as the state
moves to put less reliance onto group homes the group home providers will fight
to remain afloat by touting their benefits to some news reporter looking for an
expert opinion. Without business, they
close. But we'll get to that later.
Anyway…
I have done
something a little different with this case.
What I have done is collect a number of articles that mention the case
of Ethan Henderson. From these articles,
I pulled out various factors, main points, what have you, and put it all into a
mind mapping software program that I found in the GoogleChrome Web Store. From there I was
able to pick out and organize a few of the patterns that the people who are
fighting for justice against Child Welfare Fraud should be made aware of.
So lets take a look
at this case.
The
mother, had gone to work on Saturday May 5th, leaving her three kids with
Gordon Collins-Faunce. Collins-Faunce
was the father of their 10 week old twins named Ethan and Lucas. At one point the father went out to have a
cigarette, and when he came back Ethan and a 3 year old daughter from the
mothers previous relationship were both crying.
Collins-Faunce became frustrated with the baby crying and picked Ethan
up by the head, holding him dangling for a minute max, then threw him violently
into a chair, causing the infants head to snap back. When being questioned by the police,
Collins-Faunce estimated that on a scale of 1 to 10, the force with which he
threw Ethan was probably an 8 or 9.
Friends also said that Collins-Faunce had been targeting Ethan, and that
they didn't even realize it.
Doctors
said that Ethan presented as dirty with a rash, dirt under the fingernails and
a dirty belly button. They also said
that they had found both New and old brain injuries. He was blinded and one side of his brain had
completely stopped working. Police were
monitoring his condition which was described as "grave" and on May
7th, Ethan died.
Now, this is one of
those cases where Child Protective Services really should have been
involved. This guy is a sicko, and is
obviously not safe to have around children.
Also, if CPS was involved with this family, that is something that we do
not know at this point. What we do know
is that there were prior incidents of abuse.
The
first incident was when Collins-Faunce had broken the babies arm when he was 4
weeks old. He had gotten frustrated
while changing the baby's diaper. The
child was treated by doctors.
Collins-Faunce had originally told them that the baby's arm had got
stuck between the crib and a bumper.
As
for the second incident, court documents show that a daycare provider made the
referral to CPS regarding bruises on the 3 year old daughter whose name was
Neveah The daycare provider also said
that the twins were sick and not receiving medical attention.
Now here's where the
case gets interesting, because Police will not say when this referral to CPS
was made, and although one state worker did confirm that they had received a
referral from the daycare provider, DHHS will not confirm or deny anything. Although we know that the above did happen,
details are rather slim. The State of
Maine's Attorney General's office is not allowing anybody to talk, citing an
ongoing criminal investigation. Nobody
else is being allowed to talk either including the hospital, CPS or anybody
else who may have had contact with the family.
And this is where the $100,000 dollar question comes from… "Why
didn't CPS do anything to protect these kids?"
The newspapers are
going nutty over it. The System Sucks
are demanding answers. The people have a
right to know if there are any flaws in the child welfare system. The legislature Health and Human Services
committee wants to know if more could
have been done to save this child to prevent more kids from falling through the
cracks. I will discuss this in further
detail later, but first there is more to this story. Lets take a look at the parents.
As
for the mother, Christina Henderson, she was at work when the assault took
place. no criminal charges have been filed against her, however Maine CPS
Agents have removed the other two children, Lucas and Neveah from the home and
have placed them in foster care.
Records say that she never knew what was going on, although there has
been a little debate around this, considering the broken arm and her 3 year old
being "covered with bruises" there are those who believe that she
must have done something. She is
planning to petition the court to have the kids returned to her now that
Collins-Faunce is no longer in the home. She also held a vigil at the home,
calling Ethan her "Angel in Heaven."
Not all that much
more is known about the mother. The
father however had a history which should concern us greatly.
Gordon
Collins-Faunce was 23 years old. He was
a high school graduate who worked as a flagger on a road crew. He was discharged from the military after
holding a knife to a roommates throat.
Collins-Faunce was also in foster care in Maine, having gone through six
different homes in 5 years. He was
sexually and physically abused by "various foster parents" and was
taking medication for PTSD because of this.
In 1997, Collins-Faunce was adopted by Irving Faunce and his wife, he
was 8 years old at the time.
Collins-Faunces
PTSD meds had been changed recently, and he was having trouble sleeping. On the day of the assault against Ethan, he
did not take his meds.
Gordon
Collins-Faunce was arrested and charged with Elevated Aggravated Assault of a
Child. After Ethan died, the charges
were upgraded to, "depraved indifference murder" which shows no value
for human life. He is sitting in York
County Jail, on suicide watch, on $100,000 dollars bail. His lawyer is named Amy Fairfield. He will be prosecuted by the State of Maine's
Attorney Generals office. He makes his
first court appearance on May 11th. The
criminal case is expected to last about a year.
The AG doesn't want anybody to talk, citing the ongoing criminal
investigation. The AG also wants a
psychiatric evaluation done by the State Forensic Services.
Now, the way the
newspapers are reporting this, nothing in his past matters. Nor should we be concerned with the
circumstances of his past in any way.
This guy is a monster who killed a child. That is all that matters right? Hang the mother-f*****!!!
I disagree. Here's why.
