Marchella Pierce Convictions of social workers

This past week, two social workers (although they are not licensed social workers) plead guilty to misdemeanours related to the death of Marchella Pierce. Damon T. Adams, a caseworker in New York and his supervisor Chereece Bell had originally been charged with criminally negligent homicide. There have not been many instances where social workers have been charged with the death of a child on their caseload.  The mother and grandmother have been charged with the murder of the child.

The caseworker, Damo Adams, plead guilty to falsifying business records, official misconduct and endangering the welfare of a child. Chereece Bell plead guilty to endangering the welfare of a child and a disorderly conduct violation.

In child protection, there is a real need to build relationships with families. This is how you are able to better ascertain what is happening to risk factors and what can be done to monitor and mitigate those factors. In this case, it appears that Mr. Aadams was not attending home visits as he was to do and then apparently falsified the records. That can certainly be seen as a failure of child protection. Even if the caseload was high and the demands too great, the records should not be falsified, rather, they should reflect the truth - there was too much on the plate to get it all done.

Damon Adams and Chereece Bell

Child protection often faces work loads that can challenge what needs to get accomplished. Yet the ethics of the profession demand that truthful efforts and reporting occur.

There is less clarity on the role of Ms. Bell who is being held accountable for not catching the failures of her supervisee. 

The danger here is that there is now less room to admit errors. The case suggests systemic problems but how do those can spoken about when the risks of the criminal process hangs out there. Yet, I am also struck that there should be accountability for those charged with child protection. But there can be no valid expectation that children will not die at the hands of their parents. What worries me is the "what if" that lies under this case - If the Mr. Adams had been more diligent then the child might be alive? If Ms. Bell had done a better job of supervising then the child might be alive? These are dangerous suppositions when the present understanding is that the child died due to the actions of family.

What this case can help us to understand is that doing the job right does matter but we cannot predict the outcome - some parents will kill their children no matter how good the casework. But it also tells us that the system should be subject to scrutiny so that the systemic weaknesses can be spotted and addressed.

It is doubtful that either of these social workers will do child protection again. Yet I cannot wonder what both of them would have learned from this process that might make them far more vigilant and astute. As Ms, Bell noted in an interview, what about all the other cases where things went well and she saved a child or helped a family? 

Accountability does matter but we must also look at the environment in which child protection is done - high caseloads, limited resources and some of the most high risk families who can be very challenging to engage and work with. Errors will happen. I fear that the lesson taken here is that if you make a mistake, you may face criminal charges. Maybe the lesson should be around ensuring appropriate resources exist.

Marchella Pierce

Kaenu Williams and Marchella Pierce - some common territory in their tragic deaths

By chance, the Serious Case Review (SCR) into the death of Keanu Williams in Birmingham, UK and the grand jury deliberations regarding the death of Marchella Pierce in Brooklyn, NY were published in the same week. Also by chance, are some common themes. For any of us connected to the world of child protection, both reports are disturbing not only in their details but also in the familiarity of the concerns that they raise.

Injuries to Keanu Williams

The injuries to Keanu were extensive as the above illustration shows. The mother had prior history with child welfare as a child in need as well as with her other children. Prior history is something that is seen in many cases, although certainly not all. But the all too familiar aspects of the case were, as the SCR notes "...various agencies involved had collectively failed to prevent Keanu's death as they missed a significant number of opportunities to intervene and take action" (p.6).  The SCR concludes that the death could not have been predicted.  This is a point that many media have noted. But, also on p. 6, the SCR goes on to state,

However, in view of the background history of Rebecca Shuttleworth and the older Siblings including the lifestyle and parenting capacity of Rebecca Shuttleworth and the vulnerability of Keanu in Rebecca Shuttleworth’s care; it could have been predicted that Keanu was likely to suffer significant harm and should have been subject of a Child Protection Plan on at least two occasions to address issues of neglect and physical harm.

In other words, had the various agencies and authorities been paying attention, communicating with each other and giving priority to the child, the outcome may well have been different. As the SCR notes on p. 8, there had been a lack of focus on the children of this mother. The SCR found themes that have been repeated often in these kinds of reviews:

A number of the issues which have arisen in this Review are also familiar themes in Serious Case Reviews nationally, such as: poor communications between and within agencies, a lack of analysis of information as well as a lack of professional curiosity in questioning the information, a lack of confidence among professionals in challenging parents and other professionals, short comings in recording systems and practice, professional over optimism rather than to ‘respectfully disbelieve’ and dealing with events as one off episodes often referred to as the ‘start again syndrome’.

