Foster Care Agency, Florida DCF Make Changes after Girl’s Death

Twins should never have been placed with adoptive family

By Andrew Atwal

 

The Florida agency responsible for supervising the foster care of 10-year-old brother-and-sister twins – one of whom was found dead in February, the other badly burned – says it is making numerous changes in its operations in an attempt to prevent anything similar happening again.

Our Kids of Miami-Dade/Monroe, a contract agency in charge of monitoring the care of Victor and Nubia Barahona as foster children, has come under intense scrutiny for not recognizing warning signs that the twins were not being cared for adequately by the couple who would become their adoptive parents.

Nubia was found dead in the back of her adoptive father’s pickup truck, and Victor was found in the front seat of the truck, suffering from severe chemical burns, days after reports to a child abuse hotline indicated the twins might be being abused by their adoptive parents.

The adoptive parents, Jorge and Carmen Barahona, are charged with first-degree murder and child abuse in the death of Nubia and the injuries to Victor.

Changes planned by Our Kids focus on better, more organized documentation of foster children’s lives, including documenting medical, school, Guardian ad Litem and abuse reports made between and during home visits.

A report prepared for the state after the death of Nubia Barahona stated explicitly that if better documentation of all case files had taken place, it could have helped the courts, caseworker, supervisor and Our Kids to identify the problems occurring with the foster family and could have prompted immediate action to rectify the situation. For example, there was no documentation that the Barahonas had failed to tend to the children’s routine medical and dental needs. And there was no documentation of a psychologist’s discussion of a possible second evaluation of Nubia. State officials would not comment on any recommendation of another evaluation for Nubia.

 

Questionable behavior

More than 900 pages of court documents involving the two children were released after Nubia’s death. They contain reports of repeated questionable behavior by the Barahonas, both when they were the foster parents and as the adoptive parents, that should have prevented them from having custody of the children. In the months before Nubia’s death, there also were repeated abuse reports from neighbors and parents of children in the same school the two children attended.

“One hopes that all the facts, and as close to the truth as possible, emerge in the court case,” said Dave Lawrence, a former Miami Herald publisher and one of three panelists who investigated the case.

He went on to say that he was convinced that there is real evil in this case, and that many missed signals in the case never were connected.

“Nubia’s death is simply tragic – and was preventable,” Lawrence said. “May we all learn something from this so there is a meaningful legacy to her life.”

According to court documents released in late May, Jorge Barahona told police he thought the twins were trying to harm him and their siblings with rat poison. He also said he was worried that Nubia and Victor were sexually abusing the other children in the family, an 11-year-old autistic boy and a 7-year-old girl, both of whom also were adopted. The other two adopted children are no longer in the Barahonas’ custody.

An older girl, the couple’s biological daughter, also lived with the couple and the four adopted children in a three-bedroom, one-bathroom suburban Miami home. Dense shrubs and palm trees obscured the home’s windows; there were numerous security cameras and a four-foot-tall entry gate.

Jorge Barahona also reportedly told police he believed Nubia was attempting to harm him by putting baby oil in his drinks.

 

 

Brother heard fatal beating

According to the arrest affidavit for Carmen Barahona, Nubia was beaten to death by her adoptive father on Feb. 10, the same day a therapist called the DCF Hotline to advise them that she and her twin brother Victor were being tied up and locked in a room on a regular basis. The warrant states that Nubia was repeatedly punched and beaten while she cried and screamed, until she was dead.

In addition to Nubia’s injuries, Victor, who was treated for a cleft palate when he was born, did not receive the necessary medical care while with the Barahonas, and as a result, he incurred additional injury and disfigurement to his face.

Victor told police that, days before his sister’s body was found, he heard his adoptive father punching Nubia and Nubia screaming for “a long time.” He also said both his adoptive parents told him that Nubia had gone to California to visit her grandmother.

Nubia died on Feb. 10, and her body was discovered in Jorge Barahona’s pickup truck on Feb. 14. In that same truck, which Jorge Barahona used for his pest extermination business, Victor was found soaked in chemicals used for extermination. He is recovering from severe burns in another foster home, officials have said.

The Barahonas’ 11-year-old autistic son told police that Carmen Barahona “is a nice woman but deep in the dark side, she’s mean.”

Officials of Our Kids said in a statement: “We take [the Department of Children and Families’] comments very seriously and are using the suggestions to drive improvement.”

Our Kids is a Miami-based nonprofit created in response to the privatization of foster care in Florida. Its sole function is to lead and oversee a coordinated care system for abused, neglected, and abandoned children and their families in Miami-Dade and Monroe counties in Florida.

Our Kids monitored the welfare of Victor and Nubia Barahona before their adoption in 2009. It received the case from the Department of Children and Families (DCF) in 2005 – after the children had been placed in the Barahona home. The agency’s supervision ended when the children were adopted.

Our Kids’ new plan of action, which was approved by DCF after Nubia’s death, also involves the guardian ad litem office in Miami, DCF, Children’s Legal Services, police departments, and judges, among others. It primarily emphasizes the need to integrate services among all of the groups.

 

Planned changes

The Our Kids plan relies largely on new training procedures, including comprehensive training for both case managers and private investigators, with new training on how to interview children and families.

The twins were placed in foster care with the Barahona family by the Department of Children and Families and were transferred later to the supervision of Our Kids. Our Kids’ officials said that because the agency did not place the children with the Barahona family, they were unable to scrutinize the initial placement.

 

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