One article talked about the adoption when Collins Faunce was 8, as
being a happy ending to a troubled childhood.
While that may very well have been true, Gordon Collins-Faunce was
clearly a damaged child who grew up to be a very damaged adult. One so damaged, that he would at the age of
23 commit a horrendous act against a helpless infant.
First of all, if he
was taking medication for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder due to his inability
to get past the sexual abuse that he suffered at the hands of "various
foster parents." This after being
removed from his biological parents for "abuse or neglect." That, and the fact that his medications had
recently changed and causing trouble sleeping, it is quite possible that Gordon
Collins-Faunce was not entirely sane at the time of the crime. Psychiatric medications have been known to
cause people to do some crazy things.
Moving on…
What's most
disturbing in this case is the public and media reaction to it. What is most at issue is all of the secrecy
and nobody talking is driving people absolutely nuts.
DHHS
would not comment citing confidentiality rules.
CPS says there is a state law preventing them from commenting on CPS
cases. Child welfare advocates are
asking if signs of abuse were ignored by CPS.
Nobody is saying whether or not the broken arm incident triggered a call
to the child abuse hotline, however a broken arm on a 4 week old should have
been a bright red flag as should a 3 year old being "covered with
bruises. We do not know when the report
to CPS was made by the daycare provider.
We do not know whether or not CPS acted on that report. We do not know if CPS agents visited the
family or if they had opened an investigation on the family. We do know that they removed the other two
children from the home after the assault.
We do not know of that turned up any further information. Also, the hospital will not comment as to
whether or not they made a report regarding the broken arm.
As a result, lots of
people are asking questions. System
Sucks are crawling out from under their rocks.
The newspapers are demanding that the state release information so that we
may know just where CPS failed this child.
Was it because of a systematic failure?
Is CPS short staffed? Did they
investigate and find nothing wrong? Were
they even investigated at all based on previous reports? Did any doctor, nurse, or anybody else report
the broken arm to CPS? Did CPS act upon
the report of a 3 year old covered with bruises?
Even
Maine's Governor is concerned that, "The pendulum has swung too far in the
opposite direction," suggesting that the state has gone too far in trying
to keep kids in their homes. One could
make the connection that if this is the case, that CPS did in fact investigate
this family. Governor Paul LePage,
however, has also cut funding to DHHS which includes various programs that are
used to keep kids safe in their own homes.
Governor LePage also claims to have been an abused child.
Sadly, Maine's
governor is an idiot. He does not
consider the damage done to kids in Maine's foster care system and is using the
case for a major shift in public policy change, which even Richard Wexler has
thrown his two cents into the ring saying "Using Ethan's case for an excuse for major publicpolicy change would be a mistake." That shift will be for CPS agents to remove
more kids from their homes.
I should also say
that because nobody involved in the case in any way is talking, reporters are
turning to the experts. Questions are
being asked of the states Child Death and Serious Injury Review Board. Most importantly: Is CPS doing enough to
protect children in Maine?
As for the broken
arm, people are suggesting that doctors should have reported such an incident
on a child of such a young age. We
don't know if they did or not, because the AG has told everybody involved not
to talk, but we find out that failure to report cases could hit a mandated
reporter in the wallets with a $500 dollar fine. Dr.Lawrence Ricci of Spurwink's Child Abuse Program says that "a broken
arm should be viewed as a likely sign of abuse on a 10 week old
baby." Ricci also doesn't think
that the state acts fast enough to remove children from their homes when there
are signs of abuse. Ricci also works for
a private organization which provides group home services for foster kids in
Maine as well as other services for abused and neglected children. I'm not saying there is a connection between his opinions or his organization, I'm just sayin.
So what we end up
with is a loud public outcry against a product of Maine's Foster Care System
who was on medication at the age of 23 due to abuse which he suffered in
Maine's Foster Care System, which will lead to more kids getting removed from
their homes and thrown into Maine's Foster Care System. Why people actually believe that if a kid can
be sexually abused by "various foster parents" that throwing kids
into foster care is keeping them safe, is beyond me.
Whenever there is a
child who dies from abuse or neglect, CPS reviews it's policies and procedures
to see if anything could have been done differently so that that child will
still be alive today. Clearly in this particular
case something went wrong. We just don't
know what that is exactly.
There is a lot of
concern around whether or not the broken arm incident was reported. Perhaps it was perhaps it wasn't. Nobody's talking. Lawrence Ricci suggests that doctors are
hesitant to report abuse because it either violates confidentiality. Another doctor suggests that if they report a
family, they never see the kids again so they loose track of how they're
doing. Ricci also suggests that in
some cases, doctors are gullible and can't tell when a parent is lying. Ricci, however can make all the suggestions
and claims that he wants. That doesn't
change the fact that we simply don't know if the broken arm was reported.
You can bet your
sweet ass however that the whole system in Maine is about to go under the
microscope. It will give System Sucks
something to talk about, something to debate and a path to grow their
businesses. It will give the media
something to harp on. The people will
remain stuck on the fact that a baby died.
They won't care about any of the circumstances which led to this. It will not matter that this is the kind of
kid who comes out of Maine's Foster Care System. They will simply demand that CPS do more to
protect children. Because they failed
this one kid, many other children in Maine will pay.
My heart and best wishes go out to Christina Henderson and her family.
LK
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