It's hard to imagine a sadder life history: Halle was born premature, at 27 weeks, to a drug-addicted mother, was fed all her life through a feeding tube, suffered convulsions, tuberculosis, meningitis, a broken arm and a stroke, and died last year, a few weeks before her ninth birthday, weighing just 15 1/2 pounds — the weight of an average 8- or 9-month-old.

As reported by the Chronicle's Terri Langford and Dale Lezon, Halle's mother, Almita Nicole Lockhart, was arrested last month, accused of allowing Halle to starve to death.

But what is even more distressing is that Lockhart, who has nine other children, had been investigated by Texas Child Protective Services a total of nine times since 1993 and would have lost custody of her children on two of those occasions if CPS had adhered to its own procedures.

In both cases, Lockhart tested positive for drugs — when Halle was born, in 2000, and at a brother's birth in 2005. She failed to complete drug treatment, which should have resulted in loss of custody, but both cases were closed, and the children remained in her care.

Halle's final visit to a doctor or nurse, it appears, was in November 2006, at which time she weighed 27 pounds. That same year she was seen by a CPS worker, who described her as “healthy.” When CPS was informed of Halle's death last year, even though workers suspected abuse as the cause, Lockhart was not arrested. Halle was buried in an unmarked grave. It took another year to determine her death was a homicide, at which point charges were filed against her mother.

But CPS' serious failings in Halle's case are only part of the picture: In December, a team from the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services found severe deficits with the Houston-area operations, including that in roughly half of all cases reviewed, CPS caseworkers missed a family history of abuse and transferred cases out of investigation before making a full assessment of risk and safety.

The review, one of many regional reviews slated for this year, was expedited because of three recent child abuse deaths locally. All three children died either during or shortly after CPS investigated complaints of abuse, and all three had been allowed to remain in their homes. Two of the families had been visited several times concerning neglect or abuse. In the third instance, the caseworker left after the mother refused to let her examine the child. The child died of an infection shortly afterward.

To be sure, CPS caseworkers and supervisors, charged with ensuring the safety and welfare of each child and with keeping families intact wherever possible, have a difficult, complex task.
Agency spokesman Patrick Crimmins told the Chronicle that much work has been done to address the “persistent problem” of turnover, most of which occurs in the first two years, and that most workers feel they are underpaid for the work they do. (Average starting salary for an investigative caseworker is $39,000, other categories of caseworker $34,000.)

The Legislature has increased funding significantly the last two sessions, and “recent reforms efforts,” said Crimmins, have improved CPS, in part by increasing the new worker training period from six to 12 weeks. CPS is also committed to implementing the recommendations made by the recent review, including better allocation of workers with specific skills, and prompter court action when necessary to protect children.

Such efforts are to be encouraged, but what remains deeply disturbing is that, in too many instances, local CPS workers have broken their own agency's rules when investigating suspected abuse. They have walked away, closed cases prematurely, failed to follow through … a litany of bad decisions.
Yet apparently no one, at any level, has been held accountable. Crimmins said he was unaware of any “personnel action” in recent cases.

One has to wonder — in heaven's name, and in the names of those dead children — what more would it take?

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/6894036.html

Emphasis added by H4K Editor