The start again syndrome is dangerous. There is no other way to put it. It is a way to ignore history. Something that a child protection agency does at its peril. In Canada, we are experiencing the brutal inquest into the death of Jeffery Baldwin where the child protection authorities failed to read their own files to see that the grandmother who starved Jeffery to death had been previously convicted of child abuse.

As the Keanu Williams SCR notes, it is the business of child protection to stay focused on the child's journey. But to do so requires the time to be so focused. This brings us to the Marchella Pierce case where the former case worker and the case work supervisor are both facing charges in her death.

Amongst other things, the Brooklyn Grand Jury notes that the workers faced a system that had failed before. But, case loads are high. Problems have been identified and not corrected. Now, rather than the system being held accountable, there is a risk that the people working in the system will be the scapegoats. We have seen that before as well with the Baby Peter case in the UK where Sharon Shoesmith was vilified in the media.

Marchella Pierce

Workers faced with high caseloads will make mistakes and the clients, children and their families will suffer as a result. Should we hold the caseworkers liable or should we be having a discussion about whether or not society should be held accountable by failing to fund child protection at a rate needed? Or by not funding the kind of prevention services needed?

There is also the ugly truth that, no matter what we do, some parents will kill their children.

In my research, I have catalogued about 900 cases where children have died when child protection was involved. I have missed many cases I am sure, Each week, I add to the list. But each week I see a repetition of the systemic issues such as these.There is no easy solution. We need to continue to highlight these cases putting pressure on governments to properly fund both prevention and reaction services.

Holding mental health and child protection professionals criminally liable

An interesting case in France should send a chill to many mental health professionals.  It is the case of Daniele Canarelli, a French psychiatrist. Dr. Canarelli has been held criminally liable for the actions of a patient who killed his grandmother. As BioEdge reports:

Daniele Canarelli, 58, was guilty of a "grave error" in her treatment of Joel Gaillard, her patient of four years. She should  have had him committed or referred him to another medical team. Instead, he escaped from a consultation with her and went on to hack to death the 80-year-old partner of his grandmother.

French Psychiatrist Daniele Caranelli

The implications for mental health professionals, if this became commonplace, are astounding. At the heart of the notion is the idea that it is possible to accurately predict the behavior of clients. The reality is that is not possible. This court decision could create an over response. We have seen that with child protection workers when governments and the media lambast them for failing to protect a child.

This is different from those situations where a social workers might be held liable for a failure to protect in that this involves criminal convictions. That is very different than malpractice.  The latter is becoming more of a concern for child protection workers. For example, earlier in 2012, we saw a case in which civil liability was deemed appropriate in a Colorado case. The Juvenile Justice Information Exchange reported:

Earlier this month, the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled that social workers in Adams County may be held legally responsible for failures to protect children in foster care from abuse....The ruling allows the siblings to proceed with their lawsuit against the Adams County Department of Social Services, on the grounds that their rights to safety were violated by county social workers...The appellate court determined that the state’s division director of Child Welfare Angela Lytle, who supervised social workers Joan Forsmark and Cathy O’Donnell, acted “recklessly in conscious disregard” of the plaintiffs’ safety.

There can be a strong argument that a failure to act when the risk is known is quite different from holding a professional criminally accountable for something that may or may not occur within an unspecified level of risk. It will be fascinating to see if this French case leads to other such actions in other jurisdictions. However, we continue to await the results of charges against 2 American social workers in the Marchella Pierce case. As the New York Times reported in March 2011:

A former New York City child welfare worker and his supervisor were indicted on charges of criminally negligent homicide, the Brooklyn district attorney announced on Wednesday, saying that their failures had contributed to the death of a 4-year-old, Marchella Pierce, who had been repeatedly beaten and tied to a bed and weighed 18 pounds at the end of her life in September.

Damon Adams and Cheerece Bell - Social workers accused in the Marchella Pierce case

 Such cases will make child protection workers fearful of the implications of their decisions. This trend can make them more cautious, less willing to risk family preservation and more intrusive. This is a trend that needs to be watched.

We might reflect on the now famous Tarasoff case in the US and the ways that it led to changes in intervention - some good but often very concerning. As The Guardian noted in their coverage of the Caranelli case:

In the 1970s, a psychologist who had been treating Prosenjit Poddar, a student at the University of California at Berkeley, was held liable by the California supreme court for failing to warn Poddar's girlfriend, Tatiana Tarasoff, that he intended to kill her, as Podder had told the psychologist in therapy he intended to do.

"Psychiatrists rushed about rounding up their patients," said Turner. They looked for reasons to put them in institutions. "It set up a lot of concerns as to risk management and risk assessment."