The Associated Press
Eloise Pugh relaxes on her couch with granddaughter Justine, 8, after the pair made dinner on March 18 in Seattle. Pugh's granddaughter Nicole Embum died last May after her drug-abusing mother used methamphetamine and then crushed the baby.

Report questions state's count of child-abuse deaths

DSHS officials dispute results of newspaper's investigation

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Originally published Saturday, April 13, 2002

SEATTLE -- State officials acknowledge that since 1997, 44 children have died of abuse or neglect after their families became involved with Child Protective Services.

According to an investigation by a Seattle newspaper, the number is much higher: at least 107.

Department of Social and Health Services officials dispute that tally, saying the newspaper second-guessed the judgment of medical examiners and disregarded the state's narrow legal definition of neglect.

"We may see that abuse and neglect are factors in the life of a family, but I think it's a fair leap to say that (a child's) primary cause of death was that particular factor," said Ross Dawson, assistant deputy secretary for the state's Children's Administration.

The Post-Intelligencer stands by its analysis.

"Our feeling is that we were very careful in the standards we used to characterize these deaths," Managing Editor David McCumber said Friday. "I think that frankly we were very careful not to inflate these numbers at all. These numbers were conservative if anything."

The newspaper reported a state count of 29 deaths by neglect or abuse. The Children's Administration provided the higher number Friday, citing updated paperwork.

The P-I attributed deaths to fatal neglect if parents or caregivers caused the death by failing to meet children's basic needs for food, shelter, supervision or medical care, or through recklessness.

The newspaper included cases of parents who failed to seek medical care for ill infants and whose drunken driving caused accidents in which their children died.

DSHS, medical examiners and coroners categorized many of those deaths as accidental or natural deaths, the P-I reported.

The P-I's tally did not include suicides, street-related homicides of older children, most SIDS deaths or fatal collisions in which a parent was not intoxicated.

Difficult to step in

By the state's numbers, about 6 percent of the 455 child deaths DSHS has tracked over the last five years were linked to abuse or neglect. By the P-I's count, abuse or neglect were factors in about a quarter of those cases.

"Kids are dying because we aren't getting them into good care," Steve Wickmark, director of the statewide advocacy group Children's Alliance, told the P-I. "It's a frightening thing, and it shouldn't be happening."

Washington is one of only five states that insist on proof of imminent harm before children can be taken away from their parents.

State law defines negligent treatment as "an act or omission which evidences a serious disregard of consequences of such magnitude as to constitute a clear and present danger to the child's welfare and safety."

That means in many cases social workers may know that parents might be putting their children's lives at risk, but without proof that children are in clear and present danger, the state can't legally intervene, Dawson said.

"This is a very restricted definition, and so there are many cases where we have concerns about the quality of parenting, concerns about how that child is doing, but if you can't engage that family voluntarily ... you can't go to court," Dawson said Friday.

One of the cases the P-I highlighted as an example of a death caused by neglect was that of 4-month-old Nicole Marie Embum, who was smothered to death when her mother -- strung out on methamphetamine -- fell asleep on the couch beside her baby.

The coroner determined the death was accidental, and no criminal charges were filed.

Another case: CPS closed the agency's file on 10-month-old Khadija Ali less than two weeks before the baby's body was found on the floor in a filthy, unfurnished apartment.

The official cause of death was pneumonia, but according to a police report the baby had been suffering from a possible ear infection and cried inconsolably the night before she died. There was a plastic bag near her body, found on a makeshift bed of blankets on the floor, and the coroner said he could not rule out accidental suffocation.

Stronger laws needed

"I think everyone agrees more of a hammer is needed to turn these families around," Vickie Wallen, the state's ombudsman for families and children, told the P-I. The annual report by Wallen's office last year called for stronger laws to prosecute neglect cases.

Social workers investigate about 40,000 CPS complaints per year in families racked by poverty, substance abuse and domestic violence. Social workers say it's difficult to predict which parents will strike a crying baby or fail to supervise a toddler who then falls into a neighbor's pool.

About 70 percent of the families in which children died of maltreatment had been reported two or more times to CPS, records show. Many of those families had 10 or more referrals in the years before a child's death. And nearly one out of four families had open CPS files when a child died of abuse or neglect.

According to the P-I's investigation, child fatalities have not been systematically tracked over the past five years and records are in disarray.

While acknowledging there is room for improvement, Sharon Gilbert, a Children's Administration official, said caseworkers statewide file fatality reports within 24 hours if the victim's family had contact with DSHS in the past year.

Such reports must also be filed when children die in licensed day-care centers, with more detailed follow-up required within 30 days in both cases.

The Children's Administration recently set up a database to track children's deaths more closely. Officials also encourage people to report abuse or neglect of children at 1-866-END-HARM.

The Olympian Copyright 2002

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