Child welfare advocates question county-hired expert’s objectivity
The national expert hired by Clark County to independently review the case of a foster child killed in October isn’t such an outsider after all.
Wayne Holder — whose review was completed in December and cleared the Clark County Department of Family Services of wrongdoing in the foster child fatality — leads an organization that holds a $3 million contract with the same county agency.
Local child advocates contend the county made a poor decision by hiring someone with a group that has a large financial stake in the entity being scrutinized.
“I think there might be a certain level of bias,” Executive Director for the Children’s Advocacy Alliance Denise Tanata Ashby said last week. “They probably would have been better off to hire a completely independent organization.”
County officials didn’t provide details of how much Holder was paid for the review or supply his contact information. Calls to the phone number listed on the consultant’s website weren’t returned Tuesday. He is listed as director of the North Carolina-based Action for Child Protection, a consulting group midway through a multimillion-dollar contract with Family Services. In his written findings to county officials, Holder is named as senior associate for the organization.
Holder’s review involved the homicide of Michell Momox-Caselis, a 16-month-old girl who was found dead in her crib Oct. 12 in the foster family’s apartment home. She died of an antihistamine overdose, according to the Clark County coroner’s office.
Joaquin Juarez-Paez, 37, the toddler’s foster father, was found dead in a car in the complex parking lot, near North Jones Boulevard and Vegas Drive, according to Las Vegas police. Investigators believe Juarez-Paez was responsible for the toddler’s death. He committed suicide through a hydrocodone overdose, the coroner said. Hydrocodone is a prescription pain reliever.
Holder concluded that there were no signs that brought Juarez-Paez’s mental health and functioning into question. He examined case record documentation to determine whether there was any indication during Juarez-Paez’s licensing process or case management that he was unstable, dangerous or in any way a threat to a child’s safety.
Holder’s organization has a relationship with Clark County child welfare that predates the review. In April 2013, Clark County commissioners approved a contract with Action for Child Protection to help Family Services improve its protection of children and implement a new safety intervention system.
Clark County spokesman Erik Pappa said county officials believed there was no conflict as Holder is a “nationally respected expert in the field with impeccable credentials.”
“We hired him for his professional expertise and for this ability to conduct a thorough and fair review, regardless of the outcome,” he said Tuesday in an email. “Action for Child Protection does independent case reviews for us and agencies across the country, and this one is no different.”
Donna Coleman, a longtime child advocate, said the county could have found an expert with no preexisting ties or a contract on the line.
Holder might have been objective, but it would have “been nice to hire someone that didn’t have a vested interest in the county,” she said.
“I think they should have hired someone truly independent,” Coleman said.
Additionally, there were several questions not addressed in Holder’s review, Ashby said.
In talking to biological family members of a 9-month-old foster child also placed in the Juarez-Paez home, it’s become apparent there were complaints against the foster parents, she said.
There are also questions about why Michell was removed from her previous foster home after allegations of abuse, but another foster child was allowed to remain in the home and was even later adopted by those foster parents.
The state hired Mike Capello, a child welfare expert and former director of the Washoe County Department of Social Services, to review the foster child death. Capello hasn’t concluded his review of Clark County Family Services’ actions in the case.
The first phase of Capello’s work, completed in December, found that Family Services followed licensing processes as required by state regulations for foster homes.
“Based on the licensing file review and interviews of Clark County staff, I did not identify any information that would have precluded Mr. and Mrs. Juarez from being licensed as foster parents,” he wrote in a letter to Amber Howell, administrator for the state’s Division of Child and Family Services.
The second phase of his review will look into the previous foster home from which the toddler was removed, according to Chrystal Main, spokeswoman for the state’s Division of Child and Family Services, said last week.
The division has shared the first-phase findings with Clark County and will continue to work with officials as the review continues, she said.
Coleman contends that if the expert hired by the county found nothing wrong with policies at Family Services, then the agency’s policies need to be changed.
Former Family Services Director Tom Morton in 2006 committed to certain goals to improve child welfare practices and policies after working with the Youth Law Center based in San Francisco, Calif., according to Maria Ramiu, managing director at the center, who was involved with the work.
Morton agreed to implement a change that would prevent placing more than one child under the age of 2 in each foster home by March 31, 2008, unless the children involved are siblings, according to a copy of the list of improvements the county had committed to carry forward.
“It was something that the department agreed to do,” Ramiu said last week.
Family Services was supposed to get Clark County commissioners to ratify the commitment goals in spring 2007, but Ramiu doesn’t have any record that commissioners actually adopted a formal resolution.
Pappa said he couldn’t speculate about what Morton may have said.
Under Nevada Administrative Code, foster parents must not have more than two foster children under the age of 18 months.
“Many families are well-suited and entirely prepared to meet the needs of two children under the age of 2 living in the same household,” Pappa said. “It happens every day in this community.”
Contact Yesenia Amaro at yamaro@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0440. Find her on Twitter: @YeseniaAmaro.
