Report: Caseworker never told of missing kids

A DCF report criticizes an agency's handling of the case of 4-month-old Phoenix Parrish, who was killed in December.

TAMPA - Caseworker Cary Felton said he tried for three weeks to get in touch with two foster children he was supposed to be monitoring, by phoning their home roughly eight times and sending a card.

But Felton never told police the children were missing, and never sent an alert on the state's computer system, according to a report released Tuesday by the inspector general's office of the state Department of Children and Families.

By the time social workers located the children, one of them - a 4-month-old named Phoenix Parrish - had been killed. The boy's parents and a great-uncle have been charged in connection with his December death.

The DCF report, released Tuesday in response to a public records request from the St. Petersburg Times, is the second in a month that faults the way the nonprofit agency Hillsborough Kids Inc. handled the case of baby Phoenix. The new report criticizes Felton for failing to alert authorities about the missing boys, and for having "falsely reported" the circumstances of a visit with the family. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement also is looking into the matter.

Felton worked for the Children's Home in Tampa, which has a child welfare division that works in partnership with Hillsborough Kids. Hillsborough Kids supervises foster care programs in the county, under a DCF contract.

Hillsborough Kids already is reeling from another recent report that criticized its handling of a different foster care case in which a child was killed, and from the recent departure of the organization's executive director.

The lack of notice about the missing children wasn't the only problem with how workers handled the case of Phoenix Parrish.

Phoenix and an older sibling had been temporarily taken away from parents Tierra Gobble and Samuel Davis Hunter because of concerns that the parents may have been abusive. The children were placed with Phoenix's great-uncle, Edgar Parrish.

Parrish late last year moved to Alabama with the children. A DCF report issued last month criticized Hillsborough Kids for allowing that without first making sure that Alabama caseworkers would take over the job of visiting the children and checking on their safety.

The new report says Felton arranged for Edgar Parrish to drive down from Alabama to his former home so Felton could visit the children, as he was required to do once each month. But Felton "falsely reported visiting the children at their current residence," the report says. By this time, the Hillsborough County home was no longer their current residence.

After the Nov. 18 visit, Felton told DCF investigators, he was unable to reach Parrish in Alabama by telephone.

Felton, another caseworker and a supervisor knew that Parrish had moved to Alabama with the children, the report says. But they apparently did not know Phoenix's parents had moved in with him, violating a court order.

Phoenix's mother has been charged in Dothan, Ala., with murder and domestic violence; his father has been charged with domestic violence; and Edgar Parrish has been charged with aggravated child abuse and being an accomplice to murder.

Hillsborough Kids had previously acknowledged the case was not handled properly. Before the report was issued Tuesday, officials already were reviewing more than 1,000 cases, including those in which the county's foster children have moved out of state. They plan to study the cases to make sure there are no problems with how they were handled.

The Children's Home is cooperating with that effort and with new caseworker training to make sure nothing similar happens again, spokeswoman Charise Bell said.

Felton and a supervisor have been fired from the Children's Home; another employee was demoted. Felton could not be reached.

Hillsborough County headlines

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